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ladyhistorypod · 3 years

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Episode 14: Thanksgiving Special

Sources:

Susan La Flesche

The History Reader

PBS: New Perspectives on the West

Hampton University

Hampton Archives

Nebraska Studies

Further Reading/Watching: PBS American Masters, Smithsonian Magazine

Sacagawea

Brooklyn Museum

National Museum of the American Indian Blog

Native Mascots And Other Misguided Beliefs (NMAI)

National Women’s History Museum

Nat Geo Kids

Ted Ed

Further Reading: Smithsonian American Women: Remarkable Objects and Stories of Strength, Ingenuity, and Vision from the National Collection, I Am Sacagawea, Sacajawea of the Shoshone

Zitkala-Sa

Utah Women’s History

Women and the American Story

Akta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center

National Parks Service

Further Reading: Women in America, Extra and Ordinary: Zitkala-Sa (Smithsonian Libraries)

Click below for the transcript of this episode!

Haley: So how old are your guys’ parents, and did you ever growing up like regard them as like the old parents?

Alana: My… so my… Here's what's really fucking me up these days, is that Joe Biden graduated from the University of Delaware the same year my dad was born. So my dad was born in June of 1965 and Joe Biden graduated University of Delaware probably like May of 1965. So that's what's making me uncomfortable these days.

Lexi: You know when my mom graduated from the University of Delaware?

Alana: When?

Lexi: The nineties. (Laughing)

Alana: So my parents, they’re like kind of old. My mom was born in 1963, but my mom is also the third of four children.

Haley: Because my mom was born in ‘69 and my dad ‘67. And Robert’s parents… I don't know exactly when they were born but I know it's in the cluster of my parents. But my mom and dad were always regarded as like the younger parents. And it came up today because my sister's boyfriend's parents have always been regarded– my mom's like oh they’re older because my sister's boyfriend, Stephen, is the youngest of four. So my mom and dad got married three days after my mom graduated from college, but they waited seven years. Like they owned a freakin’ Subway and went backpacking in Europe before having me. Like they lived their life, if you will, and then they had kids. But all my friends, like growing up, all their parents are like five to ten years older than my parents.

Lexi: So my parents got married at twenty three.

Alana: Also ridiculous.

Lexi: They were born in 1972. No shade giving my mom’s age out, but honestly she's super young. We get mistaken for sisters no matter where we go, especially if we’re with my grandmother. They tell her she has two lovely daughters. I don't know if that's an insult to me or a compliment to my mother…

Haley: A compliment to your mother.

Alana: It’s definitely a compliment to your mother.

Lexi: My mother was invited to frat parties when she visited me in college several times.

Haley: No, your mother is smokin’ hot. Like my mother–

Lexi: She was the marching band MILF. Do you know the song Stacy's Mom?

Alana: Of course I know Stacy's Mom.

Lexi: The marching band, when we played it would sing Lexi’s mom.

Alana, singing: Lexi’s mom has got it goin’ on.

[INTRO MUSIC]

Alana: Hello and welcome to Lady History; the good, the bad, and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. by whipping sort of as always is Lexi Lexi what are you thankful for.

Lexi: I am thankful for you guys.

Alana: That’s gross. I am also joined(ish) by Haley. Haley, are you a white meat or dark meat kinda gal?

Haley: I really like– I guess like the– like a turkey leg? That’s dark meat. That’s my jam. I'm also not necessarily a turkey person.

Alana: And I'm Alana and I'm team captain of the cranberry sauce defense squad.

[Turkeys gobbling]

Alana: I don't think there is a good word for the people who were in the Americas before white people came to the Americas.

Lexi: There is not a good single word.

