The Real Rosebud: The Triumph of a Lakota Woman

Her great-grandfather was a famed Lakota warrior, her father a buffalo hunter, and Rosebud Yellow Robe hosted a CBS radio show in New York City. From buffalo hunting to the hub of twentieth-century urban life, this book chronicles the momentous changes in the life of a prominent Plains Indian family over three generations. At the center of the story is Rosebud (1907–92), whose personal recollections, family memoirs, letters, and stories form the basis of this book.

Rosebud’s father, Chauncey Yellow Robe, was the son of a Lakota chief and had a traditional childhood until he was sent to the Carlisle Indian School, where he became an advocate for Indian education and citizenship. He was instrumental in planning the 1927 ceremony that brought his daughter into national prominence—an induction of Calvin Coolidge into the Lakota tribe, capped by Rosebud placing a feathered war bonnet on the president’s head. Marjorie Weinberg follows the young woman from Rapid City, South Dakota, to New York City, where she became a noted lecturer and teller of Indian tales (and where her broadcasting career brought her name to the attention of Orson Welles, who may indeed have used her name for his famous sled in Citizen Kane). Reflecting a lifelong interest and a friendship that provided Weinberg access to family archives and a rich reservoir of family oral tradition, The Real Rosebud offers an intimate picture of a century and a half of a remarkable Lakota family.