The CCHS welcomes visitors and we encourage you
to make use of our collections, which are housed at the Cumberland County
Historical Society in Carlisle, PA. Librarians are on staff to assist
with research, providing the most comprehensive investigation of our materials.
The historical society is also located just minutes away from the old Carlisle
Indian School grounds at the Carlisle Barracks. Click
here for more information about our library hours and fees, and directions
to the historical society.
If a visit is not feasible, but you have a specific name,
event, or subject you are interested in, a trained researcher can search
our archives for you for a $40 fee. If you wish to use our search
service, please send us a check or money order payable to the Cumberland
Historical Society along with the online
inquiry form. Please limit your request to one name, event or
subject to be researched, and include any dates, places, and names which
may assist in our investigation.
The following institutions also have resources about the
Carlisle Indian School that may be helpful to explore for information about
specific students and the schools history.
The National Archives
Student folders for 8000+ Carlisle Indian School students
are housed at the National Archives Record Group 75 (NARA). They
are located in File 1327, and they contain official documents; any correspondence
kept between the school, agent, and parents or guardians; photographs;
original enrollment applications which include lineage, blood quantum,
home agency or address, and physician's report; Outing reports; runaway
information; siblings; and occasional follow-up surveys of the students
whereabouts after 1910. These folders may be photocopied for a fee
by writing to NARA. (Note: in some cases, there is only an index-sized
file card in the folder, which may contain only a fraction of the above
information).
The CCHS has an index of the students who have folders
stored in the National Archives.
NARA files may be ordered by writing:
Mary Francis Morrow
National Archives and Records Administration
Civil Reference Branch
7th St. and Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington DC 20408
Tel: (202) 501-5395
Yale Library: The Richard Henry Pratt Papers
http://webtext.library.yale.edu/xml2html/beinecke.PRATT.con.html
This collection consists of Richard Pratt’s personal
writings, including letters, diaries, speeches, drawings, publications,
and miscellaneous notes. These sources outline Pratt’s philosophies
about Indian education and experiences as a soldier and later the superintendent
of the Carlisle Indian School.
US Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks
The resources here include monographs, dissertations,
letters, and photographs. Please visit:
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/RefBibs.html
to search the bibliographies of the resources at the
Military History Institute. Suggested search phrases include "Indian
School" and "Indian wars."
For more information, including hours, fees, and location,
please visit:
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/
The Library of Congress, Washington DC
http://www.loc.gov/
The materials here are varied, including an assortment
of photos, articles, and books. To view a listing of the collection,
go to the home page and perform a search for “United States Indian School
(Carlisle PA)”.
The Smithsonian National Anthropological Archives
http://www.siris.si.edu/
These holdings can also be searched at the above website.
onducting Research on the 