Digitized Ancestry

National publication highlights new Dickinson resource

by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson

A digital archive created by Dickinson students, faculty and staff was recently highlighted in a national weekly newsmagazine aimed at the Native American community. The Jan. 10 article, published in Indian Country Today, promoted the Carlisle Indian Industrial School Project as a valuable resource for any of its approximately 45,000 readers who wish to learn about ancestors who attended the Carlisle Indian School.

Led by Dickinson’s Community Studies Center (CSC) and Archives & Special Collections, the project was sparked after a historic 2012 conference that brought together Native American scholars from across the nation. It chronicles the history of America’s flagship Indian school, which operated north of the Dickinson campus from 1879 to 1918, making available a growing database of student files, letters, photographs, administrative reports and other documents culled from the Dickinson archives and from the U.S. National Archives’ Bureau of Indian Affairs papers.  

Published January 16, 2014