Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Mary Louise Eldridge: Missionary and Field Matron to the Navajos

by Valerie Sherer Mathes
Save 17% Save 17%
Current price ₹7,285.00
Original price ₹8,742.00
Original price ₹8,742.00
Original price ₹8,742.00
(-17%)
₹7,285.00
Current price ₹7,285.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Hardcover
  • ISBN13: 9781496246684
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
  • Publisher Imprint: University of Nebraska Press
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 336
  • Original Price: USD 70.0
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 617 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Native American Studies

In the fall of 1891 Mary Louise Eldridge and Mary Raymond were sent by the Women's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church to work among the Navajos living along the San Juan River in northern New Mexico. There they founded the Navajo Methodist Mission, which later moved near Farmington. After Raymond's unexpected death, Eldridge was appointed to replace her as a government field matron, and with the support of the Cambridge Indian Association, an auxiliary of the Women's National Indian Association, Eldridge supervised Navajo men in digging the Cambridge Ditch and their wives in weaving blankets in industrial rooms supported by the WNIA's Indian Industries League. Before Eldridge retired in 1915, she supervised the founding of six WNIA missionary stations on the reservation. One scholar described her as nurse, farmer, civil engineer for irrigation projects, trader, hospital administrator, fund raiser, policy advocate, cottage industry entrepreneur, and adoptive mother--duties far exceeding the government's vision of a field matron.

This biography with selected letters is the first history of Eldridge's WNIA-funded missionary work. It opens a critical window into social reform efforts among Native peoples in the American Southwest, the predicament of the Navajo Nation after their return from incarceration at Bosque Redondo, and the coercive assimilationist policies enacted against resistant Native peoples in the Dawes Act era.

Valerie Sherer Mathes is professor emerita of history at City College of San Francisco. She is the author of numerous books, including Divinely Guided Revisited: The Women's National Indian Association Beyond California, Amelia Stone Quinton and the Women's National Indian Association: A Legacy of Indian Reform, and Charles C. Painter: The Life of an Indian Reform Advocate.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us