Salem, Or. [ca. 1919]. [90]pp. Oblong octavo. Original illustrated tan wrappers printed in darker tan. Moderate edge wear and minor toning to wrappers. Occasional minor foxing or thumb-soiling to text. Overall very good condition. Item #12733

A very rare promotional pamphlet illustrating the opportunities awaiting Native American youth at the Salem Indian Training School in Chemawa, Oregon. The wrapper title is Salem U.S. Vocational School Chemawa, Oregon. The Salem Indian Training School opened in early 1880 as one of the first Native American boarding schools in the country, of course intended to be an instrument of assimilation for local indigenous peoples. Opened as an elementary school, Salem was a fully-accredited high school by 1927. The school is still open and has been for some time known as the Chemawa Indian School, named for the Chemawa band of the Kalapuya people of the Willamette Valley; its own website describes the school as "the oldest, continuously operated boarding school for Native American students in the United States."

The present work includes a title leaf and four pages of explanatory text about the school, with the remainder of the contents comprised of full-page photographs illustrating a wide variety of subjects at the institution. The work opens with photographic portraits of four white government officials including the superintendent of the Salem school, Harwood Hall. This is followed by the explanatory text describing the general area around Chemawa, as well as various aspects of the school such as its academics, boys and girls "industries," farm, social life, newspaper (The Chemawa American), and more. The most striking photograph is a folding "Panoramic View of Chemawa Indian School," which is present here in its entirety, measuring 5.5 x 21.5 inches. Other photographs picture various landmarks around Oregon, but mostly center on the school's campus and activities. These include photos of campus buildings and spaces (dormitories, hospital, auditorium, academic building, girls' industrial building, greenhouse, prune orchard, the "piggery"), classrooms and other interiors (sewing, blacksmith shop, gymnasium, dormitory rooms and parlors, dressmaking, carpentry shop, bakery, "fruit room," boiler room, tailor shop, science lab), clubs and sports teams (boys' and girls' basketball, boys' football, track, baseball, Sigma Phi Delta Society (and three other literary societies), Mandolin and Guitar Club, Boys Battalion, Excelsior Literary Society), group photographs of the 1918 and 1919 graduating class (the latter showing twenty students holding a pennant reading, "Excellence Means Labor"), and more. A small card is affixed to the title leaf, stating that "This booklet was printed entirely within our own shop," so very likely by Native American students, whose print shop is also illustrated within. The work is very similar to another publication for the Sherman Institute in California, produced around the same time.

OCLC records just two copies, both in Oregon, at the State Library and the University of Oregon.

Price: $1,500