Americanization and the Bennett Law

In the mid-nineteenth century, reformers began to view education as a means of social change. As the number of immigrants continued to grow and diversify the population, a series of efforts were launched by policy makers to assimilate these disparate groups into mainstream American culture. Learning the English language became a central focus of many Americanization efforts.

In the 19th century, Wisconsin's first white settlers were mainly Yankees from New York and New England, but in the 1840s large numbers of European immigrants, primarily Germans and Norwegians, began settling in Wisconsin. Waves of ethnic conflict periodically swept through Wisconsin, though... more...

Original Documents and Other Primary Sources

	An 1886 visit to the Menominee community of Keshena
	Ho-Chunk women form a homemaking club, 1933
	Milwaukee's Jewish community honors the work of Lizzie Kander in 1932
	Wisconsin newspapers take a stand on the Bennett Law, 1889.
	A white man praises the transformation of Indian children into "Americans," 1894
	A hand-made prom dress
	A miniature kit teaches mothers about safe homebirths, 1938
	Statistics on government schools for Indians, 1899
	Conditions on Wisconsin Indian reservations, 1909-1910
	Theodora Youmans emphasizes the need to educate women voters
	Reports on the progress of reform in mission kindergartens throughout Milwaukee, 1892
	What the government thought Indian girls needed to know (1911)
	An 1892 rulebook for Indian schools
	A group of Democrats break from party opposition to the Bennett Law
	A German American editor provides reasons to oppose the Bennett Law
	An 1898 manual for running Indian schools.
	Excerpts from The Settlement Cookbook
	A Republican Party pamphlet in support of the Bennett Law
	Pictures of the Potawatomi from the 1820's to the 1920's
	Oneida Indians at church and school in Hobart, Wis., ca. 1910
	Ojibwe girls learn to use sewing machines, 1895
	William Dempster Hoard defends the Bennett Law

Primary Sources Available Elsewhere

	Gov. Peck explains his opposition to the Bennett Law.
	The Bennett Law summarized by an outsider (1891)
	Wisconsin Blue Books
	The Meriam Report (1928) investigates failed U.S. Indian policy
	A prominent Norwegian-American remembers his life in Wisconsin (1915)
	Documents relating to The Settlement's children's programs
	Images of Indian missions and schools, 1890-1933

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