Grace Raymond Hebard

Grace Raymond Hebard, 1934

Grace Raymond Hebard (born July 2, 1861 in Clinton , Iowa , † October 1936 in Laramie , Wyoming ) was an American university director, professor , historian and suffragette . Their reputation as a historian is partly based on her years of hiking through the high plains and mountains of Wyoming in search of firsthand accounts of the early pioneers of the US state .

In particular, she created an image of Sacajawea , the indigenous participant in the Lewis and Clark expedition, strongly influenced by Western romanticism . Hebard was long the formative administrative director of the University of Wyoming and the first woman on its board of trustees . She was active in Wyoming's political life, giving speeches, organizing historical societies, leading citizenship courses for immigrants and participating in the local and national suffragette movement.

First years and training

(1) Alice Louise Reynolds, (2) Amy Brown Lyman, (3) Grace Raymond Hebard , (4) Mrs. Weston Vernon, (5) Ruth Moench Bell, and (6) Susa Young Gates

Grace Hebard was born to Reverend George Diah Alonzo Hebard (1831-1870) and Margaret Elizabeth Dominick Marvin (1830-1902). Her family soon moved to Iowa City , where her father, a missionary and later Territorial Legislator , built a new Presbyterian church. Hebard made her Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from the University of Iowa in 1882 as the first woman . In later years, Hebard reflected on her experience as a female engineering student in a letter to a colleague in 1928:

I met with many discouragements and many sneers and much opposition to my enrolling in the scientific course, which was then entirely a man's college. ... All kinds of discouraging predictions were made that I would fail, that it was impossible for a woman to do the kind of work I was undertaking.

“I encountered a lot of discouragement and a lot of mockery and a lot of resistance to my enrollment in the science course, which at that time was an all-male university. ... All kinds of daunting predictions were made that I would fail, that it would be impossible for a woman to do the kind of work I was about to start. "

- Grace Raymond Hebard

Hebard later resumed distance learning and earned an MA from the University of Iowa in 1885. Finally, she received her PhD in political science from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1893 , also by distance learning.

Hebard made his way west to Wyoming in 1882 , eight years before the territory became a US state in 1890. Hebard arrived in the future capital, Cheyenne , accompanied by her mother, her brothers Frederick and Lockwood and her sister Alice. She became part of the social scene with other young people at the newly established Cheyenne Club , where cattle barons, often wealthy Europeans, ruled Cheyenne. Rowdies who carried guns in the saloons and prostitutes who went about their business openly in the brothels made for a rough atmosphere. Citizens were also known for practicing their own form of justice when things got out of hand. For example, in 1883 a crowd lynched an accused murderer and hung him from a telephone pole in Cheyenne.

Hebard's college education set her apart from such locals. The young engineer found work in the general surveyor's office, where she worked as the only female draftsman in town. Hebard was promoted to assistant state engineer and first reported to Elwood Mead . Mead made a name for himself drafting water laws for the Wyoming Territory and later as head of the US Bureau of Reclamation .

But engineering shouldn't be Hebard's calling. Instead, after nine years in Cheyenne, she left her family and ventured 50 miles west across a boulder-strewn mountain range to the railroad town of Laramie . This small town in southeast Wyoming, which began as a tent city in the mid-1860s, was home to a fledgling university when Hebard arrived in 1891. The dingy prairie campus of Laramie became the setting from which Hebard embarked on an impressive career in higher education, devoting more than 45 years (1891-1936) to the University of Wyoming.

University administration

University of Wyoming, an isolated campus bordering the prairie on the eastern edge of Laramie, 1908.

In 1891, on the recommendation of Senator Joseph M. Carey of Cheyenne , whom she had known since childhood , Hebard was appointed salaried secretary and a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Wyoming by incumbent Governor Amos Barber . She found her way around the male-dominated world of university administration and held her position with considerable assertiveness and influence. She was on the board of trustees until 1903, but remained active as a secretary until 1908.

Her range of tasks ranged from setting university policy to managing finances. Hebard managed the university's finances almost independently and in day-to-day operations, with the exception of an annual review. Hebard later noted that "the Trustees gave me a great deal of power, and I used it" .

The university struggled with financial problems during the recession years in the mid-1890s. The six high schools in sparsely populated Wyoming had only eight graduates in 1894 from which the university could attempt to enroll new students. The underfunded university was therefore dependent on government research grants for its agricultural research station. The President of the Board of Trustees, with Hebard as secretary, directed this important arm of the university.

