Love and Loss After Wounded Knee: A Biography of an Extraordinary Interracial Marriage

MHS Event

This is a hybrid event. The in-person reception will begin at 4:15 PM.

Elaine Goodale grew up in the Berkshires, a "poetic prodigy" who left behind her New England roots to teach Native American students in the Dakota Territory in the late 1880s. Her innovative teaching methods and ability to parlay them to a broad audience through the many articles she published in the era's leading newspapers led to a job as a superintendent of education for the Dakota's "Indian schools." In December of 1890 at the Pine Ridge Agency, she met Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman, Ohíye'Sa, a Dartmouth and BU Medical School educated Santee Sioux. They fell in love against the backdrop of heightened tensions between settlers and Native Americans, culminating in the Wounded Knee Massacre. Their fascinating but troubled marriage is the subject of this new biography. Join biographer and Tufts University professor Julie Dobrow and Harvard Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History Philip J. Deloria in conversation about this most unusual union.

Join the conversation at the New England Biography Series. By providing an opportunity for those interested in the craft of biography to convene and converse, this series creates a community that will support biographical works in progress and help inspire future projects. Learn more.

Purchasing a $25 seminar subscription allows you to support the seminar series. Subscribe at www.masshist.org/research/seminars.

If in-person attendance is no longer available, please email Cassie Cloutier at ccloutier@masshist.org to be placed on the waitlist.

Register to attend in-person

Register to attend online