The Real All Americans by Sally Jenkins

Author:Sally Jenkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780385522991
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-07-26T16:00:00+00:00

BY THE fall of 1900, Pratt was growing weary. Carlisle was an immensely needful institution of 1,218 students from seventy-six tribes, some of whom behaved tiresomely, as boarding students will. Pratt was sixty years old, and the constant care of so many pupils and the maintenance of such a large campus would strain any man’s abilities, much less those of an aging one. His correspondence that autumn reflects his fatigue.

Six pupils died, five from tuberculosis and one from pneumonia. Several pairs of uniform trousers had to be burned because they were exposed to diphtheria.

Enormous amounts of supplies had to be ordered to keep the school running efficiently and cleanly. The laundry was an industrial-sized operation powered by electric motors, a constant tumbling of washers and centrifugal wringers that consumed 1,400 pounds of liquid soap, 600 pounds of starch, and 14,000 pounds of laundry soap a year.

In the kitchens, student cooks stirred huge pots full of cereals and stews. Just to start the term, Pratt ordered 5,000 pounds of bacon, 9,000 pounds of beans, 190,000 pounds of beef, 180,000 pounds of flour, 4,000 pounds of hominy, 6,000 pounds of rolled oats, and 14,000 pounds of dried fruit.

Clothing wore out quickly. Students went through 800 pairs of overalls, 100 girls’ coats, 600 boys’ undershirts, and 60 dozen men’s collars.

Boilers broke and steam drums needed maintenance.

Seven hundred and seventy-five desks needed refinishing. Two hundred and fifty mattresses and pillows were moth-eaten and had to be replaced. Textbooks became tattered: he ordered new copies of Higgins’ Young Folks History of the United States and Fry’s Complete Geographies.34

Then there were the supplies needed for the trade shops: 2,000 tons of soft coal, 400 pounds of nails, 60 pounds of rivets, 300 gallons of linseed oil, 10,000 feet of white pine boards, and tons of cement, plaster, iron, glass, and tin. Not to mention the braces, drills, vises, caps, nozzles, valves, loops, eyelets, plates, reaches, nuts, shackles, clips, bolts, sockets, poles, props, tips, buckles, bits, bands, screws, shears, shovels, steps, and springs he had to remember to order.

He was swamped by correspondence. The government pestered him for paperwork on the smallest matters, down to the feed for his cavalry horses. Letters came in from tradesmen seeking payment. Concerned or unhappy parents wrote, begging for children to be sent home, while reservation agents pestered him to accept more students.

Students pulled pranks, and they broke rules. They got sick, and sometimes they got pregnant. They drank, smoked, and ran away.

Boys went to a local market and bought bottles of vanilla extract, which was 75 percent alcohol, to try to get a high. The town was full of taverns, and barkeeps ignored Pratt’s edict not to sell drinks to students. Pratt’s method of dealing with these pupils was a stint in the old stone guardhouse on a diet of bread and water. Passers-by could sometimes hear the moans coming from inside.35

One night, a party of incorrigibles went on a soused rampage. They got hold of some firearms, which they took to the athletic field, where they engaged in some “Wild West shooting.

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