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

	A Republican Senator defends the Bennett Law and Governor Hoard, 1890
	Ho-Chunk women form a homemaking club, 1933
	Milwaukee's Jewish community honors the work of Lizzie Kander in 1932
	An 1886 visit to the Menominee community of Keshena
	A white man praises the transformation of Indian children into "Americans," 1894
	Wisconsin newspapers take a stand on the Bennett Law, 1889.
	A miniature kit teaches mothers about safe homebirths, 1938
	A hand-made prom dress
	Reports on the progress of reform in mission kindergartens throughout Milwaukee, 1892
	What the government thought Indian girls needed to know (1911)
	An 1898 manual for running Indian schools.
	An 1892 rulebook for Indian schools
	A German American editor provides reasons to oppose the Bennett Law
	A group of Democrats break from party opposition to the Bennett Law
	Excerpts from The Settlement Cookbook
	The "Best" Books for Children, 1890
	Statistics on government schools for Indians, 1899
	Conditions on Wisconsin Indian reservations, 1909-1910
	Theodora Youmans emphasizes the need to educate women voters
	A Republican Party pamphlet in support of the Bennett Law
	Pictures of the Potawatomi from the 1820's to the 1920's
	Ojibwe girls learn to use sewing machines, 1895
	Oneida Indians at church and school in Hobart, Wis., ca. 1910
	Alfred Bridgman's English-Menominee word list from the 1870s
	Frank Bridgman's Menominee vocabulary, 1878
	William Dempster Hoard defends the Bennett Law

Primary Sources Available Elsewhere

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

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