Gender, Race, and Power in the Indian Reform Movement: Revisiting the History of the WNIA ed. by Valerie Sherer Mathes (review)

The collection of chapters that makes up this important re-examination of the Women's National Indian Association (WNIA) offers a compelling and complex analysis of Indigenous and White women's activism. This book is the second volume on the WNIA edited by Valerie Sherer Mathes. The first collection, The Women's National Indian Association: A History (University of New Mexico Press, 2015) provided a much-needed assessment of the important role of the WNIA in the context of broader reform movements and the role played by women in shaping them. This latest volume further explores the significance of the WNIA by offering a holistic and nuanced evaluation of the intersectionality of race, place, gender, and religion within the organization. The book offers fresh insights into the negotiated space available to reformers within the movement, and it does so in part by situating Indigenous women at the forefront of many aspects of the WNIA. Moreover, several chapters speak to the centrality of maternalist politics and patriotic motherhood as a way of justifying women's entry into public reform efforts. While there were numerous Indian reform organizations, as Mathes reminds readers, the WNIA was the only one formed and headed by women. Another significant aspect of the book is that it clearly contextualizes the national importance of the movement by connecting the network of female reformers from Indian Territory and northern California to urban centers such as Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, and New York.

The book consists of an introduction, eight chapters, and a conclusion. Three of the chapters are written by Mathes; Jane Simonsen, John Mark Rhea, Curtis M. Hinsley, Phil Brigandi, David Wallace Adams, and Lori Jacobson join Mathes in making valuable contributions to our understanding of the origins and historical relevance of the WNIA. Rhea's chapter, for example, offers compelling new evidence about the origins of the organization and the precarious position of women who sought to justify and normalize their work. Other chapters focus on individual reform work of women, including Helen Hunt Jackson (and her highly successful use of novels to draw attention to the need for reforming Indian policy), Frances Campbell Sparhawk (who also used fiction to generate support for reform), and Mary Lucinda Bonney Rambaut. Each chapter is thoroughly researched. The chapters draw on a range of primary and secondary sources, including archival materials from nineteen different archives.

While the book deals with a number of national themes, it nonetheless contributes to the understanding of how the WNIA operated in the Southwest, particularly in Indian Territory. Gender, Race, and Power in the Indian Reform Movement makes an important addition to the history of the WNIA as well as to the history of gender and reform. The chapters in this book reveal not only the place of Indigenous women's activism within the movement, but also how activist reform efforts within the WNIA ultimately connected to the larger push for women's suffrage and place in public life.