Gopher Tales

One of the things that I have been doing on my "sabbatical" besides applying for jobs has been going to auctions.  I have always enjoyed auctions for fun and for profit.   It is fun to people watch and it is fun to see unusual things and what these old things sell for.  And  I have made a bit of money, at least enough to support my camera and other habits and sometimes I have made enough to help pay rent which is not an inconsequential consideration these days.

This past weekend I bought a box of books mainly for one book which is pictured above.  Gopher Tales is by Antoinette Elizabeth Ford and was in print from 1932 to the 1950s and was one of the three books by Ford which served as the foundation of teaching Minnesota history to fourth through sixth graders  for most of four decades.While even I feel that  we can be too politically correct, this book is so politically incorrect that it shocks me.  Of course it is not challenging to women or blacks, because there is not a single mention of any minority group other than Native Americans and women are only mentioned as the people who cook and maintain the crops.  Well, Native American women worked hard because the men were lazy and only hunted, but that is about the only real mention of specific women.

In this state that has so much rich and important Native American history and culture  and that still has a very vital and important Native American population, it is pretty shocking to see how they were portrayed in such an important book.  It is the same sad tale that you might imagine with noble whites and savage Redskins who, if they only listened to the whites, would be saved, etc.  In this book, treaties were always fair and fairly negotiated, and Native Americans, child-like as they were, were happy just because of the benevolent feasting that heralded negotiations.

Very certainly this book mirrored the times in which it was used as a text.  Minnesota's progressive image was not always progressive--Jim Crow Minnesota, where Indians were not allowed to vote or fully participate in the economy or schools or government was not that long ago and some say it is still around.  But this isn't a story book--this was a widely used text book!  Ford published an outline guide so teachers would know how to teach from this and her other books, and I found it reprinted into the late 1960s, eve after her death in 1955.

What this really is a research project for me--I alreadyfound and  ordered her other books, found a picture of her, and will find out even more.  Minnesota does not have an Act 31 like Wisconsin, but Minnesota and Native American history is to be taught in state schools.  But what is (or isn't) being taught?  Is it better today than it was for most of the 20th century?  Click on and then take a look at the photos posted above--I hope that it all wasn't this bad.