A letter dated April 24, 1885 providing a final report on the accomplishments of the Forest Grove Indian School as it was being moved to its new site near Salem, Oregon. The letter is from George H. Atkinson, Secretary of the Board of Trustees of Pacific University, to L. Q. C. Lamar, Secretary of the Interior of the United States. In this letter, Atkinson makes a final argument in favor of keeping the school in Forest Grove, principally due to how the Native children were integrated with the white community. He describes the original aims of the Indian School and how it was established; the advantages of its site in Forest Grove; the difficult transition of the first students to the school which included resistance from their parents; accomplishments in vocational and academic skills among the students; and advantages to securing 'hostages' against Indian wars. By the time that this letter was written, the school was already in the midst of being relocated to its new site in Salem.
A letter dated December 4, 1884 regarding additional lands added to the campus of the Forest Grove Indian School in an attempt to keep the school from being moved. The letter is from George H. Atkinson, Secretary of the Board of Trustees of Pacific University, to H. Price, Commissioner for Indian Affairs within United States Department of the Interior. At the time this letter was written, the government was already perparing to move the school to a new site.
A brief newspaper article noting that the former boys' dormitory of the Forest Grove Indian Training School would soon be demolished in order to make way for a more modern residence. The building had been used as the boys' dormitory at the Indian School from about 1880-1885, and then in the 1890s through early 1900s it was used as the first men's dormitory for Pacific University. The article notes that a local man named T. Wiggman wanted to construct a newer building in the same location. The newer building which replaced the Boys' Dormitory may be the apartments that currently stand at 2210 C St. in Forest Grove. This article was originally published on April 9, 1908 in the Washington County News. The image is derived from a microfilm copy of the newspaper.
A letter dated May 26, 1884 regarding reasons to keep the Indian School in Forest Grove, Oregon. The letter is from George H. Atkinson, Secretary of the Board of Trustees of Pacific University, to H. Price, Commissioner for Indian Affairs within United States Department of the Interior. Atkinson provides twelve reasons for keeping the school open in Forest Grove rather than closing or moving it to a new location. His reason include positive conditions in the town of Forest Grove, academic and vocational successes of the students, happiness of the students' parents with the school, moral qualities of the school and advantages to the land chosen for its farm.
An illustration of scenes from the Forest Grove Indian School that was published in the magazine Harper's Weekly in 1882, based on photographs from 1881. The school, which functioned from 1880-1885, tried to assimilate Native children into Western culture, teaching them trades and basic academic skills while eradicating their native languages and cultural practices.
The images include: 'Housekeeping' (upper left): female students performing tasks they learned at the school including sewing, laundry, ironing, and making bread, with several younger students holding dolls; 'Carpenters at Work' (upper right): male students in front of the school's workshop performing tasks from carpentry class including sawing and cabinetmaking; 'A School Scene' (lower right): male and female students posed in an academic classroom scene outdoors with teaching equipment such as maps, books, charts, and an organ; 'Shoemaking' (lower left): male students in front of the school's workshop performing tasks from the shoemaking class, accompanied by teacher Samuel A. T. Walker; and 'New Recruits, Spokane Indians' (center): a group portrait of the Spokane students who arrived at the school in July 1881: Alice L. Williams, Florence Hayes, Suzette (or Susan) Secup, Julia Jopps, Louise Isaacs, Martha Lot, Eunice Madge James, James George, Ben Secup, Frank Rice, and Garfield Hayes.
The illustrations were based on a series of photographs that were taken in 1881. The photographer was from the I.G. Davidson studio of Portland. The four classroom scenes were posed outdoors at the Forest Grove Indian School, and are intended to show some of the skills that the students were learning there. The center group portrait was taken at the Davidson studio and was intended to be a 'before' picture of how the students looked when they arrived at the school; an 'after' photograph showing them seven months later was also taken, but not reproduced in this illustration. The photographs were probably originally produced in order to assist in fundraising activities for the school.
This double-page illustrated version of the photographs was drawn by Thure de Thulstrup to accompany an article in Harper's Weekly, which was an American magazine with a very large circulation. The article praised the school and described its accomplishments in assimilating Native children.
This image shows the building which had been used as a dormitory at the Forest Grove Indian School from 1880-1885 as it appeared in 1894, after the Indian School had moved away to Salem. By the time of this photograph in 1894, the building had been converted to housing for male students at Pacific University. As an historian of the university written a decade later recounted, 'One of the main buildings erected for the [Indian] school burned a short time before the removal [to Salem; this is referring to the Indian girls' dormitory, which burned down around 1885], and the other has been fitted up for a boys' dormitory and boarding house [for Pacific University students]. Here some of the young men have clubbed together, and thus boarded themselves for from a dollar and a quarter to a dollar and a half a week.' The historian cross-referenced this image from the Pacific University 1894 yearbook, 'The Heart of Oak,' where this image was first published. See: Eells, Myron, ed. 'A History of Tualatin Academy and Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon, 1848-1902.' Typescript. (1904) p. 83-84. Pacific University Archives.
A portrait of an unidentified Native American girl. She probably attended Chemawa Indian School and/or the Forest Grove Indian School; or she might be the daughter of alumni from the school, such as Katie and David Brewer. The photograph is a small, 43mm x 81mm image in carte-de-visite format. It is stamped on the verso of the photograph as having been taken by W. P. Johnson, and probably dates from between 1886-1888 (See: Robinson, Oregon Photographers, 1993, p. 394). This may be the same girl who is pictured in another portrait in the collection, PUApic_008361.
