New Exhibit: Ella Cara Deloria, Indigenous Scholarship, and Teachers College

Intro

The legacy of Teachers College Alumna and Dakota scholar, Ella Cara Deloria (b. January 31, 1889; d. February 12, 1971), can be found in many places in education. At a time when women were not typically in university spaces doing this kind of work, Ella’s story stands out. 

Ella Cara Deloria, Indigenous Scholarship, and Teachers College is a first-time initiative that highlights the Indigenous education and scholarship that are part of Ella Cara Deloria’s legacy. Deloria was an innovative researcher who spent much of her time doing community-engaged scholarship with Native Americans to preserve languages, well before that idea was common in the university. Without her work, many of the innovations in language preservation that we take for granted today would not be possible. As we showcase Deloria’s legacy and honor Indigenous scholarship and ongoing contributions to academia, we hope to inspire thinking about ethnography as a research methodology; the relationship between anthropology and education; and the impact of governmental policies concerning Native language loss and restoration.

Ella's Story

Ella began her collegiate studies at the University of Chicago, later winning a scholarship to transfer to Oberlin College in Ohio. After two years, she transferred to Teachers College, Columbia University, earning a bachelor of science degree and special teaching certification in 1915. Like the American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead, she studied under and closely collaborated with the German American anthropologist Franz Boas, who taught at Columbia University. Deloria went on to become "one of the first truly bilingual, bicultural figures in American anthropology, and an extraordinary scholar, teacher, and spirit who pursued her own work and commitments under notoriously adverse conditions. At one point she lived out of a car while collecting material for Franz Boas."  

After graduating from Teachers College, Ella worked in the YWCA health education program for Indian schools and developed a significant physical education program at Haskell Indian school in Lawrence, Kansas. She was a teacher at the University of South Dakota. The Sun Dance of the Oglala Sioux was her first professional publication (1929). To Boas Deloria dedicated her work, Dakota Texts (American Ethnological Society, 1932) comprising translated tales of her peoples. Among her other important translated works were: Dakota Grammar (1941, reprinted 2011), and Speaking of Indians (1944, reissued 1998). Posthumously she published Iron Hawk (1993).The Buffalo People (1994) and The Dakota Way of Life (2022). 

Deloria dedicated her sole novel, Waterlily (1988), to American anthropologist and folklorist Ruth Benedict, who also studied at Columbia University. Waterlily, though grounded in experience, explored the daily life of a Teton Sioux woman, and was also published posthumously. A gifted storyteller, Deloria is described by Susan Gardner as both "an ideal participant and observer", becoming "her people's biographer" -- and one who preserved a wealth of linguistic and cultural information for continuing scholarship. 

In 1943 Ella Cara Deloria received the Indian Achievement Award – one of many awards and recognitions. Her life’s work highlights her commitment to community engaged research and scholarship, despite the predominance of highly extractive research practices – practices she took great care to prevent among her colleagues and within her own teaching and service

Bios

Kianna Pete is Diné, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, from New Mexico. She has years of organizational, political, and research experience working alongside Indigenous communities to promote self-determination and educational equity. Guided by Diné teachings, Kianna serves as a Tribal Conservation Program Fellow at Biodiversity Funders Group, Climate Justice Curriculum Lead at Start:Empowerment, and member of the National Wildlife Federation Youth Advisory Council. She holds a BA in Political Science and Ethnicity & Race Studies at Columbia University and is completing her MA in Politics & Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Rachel Lynn Talbert, EdD, is a Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow.

Acknowledgements

This exhibit is curated by the Kianna Pete and Rachel Talbert, 2024-2025 awardees of the Vice President's Grant for Diversity & Community Initiatives (DCI) in collaboration with Jennifer Govan, Library Director and Senior Librarian, and Soeun Bae, Library Associate / Art and Design. It complements the adjoining Everett Cafe book display, Indigenous Ways of Knowing, curated and designed by library staff through the continuing generosity of The Myers Foundations.

Where: First Floor

When: April 21st - May 30th

Poster Image:  Book Cover, Waterlily