A Lethal Education

FAIN: FEL-302433-25

Preston McBride
Pomona College (Claremont, CA 91711-4434)

Research and writing leading to a book on mortality and health at Native American boarding schools from 1819 to 1934.

A Lethal Education charts the rise and reforms of the Native American boarding school system in the U.S. between 1819 and 1934. Battles being waged by the federal government over Native American sovereignty shifted to the classroom. For over 150 years, officials took guardianship of Native American youth and sent them to schools established to ‘civilize’ them. A Lethal Education uncovers that the schools were far more lethal than previously known, killing thousands of Native American students while leaving shattered families and communities in their wake. Revealing this mortality sheds light on a dark part of Native American and U.S. history while making visible lives erased by unscrupulous bureaucrats. Though the project’s portable methodology and empirical data will benefit scholars across the humanities, it will have ramifications for boarding school survivors, congresspeople and senators, judges, social welfare organizations, school boards, and the public.