Haley: I also think that it's not us as non those people…

Alana: That's the thing. And that was the conversation that we had–

Haley: And I hate that I said “those people” because it shouldn’t be “those people” but like

but like for my grad school, we have a whole section of like repatriation, NAGPRA, all that lovely good stuff in our law class. And with our history and theory class there's always like this– kinda wanna call it a symposium?– We asked the question, and I think it was my professor who posed it, because she's like I have to talk about it and I'm a Jewish white woman. I know people like have their preference on Jewish people versus Jews and I want to be able to teach the correct thing. And everyone in the room said Native Peoples just because so many different tribes or groups don't consider themselves American. So that’s what I use. And I like that the like phrase and I’m probably– someone else probably saying this but I’m gonna make it up for myself right now; just go with what you know until you're proven wrong. Because like that's what I know and like for now.

Alana: But that's the thing that we were talking about not on the podcast, elsewhere, about how like I've never heard an actual Latinx person use the phrase Latinx.

Haley: I do not consider myself–

Alana: Except for on One Day at a Time actually.

Lexi: I feel like I always go with if I need to call someone something I'm going to ask them–

Haley: Yes.

Lexi: –What they identify as, and if I don't know them well enough to have that conversation maybe I shouldn't be speaking for them in any way… Or not speaking for them, but I shouldn't be like representing them. But it's really complicated when we talk about history because a lot of the words we use didn't exist then. Like Ida B. Wells considered herself Negro, and we wouldn't… we wouldn't probably use that word now.

Haley: Well like with pronouns. We don’t assume–

Alana: Exactly.

Haley: –pronouns. So like… Because I feel very weird when people like assume like my race or ethnicity. And I identify that… I identify with being Persian or Cuban more so than being a female if that makes sense.

Lexi: Right.

Haley: I've never… it's not like I'm non– like non binary. I identify as female but I've never been like a FEMALE.

Speaker 3: I feel like with gender it's so– so easy to once you decide to do it just start using they as a default when you're not sure what someone's preference is, and there's not that for race or ethnicity. There’s not like a default word where you can say a word and not be offensive. Like, okay. It's like the thing with the Washington Redskins which is now the Washington Football Team. There were a lot–

Alana: Which is what my cousin always called it. Was always calling it the Washington Football Team.

Lexi: Actually apparently they picked that because a lot of people did just call it that. But also it's not even in Washington DC so it frustrates the crap out of me. But apparently like a bunch of people were up in arms about it that were Native peoples but then a bunch of Native peoples were like nah it's chill. And so it's like you can't say that all these people agree on something.

Haley: Yeah.

Alana: Yeah.

Haley: That's where we go back to like–

Lexi: There isn't a single hive mind of all of these people you’re trying to represent. Everyone has these own little different versions. And so, you know, what I've been told by a lot of people is like narrow it down. Like for example if you're Omaha, you’re Omaha. If you’re Hoganashone you’re Hoganashone. Because that's how they like refer to themselves.

Haley: Yeah. Yes. And I’ve heard this too. Like– I’m gonna say this. I was on Tik Tok.

(Alana and Lexi laughing)

Lexi: Honestly cultural Tik Tok is very fun. Like culture-based Tik Tok.

Haley: I’ve landed myself on what was called by this group of Tik Tok– this flavor of Tik Tok– Native and Indigenous Tik Tok.

Lexi: Yeah I've seen that.

Haley: But I noticed that for the Tik Tok-ers who are in Canada would use Indigenous.

Alana: I will never tell someone of one group that something is not anti that group because I don't want gentiles to tell me what is and what is not antisemitic, I don't want men to tell me what is and is not misogynistic, I don't want… what's my other identity? Oh, I'm queer. I don't want straight people to tell me what is and is not homophobic–

Haley: “What's my other identity?”

Alana: “What’s my other identity?”

Lexi: “I can’t remember. I’ve got so many.”

Alana: What’s my other one? I’m like marginalized in three different ways and I don’t remember what the third one is.

Archival Audio: For our clinics are all specialized. Wednesday afternoons, for instance, we only see expectant mothers. But each one is a different problem, because each one is a different person. They feel they're special, too, and always seem amazed when they discover they have something in common with the other women, but that’s natural. After all, we all think of our health problems as personal problems.

