Dorothy Davids
Dorothy Davids | |
---|---|
Native American and women's rights activist | |
Years active | 1961–2013 |
Partner | Ruth Gudinas |
Dorothy Davids (May 2, 1923 – October 4, 2014) was an
After graduating from Bowler High School she studied at Central State Teacher's College (now the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point). The first Native American student to graduate from Stevens Point, she earned teaching credentials in 1945. At the time, although there was a teacher shortage, she had difficulty in finding a position and had to agree to lower pay to secure a job.
After 16 years of teaching, Davids received her master's degree in education and human development from the
In addition to her educational services administration work, Davids worked on projects for the 1976 Bicentennial under sponsorship from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Smithsonian Institution. She spent a year as director of the Center for Racial Justice at the New York City YWCA. She co-chaired the state Advisory Council on Women’s Initiatives and served several terms on the state board for Indian Language and Culture Education. Retiring in 1985, Davids and Gudinas operated an educational consultation business called Full Circle. The organization worked to produce educational curricula that would foster pacifism and diversity. Davids served as tribal historian and chair of the tribe's historical committee. She helped found Muh-he-con-neew Press, as the publication arm of the committee. She received numerous awards from educational and community organizations during her lifetime, including having a room named after her at the University Center on the Stevens Point campus. The property on which she and Gudinas lived in their later life was purchased by the tribe in 2014 and named the Dorothy Davids and Ruth Gudinas Woodland Reserve, in the couple's honor.
Early life and education
Dorothy Winona Davids was born on May 2, 1923, in Red Springs, Shawano County, Wisconsin, to Eureka (née Jourdan) and Elmer Davids.[1] Her parents and all their children were enrolled members of the Stockbridge–Munsee Community. Her grandfather, William Davids, and grandmother, Martha Jourdan (also Jordan), were allotees,[2] meaning that under the Treaty with the Stockbridge and Munsee of 1856, their rights to community lands had been revoked and they accepted personal ownership of 80 acres of land in Wisconsin, which was held in trust by the United States, and which they were unable to sell.[3] The family lost their home to foreclosure during the Great Depression.[4] Davids was a student at the Red Springs Lutheran Mission School school in Gresham, Wisconsin.[1] The school was one of the Native American boarding schools, which aimed to assimilate Indigenous children and did not allow them to speak their native language or practice their cultural traditions.[5] Later, she studied at the Lakeside School and Shawano Community High School, before graduating in 1941 from Bowler High School. She went on to further her education at the Central State Teacher's College,[1][6] now the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point. She attended university with a scholarship provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).[7] She graduated in 1945, as the first Native American student to earn a degree at the school.[6][7]
Career
As the BIA had funded her education, there was an expectation, which she rejected, that Davids would teach at a reservation school.[8] Instead, she applied to 14 different schools before being accepted to teach a fifth- and sixth-grade class in St. Croix Falls. Despite a teacher shortage at the time, she had to agree to a lower salary than other teachers and her contract specified that she had to gain community acceptance. She was recruited two years later to work for the Ashland School District.[6] In 1949, Davids accepted a post to teach English for ninth graders at West Allis Junior High School, where she remained for 12 years.[6][9] During this time, she wrote a textbook, Teacher Had Some Little Lambs, a creative writing primer.[9] After 16 years of teaching, in 1961, she earned a master's degree in education and human development from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.[9][10]
Davids spent the summer of 1961 working in Washington, D.C. for the
In 1964, Davids became a minority student recruiter for the Upward Bound program at Mundelein College in Chicago.[6][9] The following year, she returned to Wisconsin and began working in the Vista Program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She then worked at the university's Center for Action and Poverty before becoming a specialist with the Center for Community Leadership. She also taught continuing education courses for women at the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension,[9] which hired her full-time in 1966.[6] In her tenured university career, which spanned 20 years, Davids coordinated outreach efforts to bring awareness of the customs and culture of diverse groups of people, including Native Americans, into discussions and educational forums.[17][18][19] A committed pacifist, along with mental health and social services specialists, she gave presentations on conflict resolution and ways to teach people, focusing on raising children and peaceful coexistence.[20] Her goal was to work with Native organizations, county and town administrations, and women's groups, to create partnerships utilizing university resources[21][18][22] to give Native communities the tools to make their own programs and policies.[23] In 1972, Gudinas decided to leave the convent. Davids came and drove her from New York to her home in Wisconsin. The two women became life-long partners and collaborators.[24] One of their projects resulted in the publication of a learning guide in 1979 evaluating the historical record about Thanksgiving. Their findings uncovered that the dinner between the Plymouth Pilgrims and Indigenous people was not part of the historic archive, but rather a 19th-century romanticized invention.[25][26]
