"I Do Not Apologize for the Length of This Letter": The Mari Sandoz Letters on Native American Rights, 1940-1965

Plains Histories

by Kimberli A. Lee (Editor), John R. Wunder (Foreword)

Now it is time for you to read the letters of Mari Sandoz. If it has been a clear summer day and it is near sundown, take this book and a cool drink outside and soak in the wisdom of a writer with a cause. —John R. Wunder, from the forewordAuthor Mari Sandoz was as passionate about Plains peoples as she was about language and literary acclaim. That the mastery of Crazy Horse’s biographer spilled into her zealous advocacy for Native Americans is scarcely surprising. An avid letter writer, Sandoz kept carbons of everything. Fortunately these came into the Sandoz Collection at the University of Nebraska Archives, organized by Kimberli A. Lee, foremost expert on Sandoz’s writings.Though Sandoz richly deserves attention, recent scholarship is scant. In arranging and analyzing this correspondence, Lee reinstates Sandoz as one of the most significant non-Native chroniclers and advocates for Plains Indian cultures. There is much here for historians and other scholars of American Indian, Great Plains, rhetorical, and women’s studies. Yet Sandoz’s wider fan base should not be surprised to hearken to a voice and ardor they will find well familiar.

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Carla]

Having never read a collection of letters before I was pleasantly surprised to find it so enjoyable, revealing, interesting. As editor, Kimberli Lee does a great job laying out the context for these letters by Mari Sandoz on 'Native American rights, 1940-1965' and by placing Sandoz in context both as a white woman writing about indigenous issues and as one of the few white people who were advocating for the rights of Natives during the years of 1940 and 1965 when it was absolutely unpatriotic to suggest ways of being other than that of the most narrow rendering of white middle-class America.