Lexi: Today I'm going to tell you the story of Susan La Flesche, the first Native American to receive a medical degree. And as we discussed, we’re not sure exact on the terms people prefer. Susan lived a long time ago and regarded herself as Native American, that’s why I'm using that term, but I understand that some people may not use that term to refer to themselves. But she identified as that, so that's what I'm calling her. So yes, she was the first Native American to receive a medical degree. Susan was an Omaha woman. Her father Iron Eyes, or Chief Joseph La Flesche, the last Omaha chief selected by traditional tribal methods, and he was the son of a Frenchman and an Omaha woman so he was half French, half Omaha. And as a chief he believed the only way to save his people was to mix elements of their culture with Western culture and for his people to get an education. And it was these beliefs that shaped Susan's future. Her mother was One Woman, or Mary La Flesche, and Susan was born on the Omaha reservation in Nebraska in 1865. As a child Susan, witnessed a Native woman die because the local white doctor would not provide her care. This event sparked Susan’s interest in becoming a medical professional, with the goal of helping Native people. She attended a school on the reservation until she was fourteen and then she went to the Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies in New Jersey. Can you imagine being fourteen years old and traveling from Nebraska to New Jersey on a train by yourself? That’s crazy. That’s absolutely crazy.

Alana: Goals. I wanna do it. I love trains. I love trains. I wanna do it.

Lexi: So I think she must have been really brave, because it just that's… that's pretty amazing. A long trip for a little girl.

Alana: Especially as like first of all it being a young woman which is already dangerous, no matter what, and she's also from this like marginalized community.

Lexi: Yes.

Alana: That it's like double dangerous, quadruple dangerous because she was fourteen.

Lexi: Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. Must’ve been really really brave. And really wanted to go to the school I guess. So she went there for three years and at seventeen Susan returned home and she taught at the Mission School on the Omaha reservation. At the school, she worked with Alice Fletcher, who was a white woman who was an ethnologist who studied and recorded American Indian culture. And she came to live and work with the Omaha because of her passion for archaeology so she wanted to study living people to better understand the past, which has been–

Alana: Ethnographic archaeology.

Lexi: Yeah it's a thing that a lot of archaeologists like to do. When Fletcher fell ill, Susan helped her recover, and after seeing Susan’s skills and passions for medicine and health care, Fletcher urged Susan to travel east and pursue a degree in medicine. Susan enrolled in the Hampton Institute, which was a school in Virginia that was built after the Civil War to educate formerly enslaved people and had since become a hub for educating Black Americans and American Indians. When Susan was attending Hampton, a woman named Dr. Martha Waldron was working as a teacher and the resident physician at the school. Martha was a graduate of the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania and suggested that Susan pursue further education there. Alice Fletcher, who had encouraged Susan to study medicine, assisted Susan by helping her apply for scholarships from the US Office of Indian Affairs and the Women's National Indian Association. In 1889, after two years in a three year program, Susan graduated top of her class from medical school. She spent one year doing an internship, which was similar to a modern day medical residency program in Philadelphia and then she returned home. At home, she became the primary care provider for about twelve hundred people, working at the reservation’s boarding school. In 1894, she married Henry Picotte, a Sioux man who had previously been traveling and working in Wild West shows. And they kept it all in the family with Susan's sister Marguerite deciding to marry Harry's brother Charles. So… that’s… that’s fun! After getting married, Henry and Susan had two sons and Susan opened a private practice which served both non white and white patients in her community. When Henry fell ill, Susan personally nursed him, all while working full time and caring for their two sons. At the age of forty, Susan became partially deaf, but kept working. In addition to being a doctor, Susan ran a children's library, worked as a Sunday school teacher, founded a quilting club, translated legal papers, and advocated for prohibition. In 1913, she opened a reservation hospital serving Omaha and Winnebago tribes. It was the first private hospital on a reservation anywhere in the country. Today, the building is a museum dedicated to tribal history and telling the story of Susan. In 1915, at just fifty years old, Susan passed away. Susan was important to her people because as aspects of their culture were taken away from them, she was able to draw a balance between traditional medicine and the practices that she learned at Western medical school. This worked because many of her people were still unsure about Western medicine, so by mixing their traditional healing practices with Western practices, she was able to develop a culturally specific plan of treatment. Her people grew to trust her and she began to be regarded as a modern medicine woman. She is a great example of why cultural representation is important and can impact public health. I also highly suggest watching the PBS video that I linked on the tumblr in the further watching. It’s super well made and it tells a really wonderful version of her story in a lot more detail than we're able to cover on our show and it has really good tie-ins to modern needs of communities like Susan's and interviews some modern female doctors and their communities which is really cool. That’s it. Short one.

