Meriam Report

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The Meriam Report , officially titled The Problem of Indian Administration, is an investigation into the situation of Native Americans commissioned by the Brookings Institution in 1926 and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation . The investigation was named after Lewis Meriam, the technical director of the investigation. On February 21, 1928, Lewis Meriam presented an 847-page report to the then American Secretary of the Interior, Hubert Work .

The report resulted in a complete turning point in United States Indian policy. Many Americans were shocked by the content of the investigation. According to the research, most of the Indians lived in poverty . Their dwellings and sanitary facilities were appalling, their health frightening. The education in the boarding schools for Indian children, which were mostly far from the reservations, was described as pointless and counter-productive. The boarding schools alienated the children from their own parents and their own culture, as speaking their own language was forbidden in the boarding schools. The Indians are generally unhappy and without any hope. The report spoke plainly and attributed this dreary situation to the assimilation policies of the past decades. If the policy previously aimed at integrating the natives into the American individual society dominated by whites, the investigation led to a turning point. On June 18, 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a new law, the Indian Reorganization Act , which changed the philosophy of assimilation to a policy of cultural pluralism. As a result of the investigation, the demolition of the reservations was stopped by the Dawes Act . Reserves could pass their own constitutions and form governments. Schools sprang up in the reservations. President Roosevelt also appointed well-known Native American critic and supporter, John Collier, to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the division of the Home Office that had previously been responsible for breaking the reservations.

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