The influence that Hebard exercised on the finances of the university, its president and faculty was thus considerable. Rumors surfaced that a conflict with Hebard and their oversight of faculty appointments led President AA Johnson to resign. Her "iron rule" over campus revolved around her authority over finances, including federal grant spending. Questions arose about the use and possible misuse of federal funds, leading to increased scrutiny by the full Republican board of trustees. The Democrats launched accusations of bribery and partial printing for the university, improper use of federal grants and heavy criticism of Hebard's rule in the press over the “republican regime” at the university in 1907. A sharply worded report claimed: "It's a standing remark in Laramie that no professor or employee of the institution can hold his job without being branded 'OK' by Miss Secretary Hebard, and whenever she decrees it the president's head will fall in the basket" . But despite the uproar, a commission of inquiry appointed by the governor found "that there had been no interference by Miss Hebard" . Still under attack from the press and internally at the university, Hebard eventually resigned as Secretary of the Board of Trustees.

The end of Hebard's university administration career in 1908 marked the beginning of a new phase of teaching, writing, and field research. In 1908, the same board of trustees appointed her full professor. Hebard held the post until her death 28 years later.

Scientific activities

Hebard became the university's first free librarian in 1894. She set up the first library using the books she found in a small locked room at the university. In 1908 she was appointed the university's first official librarian. The cataloged book collection grew to 42,000 volumes by the end of her term in 1919. In 1906 she was appointed head of the university's political economy department.

Hebard expanded her academic activities by serving on the Advisory Board of the Wyoming Historical Association . That affiliation helped her focus on her new research goal: finding trails in Wyoming, for the Oregon Trail as for other pioneer routes. Hebard's work included mapping old trails in Wyoming. However, it did more than just cartography. Hebard began collecting historical documents and other materials related to Wyoming's history.

They also toured the state, interviews sought with pioneers of the Old West and spent several summers under the Shoshone of Wyoming. Her often romanticized view of the Old West shaped the books she wrote about Wyoming's history. Hebard's published works include:

• The Government of Wyoming (1904)
• The Pathbreakers from River to Ocean (1911)
• The Bozeman Trail (1922), in a letter-only collaboration with E.A. Brinninstooly
• Washakie (1930)
• Sacajawea (1933)

Illness, and eventually her death, put an end to what would have been Hebard's last book, an account of the Pony Express . The famous cross-border commuter and expedition photographer William Henry Jackson worked as an illustrator with Hebard in 1933 and 1934. He provided watercolors and sketches for her unpublished manuscript. Hebard's collaboration with Jackson began in 1920 when her research led to a request for a copy of a photo of Chief Washakie that Jackson took during the Hayden Geological Survey .

Mythmaker

The US Census Bureau stated in the 1890 Census that there was no longer a continental western border . That was eight years after Hebard arrived in Cheyenne at the age of 21. But for Hebard, the vast expanse of the mythical West was wide open to interpretation, which led Hebard to locate her research objects in a “strongly romanticized West”.

Critics such as author Mike Mackey claim that "Hebard's" stories "in Wyoming have given rise to many interpretations of past events that never took place but are now considered fact by many in this state." He adds that "often when the facts do not support their thesis, Hebard made up their own" facts "".

In particular, Hebard's 30 years of research on Sacajawea , which led to the biography published in 1933, has been questioned by critics. Hebard presents a brave woman in a biography that "undeniably contains a lot of romance and little hard evidence and suffers from a sentimentalization of Indian culture". Hebard sketches a picture of Sacajawea as a restless spirit traveling the west, a person who, according to the testimony collected by Hebard, was so revered by the whites that she drove stagecoaches for free, and who introduced the Shoshone to agriculture.

Hebard reveals her point of view during a 1915 visit to Sacajawea's alleged grave in remote central Wyoming: “In August 1915, the author made a pilgrimage to the Wind River Reservation cemetery to pay a humble honor to Sacajawea. [...] A well-trodden path from the wooden stake to Sacajawea's grave does not require a signpost. Thousands of people travel to this final resting place every year. "

In retrospect, Hebard's reputation as a historian is diminished by her reliance on unproven oral accounts of Native American people. Nonetheless, Hebard stood by her Sacajawea finds. She stuck to her position that she had established “beyond any doubt” the true identity of Sacajawea.

