Contours of Thought: The 1939 Toronto-Yale Conference on the North American Indian

• In Event: 64.039 - Federal Policies and Educational Borders: Teachers, Standards, and Nations at Risk

Abstract

In September 1939, a conference was held in Toronto to discuss the Indigenous peoples of North America. Sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation, the 12-day event was the fifth organized by Yale anthropologist Charles Loram. Part of the rationale for hosting the conference lay in Loram’s belief that despite some similarities, there was a “very real difference between the peoples of the United States and Canada” in dealing with Aboriginal affairs. In this paper, I compare the diverse “contours of thought” regarding Indian affairs as expressed by the American and Canadian conference presenters. Findings reveal the ideological roots of the two nations’ different policy trajectories, and illuminate the perspectives of Indigenous rights activists on the eve of World War II.

Author

• Helen S. Raptis, University of Victoria