Haley: I like– I like that story a lot.

Alana: I like that story too.

Lexi: Yeah there's not a lot about her like…

Alana: Right.

Lexi: People don't record shit, so it’s mostly just her accomplishments, unfortunately.

(Audio from Night at The Museum)

Haley: So my story is about– drum roll please– the retelling of the story of Sacagawea. And for all of you who might be screaming my name right now, saying Hey I'm not pronouncing her name correctly, hold the phone we’ll get there. I first need to do my universal apologies for pronouncing any words, even historically American English words, incorrectly because we all know me; words aren't the greatest for my speech mouth. And to start us off, I'm switching over to the like I said that actual pronunciation– Saka-Gawea. And it's Sacagawea because in my research there's not a soft G in the Hidatsa language, which translates to bird woman. So side note, there are a bunch of different spellings, but if we're going based on the true like translation– Sa-Ka-Ga is bird, and it's spelled with a G. So Sacagawea is Sacajawea but just like–

Lexi: Can I just say, that's way prettier than Sacajawea.

Haley: Yeah because like for some Sacagawea it's like you have the G, or you have S. A. K. A. K. A. W. E. A, or instead of the G. it’s a J. But there's no hard – or, there's no soft Gs it's only hard Gs. And as a person who has a really hard time pronouncing things from reading because of the dyslexia spectrum that we know to love, it's gonna– it's gonna be balls to the walls bananas.

Alana: It's like… Was it the first Night at the Museum movie or the second Night at the Museum movie where she was like a character?

Lexi: The first.

Alana: The first one. And then the museum like–

Lexi, whispering: And then she fell in love with Theodore Roosevelt

Alana: Oh yeah, and then she fell in love with Theodore Roosevelt which was so… oh NO.

Haley: I’m glad you brought that up because I cut that part out.

Lexi: That’s a whole can of worms.

Alana: But like there's that whole thing about them pronouncing it wrong but it's always Sacaga-wee-ah or Sacaga-way-a, and I’m like both of you are wrong.

Haley: Glad you brought up Night at the Museum because I had a whole tangent on that but then I was like roll back Haley your notes are already long to begin with.

Alana: You cannot expect me to not bring up Night at the Museum if it is even tangentially relevant.

Lexi: I love them, I hate them. It's an incredible thing.

Haley: Yeah.

Alana: Rami Malek!

Haley: Yes he was–

Alana: My first love!

Haley: Back to the notes. So for our listeners out of the United States, you may have heard of Sacagawea, of course with the Lewis and Clark exploring the west. However, I'm sorry– not sorry– to say that there's a solid chance that what you learned was completely incorrect and I'm looking at you United States education system. All of y’all education system just– the poop garbage, dumpster fire, whatever you would like to say. But let me pause for a second and explain a little bit why that story is kind of messed up because not only do we have like a white savior complex with like Lewis and Clark, we also just have a lot of sexism. Like sexism is painted in semen here. Like all over the board. No menstrual blood whatsoever to like brighten up this dreary painting of shit. Alana’s face right now is… holy crap what is she saying.