In addition to her work as an educator, Davids was involved in both governmental and tribal affairs. As chair of the tribal historical museum committee, she helped the tribe establish the Arvid E. Miller Memorial Library and Museum in 1974.[10][27] In 1975 and 1976, she worked on a project sponsored by the BIA and Smithsonian Institution to have young tribal members throughout the United States make a video archive of the cultural activities of their communities. She traveled from the North Central part of the country to Alaska to help students make videotapes for the 1976 Bicentennial.[28][29] As she explained, Native people did not celebrate the Bicentennial to honor what had been done to their people, but rather to remind non-Native Americans that Indigenous people were sovereign nations and that treaties with them had been broken.[27] Davids took a sabbatical in 1978, to head the Center for Racial Justice at the YWCA in New York City.[30] She was co-chair of the Advisory Council to the governor on women's initiatives in the 1970s,[31] and in the 1980s served multiple terms on the state's Indian Language and Culture Educational Board.[32]
Davids and Gudinas bought the home on Big Lake Road near the historic Stockbridge reservation, which Davids' parents had previously lost to foreclosure in 1985.[33] In their retirement, they operated an educational consultation service from the farm called Full Circle.[15][34] The goal of the organization was to host retreats and create curricula to provide multicultural perspectives for education.[35] Davids served as tribal historian and chair of the tribal historical committee.[36][37] She wrote a regular newspaper column for the tribal newspaper, Mohican News.[38] She and Gudinas established a publishing company, Muh-he-con-neew Press, for the historical committee to publish children's literature and cultural writings.[38][39] In 1999, a room at the University Center on the Stevens Point campus was named in Davids's honor.[8] In July 2014, the Tribal Council of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohicans purchased Davids and Gudinas' home and renamed the property the Dorothy Davids and Ruth Gudinas Woodland Reserve.[40] In her later years, Gudinas developed Alzheimer's disease and from 2013, she was cared for at the Ella Besaw Center of the Stockbridge-Munee Community.[24] She died there on September 5, 2014.[41]
Death and legacy
Davids survived Gudinas for only a month, dying on October 4, 2014, at the Ella Besaw Center in Bowler, Wisconsin.[1] She was selected for inclusion in the Wisconsin Women Making History project, founded in 2015, which aims to highlight women's historic contributions in the state.[42] She is remembered for her contributions in creating curricula, which included Native perspectives, "for and about Native people".[4] Her outreach work, focus on Native American women, and pacifism were recognized by numerous awards, including the 2009 Friend of Education Award from the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and later the Lifelong Educator Award from the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.[4][10][43]
Selected works
- Davids, Dorothy W.; Gudinas, Ruth A. (1979). Student Activities and Teacher Materials for Use during the Thanksgiving Season. Madison, Wisconsin: Madison Metropolitan School District. OCLC 41677782.
- Davids, Dorothy W. (2001). Brief History of the Mohican Nation, Stockbridge-Munsee Band. Bowler, Wisconsin: Arvid E. Miller Memorial Library Museum. OCLC 48193615.
- Davids, Dorothy W. (2007). Inner Dreams and Outer Circles. Gresham, Wisconsin: Muh-he-con-neew Press. ISBN 978-0-935790-09-2.
- Davids, Dorothy W. (2008). The Mohican People: Their Lives and Their Lands, A Curriculum for Grades Four-Five. Gresham, Wisconsin: Muh-he-con-neew Press. ISBN 978-0-935790-10-8.
References
Citations
- ^ a b c d Mohican News 2014b, p. 1.
- ^ Stockbridge census 1938, p. 470.
- ^ Cornelius 2023, pp. 373–374.
- ^ a b c Wisconsin Women Making History 2015, p. Dorothy Davids.
- ^ Loew 2003, pp. 133–134.
- ^ a b c d e f g Stevens Point Journal 1985, p. 8.
- ^ a b Shaw 1999, p. 3.
- ^ a b Shaw 1999, pp. 3, 8.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Manitowoc Herald-Times 1970, p. 23.
- ^ a b c Mohican News 2014b, p. 4.
- ^ a b Cobb 2008, p. 76.
- ^ Native American Voices 2009.
- ^ Cobb 2008, pp. 63, 65.
- ^ Pavlik 1997, pp. xi–xii.
- ^ a b c Wisconsin State Journal 2014, p. 24.
- ^ Loew 2014, Search phrase "troubleshooting".
- ^ Loew 2014, Search phrase "tenured".
- ^ a b The Oshkosh Northwestern 1973, p. 12.
- ^ Ingram 1972, p. 3.
- ^ Harder 1985, p. 5.
- ^ Loew 2014, Search phrase "university resources".
- ^ Perkins 1982, p. 15.
- ^ Loew 2014, Search phrase "projects themselves".
- ^ a b Wisconsin State Journal 2014, pp. 23–24.
- ^ Lenherr 1991, pp. 1A–2A.
- ^ Mitchard 1980, pp. 61, 67.
