Professor J.A. Lippincott

Project Proposal: The Relationship between Pratt and Lippincott

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Image found on Encyclopedia Dickinsonia (http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/encyclo/l/ed_lippincottJA.htm)

Focus: My group’s area of concentration in researching the relationship between Dickinson College and the Carlisle Indian School is the general connections that existed between the two communities. I will specifically be focusing on the relationship between Richard Henry Pratt and Joshua Allan Lippincott. At the time of the founding of the Indian School in 1879, Lippincott was a professor of mathematics and astronomy at Dickinson College. Lippincott was also and ordained Methodist clergyman and was a chaplain to the Indian School. The Morning Star Newspaper mentions Lippincott frequently, including a report from Lippincott on a journey to the Midwest to obtain students for the Carlisle Indian School. Professor Lippincott became the Chancellor of the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas in 1883. A few sources have mentioned the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas, where some students attended after they left Carlisle Indian School. An assumption could be made that Lippincott continued to assist Pratt in his work with Indian Schools even when he was no longer a part of the Dickinson community. There is a possibility that much of Lippincott and Pratt’s relationship did not relate directly to Dickinson College and the Carlisle Indian School’s relations, but I am mostly concerned with the connection between Lippincott and Pratt as a whole, not simply confined to Dickinson College’s friendship with the Indian School. Lippincott holds a unique position in his relationship with Pratt because not only is he a member of Dickinson College community, but also the Carlisle community. Lippincott acts as a bridge between the two communities within Carlisle and this important fact could have made a fairly large impact on the acceptance of the Indian School in the town of Carlisle.

Significance: Focusing on Lippincott and Pratt’s relationship as a whole is important because it will ultimately help answer the broader question of what was the extent of the relationship between Dickinson College and Carlisle Indian School. In several sources including Pratt’s Battlefield and Classroom, the friendship between the Indian School and Dickinson is mentioned. Most frequently mentioned the scientific experiments of “lightning” shown by Professor Hines to the Indian students and their parents. What is not really clarified is what else, or how else, did the Indian School benefit from their relationship with Dickinson, or vice versa. By understanding this relationship better, the relationship of both the Carlisle Indian School and Dickinson College to the greater Carlisle community can possibly be explained better. Why did the Carlisle community receive the Indian School with such acceptance? Did Dickinson have any help in integrating the newly arrived Indian’s into town society? When studying the Carlisle Indian School, most emphasis is placed on the Indian School and how outside persons affected what happened within the school. Looking at the Indian School’s relationship to Dickinson College changes the perspective and reveals the Indian School’s affect on the surrounding communities, rather than the surrounding communities affect on the Indian School.

Methodology: First, to understand the relationship between Lippincott and Pratt, more must be known about Pratt and his motivations for institutes like Carlisle Indian School. Secondary sources will be the most helpful in learning about that. Pratt’s Battlefield and Classroom also reveals his motivations and actions against the Federal policy of Indian Reservations. Most of my resources will most likely be primary sources. Correspondence between Lippincott and Pratt would obviously reveal the most about their relationship. I know that in the Henry Richard Pratt Collection at Yale contain two letters from Lippincott to Pratt. I am not sure if I could find any correspondence of Pratt to Lippincott. Maybe contacting the University of Kansas will prove fruitful. Another source that so far has been the most informative is contemporary newspapers. I have already found Lippincott Newspapers like Eadle Keatah Toh, The Morning Star, and the Red Man. The Dickinsonian has provided a glimpse at Dickinson’s overall interaction with the Indian School. The newspapers will provide general information but I want to find speeches, pamphlets, and other campaigning type materials from either Lippincott or Pratt hopefully. I know through the card catalogue that the Dickinson archives posses many documents pertaining to Pratt so hopefully I will find leads as to where to look next for more information. The Cumberland County Historical Society likewise has a lot of materials pertaining to the Indian School so I am sure careful searching will produce a lot more sources. The online databases will be another option to find both primary and secondary sources. I plan to use the databases that are under the list of history and primary research. The method in which I plan to search through the various material available are to start with finding material on the Indian School, then find information about Pratt, and then information about the people who contributed or volunteered at the school. Obviously there’s overlapping of these fields but I figure it is easier to start searching on a broader subject and get more specific the more thoroughly I research.

Bibliography:

“Athletics.” The Dickinsonian, 16, no. 1 (October 1888): 16-17.

Dorian, Ellwood. “Monthly Home Letters” Eadle Keatah Toh, 2, no. 7 (February 1882): 5.

Eastman, Elaine Goodale. Pratt: The Red Man’s Moses. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1935.

Gilcrest, Everett Arthur. “Richard Henry Pratt and American Indian Policy, 1877-1906: A study of the Assimilation Movement.” Dissertation, Yale University, 1967.

Pratt, Richard Henry. Battlefield and Classroom: Four Decades with the American Indians. Edited by Robert. M. Utley. Hartford, CT: Yale University Press, 1964.

“Sabbath School.” The Morning Star, 3, no. 3 (October 1882): 3.

“The Leading Sioux Chiefs.” Dickinson College Centennial Bulletin, no. 2 (June 10, 1880): 3.

“Training School for Indian Youth at Barracks.” Dickinson College Centennial Bulletin, no.1 (February 11, 1880): 4-5.

“Sabbath School.” The Morning Star, 3, no. 3 (October 1882): 3.

Works Referenced:

Dickinson College. “Joshua Allan Lippincott.” Encyclopedia Dickinsonia. http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/encyclo/l/ed_lippincottJA.htm.

Wikipedia contributors. "Carlisle Indian Industrial School." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org.

Wikipedia contributors. "Richard Henry Pratt." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org.