Alana: It's just a little bit like– Lexi what's the word that I'm looking for that is like… the sentiment behind it is that not all men have semen that not all women menstruate. Do you know I mean? That's my thing with–

Lexi: There's a single word? There's a single word for that?

Alana: There’s like a word for something… like reducing it to… whatever.

Haley: Yes.

Alana: And transphobia isn't quite right.

Speaker 1: That’s exactly why I use the phrase all semen in here. Because it's totally like heterosexual men explaining–

Alana: Cis heterosexual men.

Haley: Yes.

Lexi: The cis white boys?

Haley: Yes.

Alana: The cis white boys.

Haley: The cis white boys. However, it's a reason why the paintbrush is a phallic symbol, that’s all I’m gonna say. And while I will probably not tell the most accurate story, it's gonna be a hell of a lot better than what we've been given to because… I'm gonna be up front. There's so much more research I could have done and that's with all our stories. Like I think I put like three hours at least into like average for each story, sometimes more. I put in a lot more for this one. While Sacagawea was a Native people who symbolized peace and cooperation as she like navigated Lewis and Clark– with you know, the baby strapped on her back that like famous trope we have– through the west and like the Pacific… to get to the Pacific Ocean. There's a lot more to that story. First, because their crew was a crew of forty plus people; it wasn't just like the three of them moseying along like a hundred percent of the time, but we'll get to that. And even before then, I don't know about you guys but I never heard of like her growing up or her as an actual Native person. It was always “she’s with Lewis and Clark. Like she with the white people now,” never her life story as a whole, just this one small part, but I learned about Lewis and Clark's whole life story. And boy Howdy am I gonna talk about how she saved all their collective buttholes. So, while this story is both Native people’s legend and journals from the Lewis and Clark that we keep talking about. And we know that oral tradition it still history. So there are holes obviously with this timeline, but we know that she was born, or we think she was born in the Shoshone tribe in Idaho and was kidnapped at age twelve, possibly age ten. What I didn't know though is that when she was kidnapped– I knew she was kidnapped, but this is bad, I didn't actually know who kidnapped her, and it was a neighboring tribe. I believe it was the Hidatsa tribe? It was noted as a rival tribe. And from there she was sold into slavery and forced to marry Toussaint Charbonneau– C. H. A. R. B. O. N. N. E. A. U., we’ll go with that– a French Canadian fur trapper who had other quote Shoshane “wives.” So this wasn't… this wasn't great. Like it wasn't great to begin with, but we're just like still riding that train of yes you're not gonna tell a bunch of elementary school kids this story but let's not paint the picture and happy childhood. And in 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark recruited no other than– I'm gonna call him TC, TC because I can't pronounce either of his names and I'm gonna keep fumbling on it– to be their wilderness guide. The geography of it was that the country almost doubled in size, but the history of it was the Louisiana Purchase was acquired by France.

Lexi: Acquired from France.

