page_title: Ruth Muskrat Bronson
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Ruth Muskrat Bronson / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: President Calvin Coolidge presented with a book written by G. E. E. Linquist titled "The Red Man In The United States" (1919). Ruth Muskrat-Bronson (center) making the presentation on behalf of the “The Committee of One Hundred” with Rev. Sherman Coolidge (right). Other information No. This work is in the public domain because it was published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 and although there may or may not have been a copyright notice, the copyright was not renewed. Unless its author has been dead for the required period, it is copyrighted in the countries or areas that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works, such as Canada (50 pma), Mainland China (50 pma, not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 pma), Mexico (100 pma), Switzerland (70 pma), and other countries with individual treaties. See Commons:Hirtle chart for further explanation. Deutsch&#160;| English&#160;| español&#160;| français&#160;| italiano&#160;| 日本語&#160;| 한국어&#160;| македонски&#160;| português&#160;| português do Brasil&#160;| русский&#160;| українська&#160;| 中文（台灣）‎&#160;| +/−
context_page_description: Ruth Muskrat Bronson was a Cherokee poet, educator and Indian rights activist. After completing her education, Bronson became the first Guidance and Placement Officer of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. She served as executive secretary for the National Congress of American Indians, which was founded in 1944, and created their legislative news service.
  After a decade of work in Washington, D.C., Bronson moved to Arizona. There she served as a health education specialist for the Indian Health Service. Upon her retirement from the government, she received the Oveta Culp Hobby Service Award from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. She continued working for Native American rights, promoting their development and leadership in the private sector until her death.
context_section_description: Ruth Margaret Muskrat was born on October 3, 1897 in White Water, on the Delaware Nation Reservation in Indian Territory to Ida Lenora (née Kelly), an Irish-English transplant from Missouri, and James Ezekial Muskrat, a Cherokee. His ancestors had traveled the Trail of Tears from Georgia to Indian Territory in the late 1830s during Indian Removal. When she was ten years old, she witnessed the disruption caused to the lives of her nation when the Curtis Act of 1898, an amendment of the Dawes Act, applied allotment of communal lands to the Five Civilized Tribes. 
  At the age of fourteen, Muskrat enrolled in preparatory school at the Oklahoma Institute of Technology in Tonkawa, graduating in 1916. She furthered her education at Henry Kendall College in Tulsa and at Northeastern State Teachers College. Financial hardship forced her to stop classes, and she taught for two years to earn sufficient funds to continue her schooling.
  In 1919, Muskrat enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, where she studied for three semesters. During the summer of 1921, she worked for the YWCA and was sent to work on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico. Her report on her organizing efforts earned her a scholarship to attend the University of Kansas, where she studied for three more semesters. In 1922, Muskrat went to Peking, China for an international youth conference as part of a YWCA delegation. She was one of the first Native American women to serve as a student delegate abroad. The trip, which included stops in "Hawaii, Manchuria, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong." brought Muskrat to the attention of the international press. She was inspired to work for racial equality. 
  The following year, Muskrat delivered an appeal to the United States government for better educational facilities for Native Americans. She made the presentation at a gathering of Native American leaders, which was known as the "Committee of One Hundred", to advise the president on American Indian policy. Muskrat advocated for Indians to be involved in solving their own problems. Moved by her speech, President Calvin Coolidge and his wife, Grace, invited Muskrat to lunch with them. In 1923, she enrolled in Mount Holyoke College and in 1925 graduated with a BA in English. During her college days, Muskrat was a prolific poet, influenced by the Modernist movement.
caption: On behalf of “The Committee of One Hundred”, Ruth Muskrat Bronson presents G. E. E. Linquist′s book The Red Man In The United States (1919) to President Calvin Coolidge; on the right is Rev. Sherman Coolidge, co-founder of the Society of American Indians, December 1923.
exif: {}