The Progress (White Earth, Minn.), March 25, 1886. 1886. Newspaper. Library of Congress Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83016853/1886-03-25/ed-1/.
After viewing and discussing American Progress, students will be introduced to The Progress. Background information about the paper will be shared so that students will understand why it was produced and its significance. Next, students will analyze the content and style of several of the articles and discuss the connection to the authors’ perspectives. Then, students will learn that the local Bureau of Indian Affairs agent seized the press after this issue was published and will learn about the legal battle that the paper eventually won. Finally, students will reflect on why the agent might have felt threatened by the paper and whether or not the authors predicted such feelings. By the end of the lesson, students will understand the importance of local newspapers for rural communities in the past and today.
The Progress was the first newspaper in Minnesota to be published on a reservation by tribal members. The publishers used it as a means of voicing the political views, which a local BIA agent shut down, leading to a legal battle that helped affirm that the freedom of the press extends to Native Americans.
Source: https://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/hub/progress
- How did the perspective of the Beaulieus, as members of the White Earth Nation, shape the content of The Progress?
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- What topics do you notice in The Progress?
- What do you notice about the rhetoric? Why did the Beaulieus use this language when writing about these topics?
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- Extension Questions:
- How did the perspective of the Beaulieus, as members of the White Earth Nation, shape the writing style of The Progress?
- How might the closing of local newspapers harm rural communities?
ELA Standard
10.1.6.1. Analyze how the author’s, including Dakota and Anishinaabe authors, purpose, stated identities, biases and perspective shape the content and style of a text.
Social Studies Standard
9.4.20.12. U.S. History Era 6: Migration, Imperialism, and Inequality - Interpret historical sources created by North American Indigenous peoples and other colonized peoples (i.e., Cubans, Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, Hawaiians, etc.) in order to examine how they responded to changes in federal Indian policy and/or foreign policy, especially regarding migration, forced removal, sovereignty, land ownership, education, religion and assimilation. Analyze how current interpretations of the past are limited by the extent to which available historical sources represent perspectives of people at the time.
Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and or personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
- Project American Progress painting.
- Have students respond to and discuss the following questions via Think-Write-Pair-Share:
- What do you observe?
- What can you infer?
- What questions do you have?
- Discuss responses as a class.
- Inform students that they will be reading articles written by members of the White Earth Nation. At that time, the United States wanted to dissolve Native American territories and assimilate the peoples. One plan was to consolidate different tribes, requiring some of them to leave their ancestral lands. The Indigenous communities often felt unheard during these plans. The Progress was a paper published by members of the White Earth Reservation, the first one in Minnesota to do so. It provided an opportunity for them to express their opinions.
- Click on the pdf view of the newspaper.
- Model analyzing for content and style with “Salutatory” section.
- In groups of 3–4, have students read “Consolidation.” While reading it, they will fill out a three-column chart. The first column will contain the paragraph numbers that they are analyzing, the middle column will list the main points from the paragraph(s), and the third column will list rhetorical moves used in the paragraph(s).
- When groups are done, facilitate a whole-class discussion:
- What were the main points of the article?
- What were the main craft moves?
- How did the author’s perspective determine the content?
- How did the author’s perspective determine the style?
- Now have students independently read the article on the front page “Following the Ada Convention” and complete another content and style chart on their own.
- When students are done, have them compare their responses with their group members from earlier in the lesson.
- Debrief as a class, focusing on the content and style of the article in connection to the perspectives of the writers. Inform students that after this issue was published, the press was seized, and another issue was not published until almost a year and half later, after a US Senate subcommittee hearing in Washington D.C. decided that White Earth members were entitled to freedom of the press.
- Lead a brief whole-class discussion to connect The Progress incident to current times:
- How might the community have been impacted by the closure of The Progress?
- How are rural communities today harmed when their local newspapers are forced to close because of financial reasons?
- How can rural communities support their local newspapers to ensure they stay open?
- Exit slip: What are some elements of the front page that might have made the local BIA agent, Timothy Sheehan, want to silence the press? Why? Through their writing, did the publishers try to prevent Sheehan’s actions? Explain.
- Extension opportunities:
- Compare the rhetoric and tone of this front page to that of the front page of the next issue: The Progress, October 8, 1887. How and why are they different?
- Have students analyze Reversing Manifest Destiny.
- Have students practice addressing opposing viewpoints in their arguments with the Read-Write-Think lesson Finding Common Ground: Using Logical, Audience-Specific Arguments.
The Progress (White Earth, Minn.), October 22, 1887. 1887. Newspaper. Library of Congress Chronicling America. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83016853/1887-10-22/ed-1/.