Haley: Yes. They were already on their expedition by the time they met up with TC and Sacagaweas. Sacagawea, who was sixteen and pregnant at the time, accompanied the men, and she was the only female of this shitshow of a shindig. And by shitshow of a shindig, this was like forty something other men with Lewis and Clark– like they had a whole rodeo. And we see this a lot that if people went on an expedition it wasn't just that group of people but they brought like their cooks, their wives, their children, people to like bring their food, i.e. like livestock because we didn't have fridges and such. So that like was not surprising to me. What was surprising was like that's a valuable teaching point, was just like to teach kids how did people move from place to place. And this is at the point where Clark notes that she was the most valuable member of their group, because although T. C. was like hired to give them like geography, he was like a noted French Canadian and a fur trapper, but noted as like he was not good at like navigating compared to Sacagawea and like the other Native peoples in the area. It was obvious and even Lewis and Clark were like “oh, she better” which she was. And she spoke both Shoshone and Hidatsa, and so she was like the interpreter for the white men, like literally. And that's the part like they got correct– and they being like the education system– that point was correct. She was interpreter, and shout out to the Brooklyn Museum for literally giving me the quote “interpreter for the group of white men”. Even the Brooklyn Museum’s not playing around. And obviously these white men weren't liked amongst the other Native peoples tribes, but when they saw a woman who wasn't considered to be a warrior– and that's like the key point– it wasn't just that they had a Native person with them. it was that she had a child with her, she spoke their language, and like didn't give off any alarm bells. Because also like there's that misconception that all Native peoples were friendly to each other. There are different like rivalries amongst tribes. That was just pure luck for them that that worked out. And so of course Lewis and Clark wanted to make their main man TC because his fur trapping knowledge and like how he knew the geography. And like I said that was… sure, he did some stuff. But Sacagawea basically said hold my beer, and she clearly knew where she was supposed to go. She clearly knew also just like the weather patterns, where to find food, and multiple occasions when they were like the Yellowstone area and it's really cold at night… we're in the parts where it's just snowing and dark for many many many parts of the winter. And she would like be able to not only like find but like somewhat grow or just like keep food in a way that like they would be able to sustain themselves with eating. So it was like a group effort by everyone. It wasn't just like Lewis and Clark being like “we got this, we’re gonna do it, we're gonna get to the Pacific Ocean in the middle of the winter.” Fast forward a bit– and there are a bunch of other stories of her being a complete badass, like diving into water when their canoe tips over and saving like all the important stuff; food, even like Lewis and Clark's journals.But we have to move forward, sadly, to the end of her expedition and just give her a well rounded story like I said. I wanted to hear this as a kid. And while the expedition ended in 1806, she kind of still knew Lewis and Clark. And let me do a side note here she did not receive payment for this expedition. Because like, yeah. That sounds like the right thing to do, I say with all my sarcastic cells in my body. There are a lot of them, by the way, so we're all doing a chorus of sarcastic singing. And three years later in 1809– another side note this is where at least my history kind of definitely has different stories, there's no concrete this is what happened… There wasn't Snapchat recording everything, I guess. Clark invited Sacagawea and her family to live in Saint Louis and he also later adopted her son Jean Baptiste, and he called him Pompy, and a baby girl Lisette. And it's noted that she separated from T. C. who was abusive, but after this point like our timeline, we call dates in history, we know very little. And again, with this debated topic, her death is in that category. So records from Fort Manuel where like she lived there at a time, she supposedly died in December 1812 from typhus. And going off what Native peoples’ oral histories because again, oral histories are histories, she lived on the Shoshone lands in Wyoming until 1884. And regardless, Sacagawea clearly became somewhat of a legend with her own story being told by writers, filmmakers, historians in a time where women especially Native and/or Indigenous women, were absolutely thought of as weak, not helpful, and sometimes even dangerous. So you might be asking yourself, “Haley, where do I find other resources?” Obviously check out our show notes, they are quite lovely, and honestly children's books. The most recent ones were kind of on point. They're all about like– especially now in 2020. And then specifically in the show notes look at the Brooklyn Museum and the National Women's History Museum. And that is my story.

Alana: Hey National Women’s History Museum, do you want to give me an internship?

Haley, singing: Manifestation.

(Archival Violin Music)

Alana: Zitkala-Sa was born February 22, 1876, that makes her a Pisces. She's technically an Aquarius/Pisces cusp. And Zitkala-Sa means red bird in the Sioux language. She was born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Her mother was Sioux and her father was white. Her father abandoned the family and initially when I see white father, Indigenous mother… that is alarm bells in my head, but she did have an older brother, so less alarm bells. Quieter alarm bells. And just as an FYI, a blanket statement, we had the discussion that we're not really sure if we should say Native or Indigenous so I kind of use both, mixing it up. If you know someone who has an opinion let us know and we’ll use that going forward. I think that's kind of a good general statement for this podcast; is correct us if we're wrong and we'll change our ways. Because that’s how you–

Haley: Correct us with kindness.

