From Carlisle’s Past to Dickinson’s Present

Decades of history and more than a decade of scholarship inform Dickinson’s continued commitment to Native and Indigenous studies

by Tony Moore

As we look ahead to the new home for the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples, we also look back at Dickinson’s recent efforts to shed more light on Indigenous peoples as an important part of our shared local and national history.

1879 to 1918:

Carlisle is home to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (CIIS), a federally funded institution aimed at forced cultural assimilation. Nearly 7,800 Native American students, including famed Olympian Jim Thorpe, attend.

2012:

Two-day Carlisle Symposium is held, sponsored by the Central Pennsylvania Consortium of Colleges, the Community Studies Center (CSC) and the School of American Studies at the University of East Anglia, bringing together scholars, artists, writers, performers and activists from across the country to share stories and explore issues facing Indigenous peoples.

2013:

Launch of the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center (CISDRC) under Dickinson’s Digital Humanities initiative to digitize archival materials, creating a searchable database of student files and records from the CIIS. Supported by a Mellon Digital Humanities Fund, undergraduate researchers are brought on to scan, catalog and upload original documents to the resource center.

2016:

Stemming from the Carlisle Symposium, the University of Nebraska Press publishes Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Indigenous Histories, Memories, and Reclamations, edited by Jacqueline Fear-Segal (University of East Anglia) and Dickinson’s Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology and Director of Community Studies and Mosaics (retired) Susan Rose ’77.

2017:

A National Archives’ National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant funds a Teachers’ Institute on the Carlisle Indian School and the study of the continuing impact of Indian boarding schools and public engagement work. Secondary-school educators develop lesson plans, which are added to the CISDRC.

2018:

Distribution of free teaching kits created by the CISDRC (NHPRC grant), including color facsimile reproductions of photographs, newspapers and booklets from CIIS’ operational years. Dickinson scholars travel to Indigenous communities across the country to share information gathered to date.

2019:

The Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center is honored by the Society of American Archivists (Hamer-Kegan Award) for work preserving and making accessible CIIS records; over 180,000 pages of digitized records, resources used by descendants, scholars and teachers, have been made available.

2020:

NEH CARES Act grant provides short-term support for the CISDRC in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic; the online site surpasses 300,000 pages of content.

2023:

Dickinson is awarded an $800,000 Mellon Foundation grant to help launch the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples and expand its CIIS-related work by growing the CISDRC, developing curriculum, hosting events and building academic programs around Native American & Indigenous studies, with attention to the CIIS legacy

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Published March 18, 2026