page_title: Laura Cornelius Kellogg
section_title: Society of American Indians
hierarchical_section_title: Laura Cornelius Kellogg / Society of American Indians
caption_attribution_description: English: The Society of American Indians, 3rd Annual Conference, A group of members on excursion at Wildcat Point, near Denver, October 15, 1913 Other information No.
context_page_description: Laura Cornelius Kellogg, was an Oneida leader, author, orator, activist and visionary. Kellogg, a descendant of distinguished Oneida leaders, was a founder of the Society of American Indians. Kellogg was an advocate for the renaissance and sovereignty of the Six Nations of the Iroquois, and fought for communal tribal lands, tribal autonomy and self-government. Popularly known as "Indian Princess Wynnogene," Kellogg was the voice of the Oneidas and Haudenosaunee people in national and international forums. During the 1920s and 1930s, Kellogg and her husband, Orrin J. Kellogg, pursued land claims in New York on behalf of the Six Nations people. Kellogg's "Lolomi Plan" was a Progressive Era alternative to Bureau of Indian Affairs control emphasizing self-sufficiency, cooperative labor and organization, and capitalization of labor. According to historian Laurence Hauptman, "Kellogg helped transform the modern Iroquois, not back into their ancient League, but into major actors, activists and litigants in the modern world of the 20th century Indian politics".
context_section_description: Laura Cornelius Kellogg was a founding member of the Society of American Indians and a member of the first Executive Committee. The Society pioneered twentieth century Pan-Indianism, the movement promoting unity among American Indians regardless of tribal affiliation. The Society was a forum for a new generation of American Indian leaders known as Red Progressives, prominent professionals from the fields of medicine, nursing, law, government, education, anthropology and ministry, who shared the enthusiasm and faith of Progressive Era white reformers in the inevitability of progress through education and governmental action. The Society met at academic institutions, maintained a Washington headquarters, conducted annual conferences and published a quarterly journal of American Indian literature by American Indian authors. The Society was one of the first proponents of an "American Indian Day", and forefront in the fight for Indian citizenship and opening the U.S. Court of Claims to all tribes and bands in United States. The Society of American Indians was the forerunner of modern organizations such as the National Congress of American Indians.
  On April 3–4, 1911, at the invitation of Professor Fayette Avery McKenzie, six American Indian intellectuals attended a planning meeting at Ohio State University. According to SAI records, the attendees were Laura Cornelius Kellogg, (Oneida), educator; Dr. Charles Eastman, (Santee Dakota), physician; Dr. Carlos Montezuma, (Yavapai-Apache), physician;  Thomas L. Sloan, (Omaha), attorney; Charles Edwin Dagenett, (Peoria), Bureau of Indian Affairs supervisor; and Henry Standing Bear, (Oglala Lakota), educator.
  Shortly after the April meeting, an eighteen-member Temporary Executive Committee formed, including Laura Cornelius Kellogg.
  On June 21 and 22, 1911, Kellogg hosted a meeting of the Temporary Executive Committee at her home in Seymour, Wisconsin, to draft a letter announcing the association's formation and purpose. In attendance were prominent Oneida attorneys Chester Poe Cornelius, her brother, and Dennison Wheelock. Charles E. Dagenett had the chair, with Emma Johnson, Rosa LaFlesche and Fayette Avery McKenzie in attendance.
  On October 12, 1911, at the inaugural meeting of the Society on the campus of the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, Kellogg proclaimed, "I am not the new Indian; I am the old Indian adjusted to new conditions." Kellogg presented a formal paper entitled "Industrial Organization for the Indian", where she proposed turning Indian reservations into self-governing "garden cities" with a "protected autonomy" that would interact with the market economy. Society colleagues were skeptical of her proposal to promote the reservation as a place of opportunity, and many wanted to abolish the Bureau of Indian Affairs. However, Kellogg found a supportive constituency among the Oneida and other tribes.
  Society leaders had differing views of Kellogg, as described by Patricia Stovey: 
  Charles Edwin Dagenett, for example, called her "a visionary full of schemes but not practical." Arthur C. Parker admired her intellect but found the intimidation of her rhetoric, "go my way or I will ruin you," unmanageable. Carlos Montezuma described her as a "cyclone", moving from one issue to another, wanting to do everything "without considering the consequences." However, Rev. Sherman Coolidge remembered her differently. Recalling the first time he heard her speak, Coolidge said, "tears came to his eyes to realize that we had a woman of brilliance among us and to think of the great good she could do for the Indian people." 
  The Third Annual Meeting of the Society in Denver, Colorado, in 1913, was Kellogg's last conference. Earlier that year, Thomas L. Sloan, an Omaha attorney and Society member, serving as special representative to Senator Joseph T. Robinson's congressional commission to investigate Indian affairs, delegated the Kelloggs as advance investigators. At the time, Oklahoma was a nest of corruption in Indian affairs. On October 11, 1913, after several weeks investigating
caption: The Society of American Indians, 3rd Annual Conference, A group of members on excursion at Wildcat Point, near Denver, Colorado, October 15, 1913.
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