Alana: Oh, yeah. Correct us with kindness. Be nice.

Haley: We have feelings.

Alana: We can’t handle it. Don't be mean to me. At the age of eight, so 1884 she left the reservation when Quaker missionaries came to recruit for their– massive air quotes– school and it was only a school if by school you mean forced assimilation centers, but we'll get to that a little bit later. It was literally called the White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute, and the U. S. is still racist, I'm not saying that it’s not racist, but at least we're not racist enough to let something with a name like that slide. I feel like… baby steps, little progress. Zitkala-Sa’s mother didn't want her to go because her brother had come back from a school and she didn't like it but Zitkala-Sa begged and begged because for kids who had never left the reservation, it seemed like a magical place and it sounded so cool. Her mother did eventually acquiesce because there were no schools on the reservation and she really wanted Zitkala to have an education. But she later wrote that the second she got on the train to Indiana she regretted fighting so hard for it. She was forced to cut her hair and pray like a Quaker, which she hated. Pray like a Christian is like… that's intergenerational trauma in my heart. She actually hid from the people who were working at the school and they had to tie her to a kitchen chair and cut her hair. I don't know if it was actually a kitchen chair, I just wanted to make a Leonard Cohen reference. Hey Alana, are you Jewish? Yes. But she really did enjoy learning how to read and write and to play the piano and the violin. She was given the name Gertrude Simmons, which is a footnote that will only come up at the very end of the story. In 1887, she returned to her mother's home but she felt like she didn't belong there. And this was a common theme among children who had been sent to these– massive air quotes– schools because they felt like they didn't really belong to their Indigenous culture but they also weren't really like the white Americans. In 1895, she enrolled at Earlham College for a teacher training program and then transferred to the New England conservatory to continue studying violin. In 1900, she became a music teacher at the Carlisle Indian School but left because it reminded her of her traumatic experiences at a similar school. She basically came to the realization, she was just like “oh shit, they are designed to take our culture from us.” She was like “I couldn’t be part of that anymore.” In 1901, she published Old Indian Legends, which was a compilation of all of her previous writings and culminated in a lifelong project of translating Sioux traditions into English, because this is a quote from her from the beginning of the book, “America in the last few centuries has acquired a second tongue,” which is so shady. And I love it. “Acquired a second tongue” is just like. Mm. So also in 1901 she went back to South Dakota and took a job at the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, which I will refer to going forward as the B. I. A., where she met Captain Raymond Bonnin, who was also a Sioux, but I couldn't find what his like Sioux name was, since he was also full Sioux, but probably not Raymond. But then they did have a son and name him Raymond so I’m not sure.I don't know. They were transferred to Utah, where Zitkala-Sa taught again, but not at a white school, at a reservation school where the children lived at home and she found that like to be a balance. In 1910, she met William Hansen who was a music professor at Brigham Young University, and in 1913 they completed The Sun Dance Opera which was about a Sioux ritual that the federal government had banned, which I think is… What a workaround. What a way to beat the system. She viewed music as a way to bridge the cultures that she was a part of and it did, and that culminated in The Sun Dance Opera. She joined the Society of American Indians, which is a group that lobbied for citizenship for Indigenous people and cultural preservation because nuance. Which is a thing that I am feeling recently. Just nuance. Tattoo it on my forehead, shout it from the rooftops. Nuance. She became the secretary of the Society of American Indians and started interacting directly with the B. I. A. where her husband worked. She was very critical and vocal of their policies because they wanted her to pray like a Christian which– (frustration noises). The intergenerational trauma, she just– she do be jumping out. And her husband was fired. Was it because of her criticism of the B. I. A? Maybe? Who’s to say? I can't say, but maybe. But they moved to Washington DC, where she started giving lectures about cultural identity and continued her work with the Society of American Indians. She even was briefly the editor of American Indian magazine. In 1924 she became active in the General Federation of Women's Clubs, which was like a women's rights group but make it intentionally diverse. It was grassroots campaigns to support women of all backgrounds, and we simply have no choice but to stan.

