Made in the U.S.A.: Americanizing aesthetics at Carlisle.
Item
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Title
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Made in the U.S.A.: Americanizing aesthetics at Carlisle.
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Identifier
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AAI3334676
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identifier
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3334676
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Creator
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Mauro, Hayes Peter.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Katherine Manthorne
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Date
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2008
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History | Native American Studies
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Abstract
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This dissertation is the first in-depth art historical study of the visual imagery produced at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (1879-1918). The Carlisle School, named after the town in which it was established in Central Pennsylvania, was a paramilitary residential boarding school for Native American youths. The school's founder, army officer Richard Henry Pratt (1840-1924), conceived of the school as an institution which would solve the then-pressing "Indian Question" by forcibly assimilating and Americanizing its young charges. Pratt and others believed that while the Native American existed in a state of savagery, such re-education could in fact "improve" their level of civilization, thereby integrating them into the perceived mainstream of American life during the Gilded Age.;Pratt quickly recognized the potential of visual imagery in this project. He and his collaborators deployed life mask sculpture, photographs, and printed and mass distributed illustration in a wide-reaching propaganda campaign in an effort to "prove" the school's efficacy in relation to its stated aims. This dissertation will critically examine this imagery in depth, and assess its implications for American cultural history and identity. Chapter One examines ways in which Native Americans were perceived by and subsequently represented by Euro-American artists and scientists during the ante-bellum period, a period during which public discourse on race was dominated by pseudoscientific thought. Chapter Two examines how the school was founded, and the role played by pseudoscientific visual imagery in its founding. Chapter Three examines several case studies at the school, and how Pratt sought to metaphorically "uplift" his savage charges via deft photographic strategies. Chapter Four examines how Pratt publicized the school and its assimilationist agenda by forwarding an aesthetics of docile labor, leisure, and play which supposedly mirrored life at Carlisle. Finally, the Conclusion offers an update on the status of the Native American within contemporary American visual culture, while also suggesting new areas for investigation. Throughout this dissertation, it will be maintained that the imagery produced at the school deployed time-honored aesthetic tropes, and that such imagery was ideological in nature. The image of the school as a place of progressive and smooth advancement was in reality contrasted by the often grim material conditions in which the students lived.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy Restricted.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.