Spring 2025

Away From Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories

January 28 - March 14, 2025

Sioux children on their first day at school, 1897 (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

Beginning in the 1870s, the US government attempted to educate and assimilate American Indians into “civilized” society by placing children—of all ages, from thousands of homes and hundreds of diverse tribes—in distant, residential boarding schools. Many were forcibly taken from their families and communities and stripped of all signs of “Indianness,” even forbidden to speak their own language amongst themselves. Up until the 1930s, students were trained for domestic work and trade in a highly regimented environment. Many children went years without familial contact, and these events had a lasting, generational impact. Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories explores off-reservation boarding schools in a kaleidoscope of voices.

Click here for Past Exhibits and Programs.

Ongoing Exhibitions

Contemporary Native American Art Display

Marlin Johnston Gallery

Installation view of Contemporary Native American gallery

View selections of contemporary Native American art from the Schingoethe Center collection. Artists on display include:

• Peggy Black (Navajo)
• Julie Buffalohead (Ponca)
• Dan Friday (Lummi)
• Tammy Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo)
• Edgar Hachivi Heap of Birds (Cheyenne)
• Lisa Holt (Cochiti Pueblo)
• Erica Lord (Athabascan / Inupiat)
• Maria Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo)
• Chris Pappan (Kanza / Osage / Lakota Descent)
• Lilliana Pitt (Warm Springs / Wasco / Yakama)
• Harlan Reano (Santo Domingo Pueblo)
• Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke)
• Preston Singletary (Tlingit)
• Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish)
• Angela Swedberg (Tribally Certified Indian Artisan)
• Emmi Whitehorse (Navajo)
• Dwayne Wilcox (Oglala Lakota)
• Debra Yepa-Pappan (Jemez Pueblo)

 Click here to see object currently on display