According to historian Phil Roberts, Hebard is an important figure despite her lack of research. Roberts notes that Hebard “was aware of the need to record Wyoming's history while many of the actors were still alive. Unfortunately, it has been constrained by the same problems that all historians face. Without reliable source material one can make wrong assumptions which may not correspond to the historical course ”.

Tracer

The Wyoming Oregon Trail Commission, in close collaboration with Grace Hebard and H. G. Nickerson, set up at least 31 markings across Wyoming between 1913 and 1915.

Hebard had a passion for marking, preserving, and commemorating the rapidly disappearing western border. She helped found organizations such as the Wyoming Oregon Trail Commission and was involved in the Wyoming Historical Association and the State Association of the Daughters of the American Revolution . As the official historian for the Daughters , she helped set up and dedicate historical markers in elaborate unveiling ceremonies at locations across Wyoming. Locations included major Oregon Trail locations such as Fort Laramie and Independence Rock, as well as lesser-known sites along the Bozeman Trail and the Pony Express route.

In search of traces of the road, Hebard was constantly on the move, in summer by horse and cart and later by car, in winter sometimes even with snowshoes. While marking the Oregon Trail in western Wyoming with Civil War veteran and former bullwhacker H. G. Nickerson, who made a significant contribution to the endeavor, she noted:

" [..] with a team [of horses] about 800 miles, consuming the warm months of the summer of 1913 and 1914, with much inconvenience and hardship, owing to the frequent rain storms, and often high winds, deep dust and the mosquitoes, the insects often driving us from the streams out in the hills or plains to camp, making camping in the open country very disagreeable [..] "

“[..] with a team [of horses] about 800 miles, which took up the warm months of the summer of 1913 and 1914, with many inconveniences and privations, because of the frequent rainstorms and often strong winds, the deep dust and the mosquitoes where the insects often drove us from the streams into the hills or plains to camp and made camping in the open country very uncomfortable [..] "

- Grace Raymond Hebard

Out-of-the-way places were often part of the marking of paths. But Wyoming's remote grasslands and mountain passes did not stop trail proponents like Hebard and the Daughters of the American Revolution from holding ceremonial unveiling ceremonies with music and "religious, patriotic, and historical exercises, prayers, national songs, and speeches" in such locations . The stone markings (some weighing several tons) put up by Hebard, Nickerson, Ezra Meeker, and others are still found across Wyoming and document the state's early efforts to preserve its history.

Political activities

Among her many activities, Hebard reportedly found her work on Americanization to be particularly valuable. Frank Van Nuys has discovered that a 1935 Wyoming News testimonial stated that Hebard-issued certificates of preparation for naturalization were accepted by the United States District Court in lieu of citizenship exams. Van Nuys continues, “This kind of clout suggests Grace Hebard's Americanization venture, which began in 1916, deserves closer examination. While the evidence of their work is fragmentary, Hebard stands in an essentially progressive tradition of qualified optimism about immigrants' ability to conform to Anglo-American cultural norms. "

Hebard's teaching of new Americans coincided with the largest wave of immigration the country has ever seen: between 1880 and 1915, millions of new immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe came to the United States, mostly via Ellis Island. The new Americans, with their new languages, foods, and customs, were not always welcome. Hebard's progressive work with the immigrants in Laramie contrasted sharply with the national tensions between residents and immigrants.

Wyoming was the first of the western territories or states to introduce women's suffrage when Governor John A. Campbell signed the Suffrage Act on December 10, 1869. Hebard said in retrospect in 1920: “I have never seen an anti-women's rights activist. You know, we've had women's suffrage out in Wyoming for fifty years, and there's not a single anti-women's rights activist in our state - let alone a woman. " It was not entirely without opposition, however, and so Esther Hobart Morris made history for women in Wyoming in 1870 when she was appointed the nation's first female justice of the peace. Hebard and Nickerson built a first Morris memorial near Morris' home in South Pass City in 1920 . It was later replaced with a granite stone with an inscription identifying Morris as a co-author of Wyoming's Suffrage Act. This claim of Hebard is controversial. The Wyoming Division of State Park's and Historic Sites has attempted to correct the record by stating that "recent studies suggest that [William H.] Bright was the sole author of the Suffrage Act."

