Work in Eugene

Yesterday, I spent the morning at the Archives at the University of Oregon. They have the papers from two senators from Oregon who worked on Alaska statehood. So, I went through some of their legislative papers. As far as I can tell, no one involved in Alaska statehood (and perhaps even Hawaiian statehood) really consulted with Alaska Natives to get their opinion. That's a thread that I see running through the interviews I've conducted so far.

Then, I met with a former OSU student who got her bachelor's in anthropology several years ago. She inquired about our Ph.D. program and we got a chance to get caught up.

Then, I went to David Lewis's dissertation defense. David is a Grand Ronde tribal member and he wrote his dissertation about the events that led up to termination for the Grand Ronde tribe. He did an exhaustive job researching the project. Almost all of the tribal council members from Grand Ronde as well as several other tribal members were in attendance. Another woman, Deana Dartt, finished her Ph.D. last week - she'd worked on the Horner Collection several years ago, so it was nice to see her finished as well.

All in all, a good day in Eugene. I'm heading back there this morning to finish looking at the papers, then back to campus for a meeting.

It's cool that I have energy for this sort of thing!!