Review

Textbooks, Readers, and References

Scientists, hobbyists, artifact robbers, social activists, writers, primitivists, and Indian wannabes: these are the characters that Sherry Smith fills her thoroughly enjoyable and well-written book with. She specifically writes of ten interesting men and women of various backgrounds, levels of expertise, and occupations who were skeptical of the benefits of modernization and who all shared a passion for what they considered to be "Indian." Historians have written biographies about some of her subjects, but Smith contributes to the literature by aggregating these personalities together and adroitly extending T. J. Jackson Lear's anti-modernism thesis to people interested in Native Americans. Smith's overall theme is that these very different people made up a distinct group who, through their writings and lectures, in part lessened racism towards Native Americans by making Americans aware of Indians as humans. Smith very effectively paints a group portrait of these ten social critics. Throughout Reimagining Indians, she includes helpful comparisons and contrasts between the subject of the current chapter and the characters already addressed. In the conclusion she mentions how she could picture the ten of them at her dinner table, some getting along and interacting and some not. Mabel Dodge Luhan, for instance, could commiserate with Mary Austin, turn-of-the-century writer and political activist, about the frustrations of working with the Bureau of Indian Affairs but would surely, Smith surmises, be annoyed by George Bird Grinnell, Yale PhD and ethnographer, and his strictly scientific attitude about Indians. Grinnell, however, would be able to talk ethnography with amateurs Walter McClintock, Frank Bird Linderman, and Anna Ickes. Luhan would share an appreciation of Indian art with George Wharton James, a painter and photographer, and with Charles Erskine Scott Wood, who was a soldier, lawyer, and poet.	1
Smith seems to have truly relished the opportunity to "get to know" these extraordinary people and we benefit from her enthusiasm about them. This familiarity, admiration and empathy, however, has also produced weaknesses in the book. These do not detract from its quality or usefulness, although they need to be mentioned. Smith's tendency to refer to her subjects by their first names seemed odd to this reviewer. In addition, she places trust in their utterances when skepticism may have been more helpful. She recounts Charles Fletcher Lummis's efforts to obtain funding and new land for the Cupenos, a tribe located in southern California, when they were forced to leave their homeland. Lummis declared the move a success and proclaimed that it was the only instance in which the Indian "moved to a better home than he was deprived of" (p. 137). This reviewer would have liked Smith to evaluate the accuracy of statements like these so that a more complete characterization of Lummis and the others could emerge. Finally, Smith's theme rests on the assumption that Americans were reading the works of these authors, a contention that she does not prove. She writes that their importance is "hard to ignore" (p. 15) but admits that documenting their influence is difficult. While this reviewer agrees that these personalities were probably influential, she would be interested in book publication and sales numbers or at least further recognition by Smith that these were not best-selling authors and thus not automatically persuasive.	2
Overall, Reimagining Indians is a great collection of biographies and an excellent aggregate of information about anti-modernism and views about Native Americans that would be useful in many history courses. Upper-division and graduate students in cultural history of Indian-white relations courses could appreciate the collection of biographies. A teacher of history could also fit information on one or more of the individuals into any United States history course when discussing industrialization, modernity, gender, or race relations. Mabel Dodge Luhan, for instance, was a very colorful and interesting woman who introduced many people to the beauty of the Southwest and rebelled in her mind against materialism and the modern world, and retreated from it by marrying a Pueblo Indian. Her courage to act on her convictions would inspire any student. This reviewer was inspired and highly recommends Reimagining Indians.	3
Angela Firkus Cottey College

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