National suffragettes saw Wyoming as a strong case for women's suffrage when states voted on the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution that gave women the right to vote. Carrie Chapman Catt , who was president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association , claimed that Wyoming “provided so much evidence of the positive community good that emerged from women's votes that it was the direct cause of the establishment of women's suffrage in all surrounding states ". Catt and others equally praised Hebard's feminist role model. The suffragettes were eager to uphold her as an example of "the finest type of American femininity," according to former Wyoming State historian Agnes Wright Spring . The fact that Hebard happened to live in Laramie as a trailblazer for women reinforced her credibility as a role model. Because in Laramie the nation's first women vote was cast and women sat on a jury for the first time. Both historical events occurred in 1870, before Hebard finished her studies in Iowa.

Hebard's very own contribution as a suffragette came when she asked the Wyoming Constitutional Convention to adopt a suffrage clause before Wyoming joined the Union on July 10, 1890. In addition, Hebard was hired by national suffragettes to serve in the National American Woman Suffrage Association and later as a member of the Suffrage Emergency Brigade . The latter group worked with the Connecticut governor to have the state legislature become the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment. Hebard was later one of the select few to speak at the 1920 Chicago suffragette party after the 19th Amendment was passed.

The connection with the national suffragette leader Catt enabled Hebard to land a kind of "academic coup" in 1921. Hebard teamed up with Professor June Downey to persuade faculty members to give Carrie Chapman Catt the first honorary degree from the University of Wyoming. Catt came to Laramie to accept the university honor and deliver the bachelor's degree. The symbolic power of Catt's coming to Laramie, where women made history as voters and lawyers, was evident. After winning the right to vote, Hebard Catt telegraphed to the headquarters of the National American Woman Suffrage Association : “Congratulations to you on this the first anniversary of the birth of national suffrage. I thank you for the Tennessee touchdown which scored victory ".

Last years

The Doctors' Inn in Laramie, WY, 2017

Gravestones from Hebard and Wergeland in Greenhill Cemetery in Laramie, WY, 2017

Hebard maintained a close relationship with her professor colleague Agnes M. Wergeland . Wergeland, a Norwegian immigrant, was the first woman from her country to obtain a doctorate. Wergeland became a US citizen in 1902 and found Hebard to be an ideal teacher for Americanization. Hebard noted, “Dr. Wergeland never had a real idea of ​​what the right to vote meant for women until she came to Wyoming, where women are in no way restricted in their right to vote. "

Grace Hebard retired from teaching in 1931. Nonetheless, she continued to research and collect historical material in her Laramie home, known to students and colleagues as "The Doctors Inn". Hebard lived in this house that she had built with Wergeland, who died in 1914. Hebard's sister Alice Marvin Hebard then lived there until her death in 1928.

Hebard died in October 1936 at the age of 75. The University of Wyoming held a memorial service in her honor later that month. The influence and importance of Hebard's work can be seen in the 50-page in-memoria published by her faculty colleagues.

Carrie Chapman Catt wrote: “I shall miss Dr. Hebard more than words can say. My sympathy is extended to the University and all the Wyoming friends. She lived a great life. “ The youth, especially the students, played a special role in Hebard's life, as can be seen from the statements of fellow students, lecturers and citizens. The program of the commemoration included a statement from University President Crane: "Most of all, she was a friend to generations of students." Similarly, an editorial in the student newspaper Branding Iron of October 12, 1936 stated: “With the death of Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, the students at the university lost a friend. ”Hebard furthered her legacy by funding a number of scholarships, including The Agnes Mathilde Wergeland Memorial History Scholarship , The Alice Marven Hebard Memorial Fund and the Hebard Map Scholarship Fund .

Hebard is buried across campus in Greenhill Cemetery in Laramie near her sister Alice and friend Wergeland. There is a plaque on Independence Rock for Hebard on the Oregon Trail. Before her death, she bequeathed her extensive estate to the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. The University of Iowa also has documents in its archives.

