page_title: Carlisle Indian Industrial School
section_title: World fairs and expositions
hierarchical_section_title: Carlisle Indian Industrial School / Native Americans in mainstream culture at the time / World fairs and expositions
caption_attribution_description: English: Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and Congress of Rough Riders of the World - Circus poster showing cowboys rounding up cattle and portrait of Col. W.F. Cody on horseback.
context_page_description: The United States Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, generally known as Carlisle Indian Industrial School, was the flagship Indian boarding school in the United States from 1879 through 1918. All the school's property, known as the Carlisle Barracks, is now part of the U.S. Army War College.
  Founded in 1879 under U. S. governmental authority by General Richard Henry Pratt, Carlisle was the first federally funded off-reservation Indian boarding school. Consistent with Pratt's belief that Native Americans were 'equal' to European-Americans, the School strove to immerse its students into mainstream Euro-American culture, believing they might thus become able to advance themselves and thrive in the dominant society.
  In this period, many white Americans believed that the only hope for Native Americans, their population declining in number, was rapid assimilation into White culture.
  After witnessing the initial success of the Indian students at Hampton Normal and Agricultural School, General Richard Henry Pratt decided to establish the first all-Indian school, Carlisle, in 1879, in a renovated military barracks.
context_section_description: During the Progressive Era, from the late 19th century until the onset of World War I, Native American performers were major draws and money-makers. Millions of visitors at world fairs, exhibitions and parades throughout the United States and Europe observed Native Americans portrayed as the vanishing race, exotic peoples and objects of modern comparative anthropology. Reformists Progressives fought a war of words and images against popular Wild West shows at world fairs, expositions and parades.
  In 1893, the fight for the image of the Native American began when Reformist Progressives pressured organizers to deny William F. ("Buffalo Bill") Cody a place at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, Illinois. Instead, a feature of the Exposition was a model Indian school and an ethnological Indian village supported by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
  In style, Buffalo Bill established a fourteen-acre swath of land near the main entrance of the fair for "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World" where he erected stands around an arena large enough to seat 18,000 spectators. Seventy-four "Wild Westers" from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, who had recently returned from a tour of Europe, were contracted to perform in the show. Cody also brought in an additional one hundred Wild Westers directly from Pine Ridge, Standing Rock and Rosebud reservations, who visited the Exposition at his expense and participated in the opening ceremonies. Over two million patrons saw Buffalo Bill's Wild West outside the Columbian Exposition, often mistaking the show as an integral part to the World's Fair. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was the last of the great fairs in the United States before World War I. Organizers wanted their exotic people to be interpreted by anthropologists in a modern scientific manner portraying contrasting images of Native Americans. A Congress of Indian Educators was convened and Oglala Lakota Chief Red Cloud and Chief Blue Horse, both eighty-three years old, and the best-known Native America orators at the St. Louis World's Fair, spoke to audiences. A model Indian School was placed on top on a hill so Indians below could see their future as portrayed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. On one side of the school, "blanket Indians", men or women who refused to relinquish their native dress and customs, demonstrated their artistry inside the school on one side of the hall. On the other side, Indian boarding school students displayed their achievements in reading, writing, music, dancing, trades and arts. The Carlisle Indian Band performed at the Pennsylvania state pavilion, and the Haskell Indian Band performed a mixture of classical, popular music and Dennison Wheelock's "Aboriginal Suite" which included Native dances and war whoops by band members.
caption: In 1893, over two million patrons saw Buffalo Bill's Wild West show perform during the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. During the Progressive Era, from the late 19th century until the onset of World War I, Native American performers were major draws and money-makers.
exif: {}