Their Own Frontier: Women Intellectuals Re-Visioning the American West

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments A multifaceted undertaking such as this volume is indebted to more individuals than we can possibly ever thank. First and foremost, our profound appreciation must go to the women whom we celebrate in this volume for their dedication and scholarship, their activism and insight. It is because of them that we are here today, assessing their contribution to our understanding of the American West and their quests to ensure that Native peoples were not forgotten by the academy or America in general. These committed, intelligent, and determined women have been overlooked or taken for granted, a situation which, we feel, should not continue. Each deserves to be recognized and honored by critical assessments of their scholarship contextualized by their lives and their times. But this volume is also intended to fill larger disciplinary needs. With each essay we have sought to show how two disciplines, history and anthropology, went their own way in 1900 but increasingly with time worked together, learning from the perspectives of the other, experiencing the same growing pains and prejudices as they professionalized. This volume should be seen as an example of the interdisciplinary collaboration that we believe should be the foundation of future scholarship. Our thanks to Gary Dunham, Director of the University of Nebraska Press, for introducing us and encouraging us to coedit a volume on women intellectuals in the twentieth century and their contribution to the re-visioning of the American West and its Native peoples. For an undertaking of this magnitude we needed imaginative and insightful colleagues to help us. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the nine scholars who answered our call and submitted the essays that have made this volume a reality. Each has added immensely to our own understandings of the women portrayed in this volume, the contexts out of which their work grew, the issues with which they struggled, and the contributions they made to history, anthropology, and the story of indigenous peoples in the American West. We would also like to extend our thanks to the many individuals who helped each contributor complete his or her chapter. We would also like to thank the editorial, production, and publicity staff of the University of Nebraska Press—Ann Baker, Bridget Barry, Wendi Foster, and Heather Lundine—and our copyeditor, Jonathan Lawrence. As all who write scholarly books and articles know, no scholar completes any work without substantial help and feedback from numerous others or without assistance when such is needed. As always, my colleagues in the Department of History at the University of Central Florida listened to my ideas, encouraged me to keep on researching and writing, and proved good friends over the past years. I want to especially thank Richard and Patricia Crepeau, José and Mimi Fernández , Rose Beiler, Carole Gonzalez, Nancy Rauscher, Edith MacDonald, Patricia Farless, and Jonathan Scott Perry. I wish also to thank fellow historian Charles Robinson. As always, I am immeasurably grateful to the interlibrary loan staff at the University of Central Florida, who always managed to locate the books and articles, often long out of print or only available in small and obscure publications, for my research. Special thanks should also go to an individual who passed away. As director of Special Collections at Oklahoma State University, Heather Lloyd provided unfailing and invaluable help in researching my biography of Angie Debo, a work that spawned my interest in the larger question of women historians and the American West and its Native peoples. Finally, in 2006 and 2007 I had the opportunity to teach at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, and appreciated the support of history colleagues Everett Dague and Susan Snyder there. It has been an honor to work with Professor Nancy Parezo, whose work I have long admired. As we have coedited this volume, she has added greatly to my understanding of the development and the history of the discipline of anthropology, and she has deepened my understanding of the issues that have confronted Native peoples in the United States. Most of all, she has added more than anyone else to my understanding of the issues and stereotypes women professionals confronted in academic life. I also wish to thank the scholars who contributed to this volume and have taught me so very much more than they will ever know. As always, my children and grandchildren have been a source of xii acknowledgments support and pleasure and, above all...