Lexi: Intersectional feminism.

Alana: Intersectional feminism. We love it, we love to see it, we love to see intersectional feminism like in the twentieth century, before it was cool, if you will. She started a universal Indigenous movement that led to the passage of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act which, as the name implies, gave Indigenous people citizenship but not necessarily the right to vote because that was still up to the states. In 1926, she co founded with her husband the National Council of American Indians to continue lobbying for the rights of Indigenous people. She died January 26, 1938 at the age of not quite sixty two and is buried in Arlington Cemetery with her husband. Her gravestone reads Gertrude Simmons and then Zitkala-Sa which makes me feel a little bit weird but at least it's on there. I don't know if she like had a choice what went on there but I think it's cool that it's on there. And she was the first Indigenous woman to write her own autobiography without the help of an editor or translator because she was just good at English. She was also very anti use of peyote, which is really interesting because she was like alcoholism on the reservations is a huge problem and so we need to like do something about our ingesting of substances. It’s like all these things are about nuance which is something that I'm again I'm feeling so so much about nuance. It's something that I've been working on in therapy for like three years. That's not true, for two years. That I'm just like we can have two things that coexist– that like it would be in everybody's best interest to be an American citizen, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all of these Native people have to abandon their rituals and their culture. It’s that whole melting pot thing which is such a like when you think about a kind of a weird image… put people in a melting pot. Anyway. That’s a fun note to end on. That’s all I have to say.

Lexi: I just want to add that I think I've mentioned this before on the podcast but I worked on a project at the Smithsonian Libraries called Women in America: Extra and Ordinary. I'm the one who suggested this lady because I thought Alana would like learning about this lady, and I just want to kind of talk about a little bit why I put her in the project. The thing that I love about her is that the Portrait Gallery has pictures of her that were taken when she was quite young. I believe in her twenties.

Alana: They’re gorgeous.

Lexi: And they're beautiful because they're so like real. Like–

Alana: I think my favorite one is– now that I've mentioned it Lexi, you probably have to use it in the graphic– but it's her having grown her hair back out with her violin.

Lexi: Yes.

Alana: And it's just like how it's like… Once you know the background of that, it's like this is how she combined these two cultures by like really enjoying playing the violin and also having her long traditional hair.

Lexi: She’s just so like… It's like she could be your friend. Like she’s just a real person. And so like, I don't know. They’re good pictures. Go look at her pictures.

Alana: Go to the show notes, look at the pictures, they’re great pictures.

Lexi: And– Okay, I think– Okay, this is the root of it. I think when you see pictures of Native peoples from that time, so many times it's like they're wearing like outfits that aren't even correct for their culture and they were forced to pose in like ridiculous like customized versions of their own culture. Like I've seen ones where people who weren’t Plains Indians were put in Plains Indians’ attire for pictures. But like she's just hanging out and I really like that. I just love her. So much.

Alana: She’s so cool.

Lexi: And her name means red bird.

Alana: And her name means red bird, and Lexi loves birds. Lexi loves birds.

(Turkeys gobbling)

Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at LadyHistoryPod. Our show notes and a transcript of this episode will be on ladyhistorypod dot tumblr dot com. If you like the show, leave us a review, or tell your friends, and if you don't like the show, keep it to yourself.

Alana: Our logo is by Alexia Ibarra, you can find her on Twitter and Instagram at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me, GarageBand, and Amelia Earhart. Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, next time on Lady History.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

Haley: Next week on Lady History, we're balling with some boss bitches. Get your bags of money ready, because we’re making it rain.

Lexi: Okay. All right.

Haley: Good night!

Alana: I gotta crawl out of my closet.

Lexi: Good night!

Alana: Good night I'll talk to you tomorrow!

Lexi: Bye bye.

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