Doris Duke Indian Oral History Program Archives

An Inventory of Its Records at the University of Illinois Archives

Administrative History

Beginning in 1966, American Tobacco company and Duke Power heiress Doris Duke made yearly grants of roughly $50,000 in Duke to the universities of Arizona, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah in an effort to collect Native American oral histories. Under the direction of Anthropology Professor Edward M. Bruner, University of Illinois graduate students and faculty used the Duke Project funds to further their research on Native Americans and gather data for an oral history archive. The individual field workers gathered oral history from the Native American point of view, collated and organized the data they had collected, and then were expected to employ these materials in theses, papers, and monographs on Native American history and culture. Field workers obtained data from many Native American groups in both the United States and Canada.

Scope and Contents

The Doris Duke American Indian Oral History Program finding aid organizes the material into two major sub-series: Field Worker Reports and a Music Archives. According to the guidelines established by Professor Edward Bruner, individual field workers, primarily anthropology graduate students, gathered the raw materials of history and then collated and organized this data for the Doris Duke Archives. The archival material and the index for each project have been prepared by the same person. Every report, however, was subsequently checked for accuracy by a Duke Program archivist. Field workers collected documentary material as well as oral testimony. This documentary material includes letters, diaries, autobiographies, tribal council minutes, tribal newsletters, newspaper clippings, special notices, and reports of meetings and conferences. The Archives also contains photographs and recordings of Native American music. Bruno Nettl supervised the gathering of this music.

The FIELD WORKER REPORTS sub-series contains published research articles, dissertations, oral histories, photographs, and documentary material. The sub-series is organized alphabetically by field worker's last name.

The MUSIC ARCHIVES holds recordings of Native American music. Represented tribes include the Arapaho, Shoshone, Cheyenne, Cree, Crow, Havasupai, Kwakiutl, and Coast Salish.

Arrangement

Alphabetical by field worker's last name

Restrictions

Restrictions on Access and Use

Access to portions of the collection requires permission from a field worker or archivist. Please contact the University of Illinois Archives for further information.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Doris Duke American Indian Oral History Program Archives, University of Illinois Archives Record Series 15/2/32

Acquisition Information

In the 1970s, Norma Linton served as the Doris Duke project archivist and provided a detailed description of the materials. Basic physical and intellectual control were established over the archives, and the materials were then placed in four locked cabinets in an attic of Davenport Hall. In the Fall of 2001, a committee consisting of Brenda Farnell, Fred Hoxie, Edward Bruner and Anthropology Department chair Paul Garber consulted with Assistant University Archivist Christopher Prom and recommended that the materials be formally transferred to the University Archives. In the Spring of 2002, the materials were checked for completeness against the earlier inventory and were rehoused into acid-free folders and archival storage boxes by Joy Sather-Wagstaff, a graduate assistant employed by the Anthropology Department. Although a few items were noticed to be missing during this round of processing, the materials were transferred to the Archives for final processing on November 13, 2002.

Detailed Description/Box and Folder Listing

ADMINISTRATIVE FILES. Box 1 - 1

FIELD WORKER REPORTS. Box 2 - 41

MUSIC ARCHIVES. Box 42 - 43

OVERSIZE MATERIALS. Box 48 - 48