Native American Students, Drexel Institute, and Carlisle Indian Industrial School

MacAlister was an executive committee member of the Indian Rights Association from 1887-1890 and was an invited speaker during the 1896 “Eighth Graduating Exercises” at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. The speeches were transcribed and published in the school’s paper, Red Man (Vol. 13, No. 8), March 1896. 

MacAlister’s statements reference his support for the project of Native American assimilation through education. The excerpt below, from Carlisle founding director Richard Henry Pratt's introduction to MacAlister's 1896 speech, references a conversation with MacAlister during which the Drexel Institute was suggested as a place for Carlisle students to further their studies. In this conversation, MacAlister noted that scholarship funds would be made available, though records have not yet been located that describe if or how such funds were allocated.  

The scholarship student referenced in Pratt’s introduction of James MacAlister may be Leila Cornelius Caswell (1874-1942), a member of the Oneida Nation. She graduated from Carlisle in 1896 and graduated from her business course at Drexel in 1897. She is pictured in the graduation photo published in the Carlisle Indian Industrial School’s newspaper, second row, fourth from the left. After her training at Drexel, Leila Cornelius worked as an assistant teacher at Cass Lake Minnesota, before marrying fellow Carlisle student Benjamin Casswell. She reported in a 1908 Carlisle-sponsored survey that she was a "housewife."  

Archival collections from Drexel University and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School show that Caswell was not the only Carlisle student to continue their education at Drexel. While we do not hold records that enlighten us about the student experience of being Native American among the majority white student body of the early Drexel Institute, we can share what records have been identified and hope that Drexel played some positive part in their lives.   

Photograph of Albert H. Nash, circa 1897. Albert H. Nash Student File, 1895-1918. National Archives and Records Administration. RG 75, Series 1327, box 154, folder 6077. Via the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center, Dickinson College.

One student who definitively received scholarship funding to attend the Drexel Institute is Albert H. Nash (1880-1918), a member of the Winnebago Nation who attended Carlisle from 1895-1897. This letter from James MacAlister to Katharine Drexel, circa 1900, asks for her to pay Nash’s Drexel Institute tuition and expenses. MacAlister wrote that Nash, “is a bright fellow, an industrious student, and stands well in all his classes.”  

Nash ran track at both Carlisle and Drexel. He graduated from Drexel in 1901 with a degree in Commerce and Finance and later worked as a salesperson for companies offering everything from car parts to athletic clothes to art calendars. In the Drexel Echo, a student periodical, Nash is identified as a coach for the track team in June 1907. One year later, Nash reported in the “Alumni Notes” section that he was working as general manager at Lippincott Mfg. Co., in Philadelphia.  

While working for the Clarence E. Miller athletic clothing manufacturer, Nash developed a series of “play clothes” styled like some traditional Native American clothing. Dickinson College’s Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center has a set of clippings, letters, and ephemera from Nash’s life available on their website. Through his frequent correspondence with Carlisle school officials, we also know that he married a white woman named Edna Kenton and the couple had two children. He died young, at 38, during a medical procedure. Documents in the collection describe Nash as a successful sales representative, a football fan, and even a bit of a “hustler.” 

The first recorded Carlisle student to attend the Drexel Institute was Edna Eagle Feather Goodbear of the (Osage Nation). She only attended Carlisle from 1882-1884, however, she is referenced in the school’s weekly newsletter, The Indian Helper, as a student at Drexel, studying shorthand and typing in 1893. Edna Eaglefeather is listed in this 1893 list of students to receive diplomas from the Business Department of the Drexel Institute.

“Misses Edna Eagle Feather and Katie Zallawager, students of the Lincoln Institute, Philadelphia, spent the holidays with old friends at our school. Miss Edna says she is studying short-hand and typewriting at the Drexel Institute.” (The Indian Helper, January 6, 1893. Page 2. Cumberland County Historical Society. Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center, Dickinson College.) Eagle Feather married Paul Goodbear in 1901. 

Annie Elizabeth George Tahquette (Ah-ne-le-sih) (1874-1927)

Annie Elizabeth George Tahquette (Ah-ne-le-sih) (1874-1927), of the Eastern Band Cherokee Indian Nation, graduated from Drexel in 1899. Tahquette was listed as Annie Elizabeth George in the 1899 commencement program, having completed a certificate in dressmaking from the Domestic Science and Arts Department. 
 
She used her Drexel training over the following six years working as a seamstress for the Indian Service in  Cherokee, North Carolina. She was listed in the 1900 census records as boarding with Stacy Wahanettu in Oconalufty Township, Swain, North Carolina. She married John Tahquette in 1904.  

In 1909, Annie reported back to Carlisle that the couple owned their own home, eleven head of cattle, and three horses. As of the 1914 Eastern Cherokee census records, the couple had seven children. See a picture of the family in front of their home on the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center’s website.