Oneida

Oneida Reservation, Wi, 1902. Very good.. 12pp. Gathered signatures, stapled. Dark stain to bottom corner throughout, minor dust soiling and edge wear. An informative issue of Oneida, a humble periodical irregularly published by the Hobart Church Mission House on the Oneida Reservation in Wisconsin. The present issue was printed during Michaelmas in 1902 "simply for the purpose of 'keeping our memory green' among those who already know us and have aided us in our work hitherto." The text relates passages on the Oneida Mission, the Oneida Hospital, Oneida lace and basketry, the "Government Boarding School," the Oneida Creamery, and an appeal for donations. The hospital section discusses the work of three important figures at Oneida: Dr. Zilpha Wilson, the physician in charge at the Government Boarding School after her tenure at Northwestern University; Nancy Cornelius, an indigenous nurse who graduated from Carlisle School and the Hartford Training School for Nurses; and "our future physician" Josiah Powless, an indigenous man born at Oneida twenty-three years earlier and currently in his third year at Milwaukee Medical College. The work is illustrated with portraits of the three medical figures, plus views of the mission buildings, scenes inside the school and creamery, and more. The Wisconsin Historical Society reports that seven issues of Oneida were produced between 1897 and 1906, and apparently has the issues on microfilm; their archives has an unspecified number of physical issues. Only one other institution, Columbia, reports any physical examples, holding the 1901 issue and an issue from Epiphany in 1902. The present Michaelmas 1902 issue is, rather clearly, a rare survival.