Hope Cecelia Svinth Carpenter (1924–2010) was the first historian to write in detail about the

Nisqually people The Nisqually is a Lushootseed-speaking Native American tribe in western Washington state in the United States. They are a Southern Coast Salish people. They are federally recognized as the Nisqually Indian Tribe, formerly known as the Nisqual ...

.Lynda V. Mapes, ''Seattle Times'' staff reporter: "Obituary: Hope Cecelia Svinth Carpenter, 85, tribal elder, historian", ''The Seattle Times'', http://seattletimes.com/html/obituaries/2012239309_carpenter30m.html, originally published Tuesday, June 29, 2010 at 10:02 PM.Cecelia Svinth Carpenter, Maria Victoria Pascualy, and Trisha Hunter: ''Nisqually Indian Tribe'', Images of America Series,

Arcadia Publishing Arcadia Publishing is an American publisher of neighborhood, local, and regional history of the United States in pictorial form.(analysis of the successful ''Images of America'' series). Arcadia Publishing also runs the History Press, which publi ...

, Mount Pleasant, S.C., 2008; , . As a

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, Washington, Olympia, and northwest of Mount ...

schoolteacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. wh ...

and enrolled member of the Nisqually tribe, when Carpenter discovered that her students' history books provided an inaccurate relation of the history of native people, she began researching and writing the tribe's history to set the record straight. Relying upon only primary sources and original documents, which took her to distant archival repositories such as the

U.S. National Archives The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, and

London, England London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

to locate original materials, she authored some 23 books.WorldCat search, http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=Cecelia+Svinth+Carpenter, 30 Aug 2013. Carpenter's expertise in writing and disseminating the history of the

as a record of and supplement to their rich traditional

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...

earned her the office of Nisqually tribal historian, chief consultant on

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

history for the permanent exhibit of the

Washington State Historical Society The Washington State Historical Society is the historical society of the U.S. state of Washington. Based in Tacoma, it is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and is a trustee agency of the state. It was founded in 1891. The board of trustees of the society incl ...

, and curator of the society's ''Remembering Medicine Creek'' exhibit at the

Washington State History Museum The Washington State History Museum is a history museum located in downtown Tacoma, Washington, United States. It is operated by the Washington State Historical Society under the official approval of the Washington State Legislature. The museu ...

Personal

Daughter of Hans Svinth, a

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

-born

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

pastor, and Mary Svinth, a Nisqually woman, Carpenter was the twelfth of thirteen children raised on a family farm seven miles east of

Roy, Washington Roy is a city in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 816 at the 2020 census. History Roy was officially incorporated on January 16, 1908. It is a rural city outside Tacoma and primarily features ranch-style homes and f ...

. At age 17, she married Marvin G. Carpenter and began raising a family. When her children were older, she returned to school and earned her high-school diploma through

night school A night school is an adult learning school that holds classes in the evening or at night to accommodate people who work during the day. A community college or university may hold night school classes that admit undergraduates. Italy The Scuola ...

. She went on to earn a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in 1966 and a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

Pacific Lutheran University Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) is a private Lutheran university in Parkland, Washington. It was founded by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants in 1890. PLU is sponsored by the 580 congregations of Region I of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ame ...

, and to teach in the public schools for sixteen years in Tacoma at the junior-high and high-school levels. She died June 25, 2010, in

, at the age of 85.

Awards

Carpenter won many awards during her writing career, including the Washington State Governor's Ethnic Heritage Award in 1990, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the

University of Puget Sound The University of Puget Sound (UPS or Puget Sound) is a private university in Tacoma, Washington. The university draws approximately 2,600 students from 44 states and 16 countries. It offers 1,200 courses each year in more than 50 traditional an ...

in 1993, the

Distinguished Alumnus Award for achievement of professional distinction through sustained dedication and service in 1994,Pacific Lutheran University Office of Alumni & Constituent Relations, Distinguished Alumnus Award, http://www.plu.edu/alumni/Get-Involved/Alumni-Recognition/All-Award-Recepients.php , accessed 30 Aug 2013. a

Murray Morgan Murray Cromwell Morgan (1916–2000) was an author and historian of the Puget Sound region. Throughout his life he was also a writer, journalist, and political activist. He was a history teacher at Tacoma Community College. Early life Murray Morg ...

award from the Tacoma Historical Society in 1994,Tacoma Historical Society, http://www.tacomahistory.org/Society/awards.html, accessed September 14, 2015. and the Award of Merit from the

American Association for State and Local History The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) is a non-profit association for state and local history, with a primary focus on history professionals, history volunteers, museums, historical societies, and other history-related organi ...

in 2003.

Selected works

* ''The Troubled Waters of Medicine Creek : An Investigation into the Nature of the Fishing Rights Arising from the Medicine Creek Indian Treaty of 1854'' (Thesis, Pacific Lutheran University, 1971) * ''They Walked Before : The Indians of Washington State'' (1977) * ''How to Research American Indian Blood Lines : A Manual on Indian Genealogical Research'' (1984) * ''Fort Nisqually : A Documented History of Indian and British Interaction'' (1986) * '' Leschi : Last Chief of the Nisquallies'' (1986) * ''Where the Waters Begin : The Traditional Nisqually Indian History of

Mount Rainier Mount Rainier (), indigenously known as Tahoma, Tacoma, Tacobet, or təqʷubəʔ, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With a s ...

'' (1994) * ''The Treaties, The Councils & The Reservation'' (Washington State Capital Museum, 1992) * ''The Seasonal Round of Life in Traditional Times'' (Washington State Capital Museum, 1992) * ''Tears of Internment : The Indian History of Fox Island and the Puget Sound Indian War'' (1996) * ''The Nisqually—My People : The Traditional and Transitional History of the Nisqually Indian People'' (2002) * ''Remembering Medicine Creek: The Story of the First Treaty Signed in Washington'', with Maria Pascually (2005) * ''Stolen Lands : The Story of the Dispossessed Nisquallies'' (2007) * ''Nisqually Indian Tribe'' (2008)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carpenter, Cecelia 1924 births 2010 deaths Cultural historians 20th-century American writers 21st-century American writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers People from Pierce County, Washington 20th-century American historians American educators American women historians Historians from Washington (state)