- ^ a b Cosgrove 1976, p. 9.
- ^ Loew 2014, Search phrase "youth media".
- ^ The Capital Times 1976, p. 2.
- ^ Loew 2014, Search phrase "leave of absence".
- ^ The Reporter 1979, p. 10.
- ^ The Green Bay Press-Gazette 1986, p. 3.
- ^ Loew 2014, Search phrase "foreclosure".
- ^ Shaw 1999, p. 8.
- ^ Lenherr 1991, p. 1A.
- ^ Schilling & Culhane 1993, p. 11.
- ^ Dedolph 1996, p. 4A.
- ^ a b Loew 2014, Search phrase "children's books".
- ^ Miron 2018, p. 80.
- ^ Mohican News 2014a, p. 1.
- ^ Wisconsin State Journal 2014, p. 23.
- ^ Wisconsin Women Making History 2015, p. History.
- ^ Loew 2014, Search phrase "2009 friend".
Bibliography
- Cobb, Daniel M. (2008). Native Activism in Cold War America: The Struggle for Sovereignty. Lawrence, Kansas: ISBN 978-0-7006-1597-1.
- Cornelius, Carol (2023). A History in Indigenous Voices: Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Oneida, Stockbridge, and Brothertown Interactions in the Removal Era. Madison, Wisconsin: ISBN 978-1-9766-0009-8.
- Cosgrove, Howard (June 25, 1976). "...But the Plea for Recognition Continues". Newspapers.com.
- Dedolph, Meg (September 22, 1996). "Tribes Reclaim Lost Traditions". Newspapers.com.
- Harder, Karen (June 10, 1985). "Parents Urged to Teach Peaceful Ways". Newspapers.com.
- Ingram, Ron (November 5, 1972). "Speaker Tells Teachers Indians Seek Their Identity". Newspapers.com.
- Lenherr, Joan (November 27, 1991). "Rethinking the History of Thanksgiving". Newspapers.com.
- Loew, Patty (2003). Native People of Wisconsin. Madison, Wisconsin: ISBN 978-0-87020-348-0.
- Loew, Patty (2014). Seventh Generation Earth Ethics: Native Voices of Wisconsin. Madison, Wisconsin: ISBN 978-0-87020-674-0.
- Miron, Rose K (2018). Mohican Archival Activism: Narrating Indigenous Nationalism (PhD). Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota: University of Minnesota. Retrieved August 5, 2023.
- Mitchard, Jacquelyn (November 27, 1980). "We Were Friends Then". Newspapers.com.
- Pavlik, Steve (October 1997). "In Memoriam to Robert Knox Thomas (1925–1991)". Gale A20355419.(subscription required)
- Perkins, Al (June 11, 1982). "Minority Women Told To Get Act Together". Newspapers.com.
- Schilling, Betty; Culhane, Ed (July 13, 1993). "Final Resting Place: Town Returns Ancient Cemetery to Stockbridge Tribe". Newspapers.com.
- Shaw, Charley (April 6, 1999). "UW-Stevens Point's First American Indian Graduate Continues to Inspire Students". Stevens Point Journal. Stevens Point, Wisconsin. pp. 3, 8. Retrieved August 4, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- "1938 Stockbridge-Munsee Census, Tomah Agency, Wisconsin". archive.org. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. September 1, 1938. p. 470. NARA Microfilm series 595, roll 573, lines 98–108. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
- "American Indians Speak at Seminar". Newspapers.com.
- "Council Members Named for Women's Initiatives". Newspapers.com.
- "Declaration of Indian Purpose". Native American Voices. Houston, Texas: Digital History, University of Houston. February 13, 2009. Archived from the original on February 13, 2009. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
- "Wisconsin Women Making History". Women in Wisconsin. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin's Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium, the Wisconsin Historical Society. 2015. pp. Dorothy Davids, history. Archived from the original on June 22, 2023. Retrieved August 6, 2023.</ref>
- "Dorothy Davids and Ruth Gudinas Woodland Reserve" (PDF). Mohican News. Vol. XXII, no. 14. Bowler, Wisconsin: Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohicans. July 15, 2014. pp. 1, 10. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 20, 2016. Retrieved August 5, 2023.
- "Dorothy Winona Davids "Aunt Dot"" (PDF). Mohican News. Vol. XXII, no. 20. Bowler, Wisconsin: Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohicans. October 15, 2014. pp. 1, 4. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 20, 2016. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
- "Gudinas, Ruth Anna". Newspaperarchive.com.
- "Native American Topic for Women's Day". Newspapers.com.
- "Take Your Roots with You, She Tells Younger Indians". Stevens Point Journal. Stevens Point, Wisconsin. April 10, 1985. p. 8. Retrieved August 6, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Two from Area Renamed to Indian Culture Board". Newspapers.com.
- "UW's Davids To Record Indian Fetes". Newspapers.com.