Schools
setName: label: See more items in
content: Native Peoples Musicians and Music Collection
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1906-1908, undated
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.1512, Series 3
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Materials in Series 3 document two types of schools: Federal Indian Boarding Schools (along with similarly conceived boarding schools for indigenous youth, sponsored by religious organizations) and Hawaiian guitar schools. The boarding schools were originally conceived of as educational facilities designed to detribalize, assimilate, and indoctrinate Native peoples. Musical instruction was considered essential to this effort, as school officials sought to suppress and replace Native musical practices with those associated with Western European classical and American marching band music. Despite the assimilative agenda of the school officials, Native students instead used their musical instruction merely to expand their repetoire and musical interests.

The Hawaiian guitar schools, in contrast, encapsulated the early-mid 1900s global phenomenon of Native Hawaiian musicians, music and instruments,  such as the Hawaiin steel guitar and 'ukulele, transforming the musical imaginations and practices of peoples all over theworld. Hawaiian guitar schools opened all over the United States and typically consisted of non-Native students in learning how to play Hawaiian guitar.