Web links

Commons : Grace Raymond Hebard  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Thomas H. Johnson: Also Called Sacajawea: Chief Woman's Stolen Identity . Waveland Press, Inc., Long Grove, IL 2007, ISBN 978-1-57766-534-2 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Deborah Hardy: Wyoming University: The First 100 Years, 1886-1986 . University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 1986, ISBN 978-0-941570-01-5 .
3. ↑ ^{a b} Grace R. Hebard Papers . University of Iowa Libraries. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
4. ^ ^{A b c} Virginia Scharff: Grace Raymond Hebard: The Independent and Feminine Life; 1861-1936 . In: Geraldine Joncich Clifford (Ed.): Lone Voyagers: Academic Women in Coeducational Universities. 1870-1937 . The Feminist Press, City University of New York, New York City 1989, ISBN 978-0-935312-84-3 .
5. ↑ George W. Hufsmith: The Wyoming Lynching of Cattle Kate: 1889 . High Plains Press, Glendo, WY 1993, ISBN 978-0-931271-16-8 .
6. ^ ^{A b c} The History and Romance of Wyoming: Grace Raymond Hebard . University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center. Archived from the original on August 20, 2008. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
7. ^ ^{A b} Virginia Scharff: Twenty Thousand Roads: Women, Movement, and the West . University of California Press, Oakland, CA 2002, ISBN 978-0-520-23777-3 .
8. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} In memoriam; Grace Raymond Hebard, 1861-1936 . University of Wyoming Libraries. 1937. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
9. ^ Grace Raymond Hebard: First University of Wyoming Librarian . In: Wyoming Library Roundup . Winter. Wyoming Library Association, 2006, pp. 18 ( archive.org [PDF]).
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Shaaron Cosner and Jennifer R. Scanlon: American Women Historians, 1700s-1990s: A Biographical Dictionary . Greenwood, Santa Barbara, CA 1996, ISBN 978-0-313-29664-2 .
11. ↑ Randy C. Bunney: Oregon Trailways . University of Wyoming (Thesis MA, Coe Library. AmSt 1993 .B885), Laramie, WY 1993.
12. ↑ Janell M. Wenzel: Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard as western historian . University of Wyoming (Thesis MA, Coe Library. AmSt 1960 .W488), Laramie, WY 1960.
13. ^ ^{A b} UW Graduate's Book Looks Into Hebard's History Writings . University of Wyoming News Service. September 7, 2005. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
14. ^ ^{A b c} Grace Raymond Hebard: Sacajawea. A guide and interpreter of the Lewis and Clark expedition, with an account of the travels of Toussaint Charbonneau, and of Jean Baptiste, the expedition papoose . Arthur H. Clark Company, Norman, OK 1933.
15. ^ ^{A b c d} "Marking the Oregon Trail, the Bozeman Road and Historic Places in Wyoming 1908-1920," by Grace Raymond Hebard. Published by the Daughters of the American Revolution of Wyoming, no date.
16. ↑ Victoria Lamont: "More Than She Deserves": Woman Suffrage Memorials in the "Equality State" . In: Canadian Review of American Studies . tape 36 , no. 1 , 2006, p. 17-43 , doi : 10.1353 / crv.2006.0027 .
17. ^ Frank Van Nuys: My One Hobby: Grace Raymond Hebard and Americanization in Wyoming . Archived from the original on April 27, 2009. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
18. ^ J William T Youngs: American Realities: Historical Episodes from Reconstruction to the Present . Little, Brown and Company, Boston, MA 1987, ISBN 0-316-97741-1 .
19. ↑ Rena Delbride: Trailblazer: Wyoming's first female judge, Esther Hobart Morris was ahead of her time. . Made in Wyoming, Our Legacy of Success. Archived from the original on April 26, 2009. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
20. ↑ James W. Loewen: Lies Across America: What our historic sites get wrong . Simon and Schuster, New York City 2007, ISBN 0-7432-9629-X .
21. ^ TA Larson: Origins of Women's Suffrage . In: Roger Daniels (Ed.): Essays in Western History in honor of TA Larson . University of Wyoming Publications, Laramie, WY 1971.
22. ^ Dorothy Gray: Women of the West . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE 1998.
23. ↑ Michael Heffernan and Carol Medlicot: A Feminine Atlas? Sacagewea, the Suffragettes and the Commemorative Landscape in the American West, 1904-1910 . In: A Journal of Feminist Geography . tape 9 , no. 2 , 2002, p. 109-131 , doi : 10.1080 / 09663960220139644 .
24. ↑ Women celebrate year of suffrage . In: New York Times . August 27, 1921 ( nytimes.com ). Tennessee was the 36th state to pass the amendment, providing the number needed to pass the franchise amendment nationally.
25. ^ Larry Emil Scott: The Poetry of Agnes Mathilde Wergeland . In: Norwegian-American Studies . tape 30 , 1985, pp. 273-292 , JSTOR : 45221569 .
26. ↑ Inventory of the Grace Raymond Hebard papers, 1829-1947 . University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center. Retrieved June 14, 2021.
27. ^ University of Wyoming Collections | Browse Grace Raymond Hebard Papers . University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center. Retrieved June 14, 2021.