Nikita Alagoz

Global City HON101 TR 10-12

11/12/2014
The Native American Fight against Misrepresentation at the 1893 Worlds Fair
The Chicago Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 was created in order for the nations
and peoples of the world to showcase their very best. It was a place where the different nations
could show the world their uniqueness and the ways in which they could stand higher than the
rest. In a way the fair gave everyone a chance to show where they came from, but it wasnt just
to show where and how they had originated, it was also to show the world how they had
progressed as a people. In Melissa Rineharts article To Hell with the Wigs she writes
indepthly of the Native American tribes and how they were allowed to portray themselves in the
various exhibits at the Columbian Worlds Exposition and how unjust it was. Rinehart argues that
the Native American people were represented unfairly, unjustly, and without regards to how they
wished to be portrayed, and because they were misrepresented they fought back against the
Worlds Columbian Exposition Commissioners in their own ways. She does this by first showing
how the Native Americans wanted to be represented, as a people who were not savages, but had
a rich heritage and had progressed greatly since Columbuss arrival in the Americas. She then
goes through each individual exhibit where Native Americans were represented and how the
organizers chose to focus on showing the Native Americans traditionally in all their savagery in
order to please the millions of tourists. Naturally not being allowed to show that themselves as
they lived in the current day and age, the native americans were angered at the misconceptions
the tourists got and chose to act out in any way they could.

Rinehart structures her arcticle in a very methodical way using the first half to present the
evidence for her argument, and then using the second half to discuss her evidence and prove her
point. The first half of the article Rineharts goes through first the planning of the Expositions
Native American exhibits and what the chief director wanted to achieve with the Native
American representation. From there she moves through the Expositions Exhibits as they were
recieved by the public, both the caucasuian and native American, and all the opposition they
encountered from both sides. It is in this part of the article where most of the primary evidence is
used, with the chief category of primary evidence being newspaper articles. Most of the
newspaper articles used were from Chicago based papers, namely the Chicago Tribune and the
Chicago Inter Ocean but there were many others, including a number of Native American papers
which Rinehart uses to get the native American perspective on the Fair. Another notable
category of evidence are official reports on the fair and records of correspondence between the
chief directors and commissioners of the Columbian Exposition.
In order to show that the Native Americans were misrepresented by the comiisioners of
the Worlds Columbian exposition Rinehart first argues that commissioners were trying to portray
the Native Americans in the wrong way. Here is where Rinehart uses the correspondence
between the commissioners and chief directors of the exposition, namely Fredric Putnam, as
primary evidence. It was Fredric Putnam who was responsible for the overall theme behind the
Native Americans portrayal at the Columbian Exposition and it was his idea to show the Native
Americans as they lived at the arrival of Christopher Columbus. This was not at all how the
Native Americans wanted to be portrayed and Rinehart uses a correspondence from one of
Putnams own employees who was opposed to the idea to prove this. The former employee,
emma Sickels, had this to say on the subject, If the civilized Indians got a representration in the

fair the public would wake up to the capabilities of the Idians for self-government and realize
that all they needed was to be left alone.(Rinehart 407) Sickels having worked previously on an
Native American reservation had a good idea of how they would want to be portrayed and how
the way the director wanted to portray them was not at all in the Native Americans best interest.
It was Sickels who argued that the native americans should be presented, at least somewhat as
civilized Indians and show their progression as people since Columbuss arrival, an idea that
was altogether dismissed by the higher ups. Rinehart then uses more official documents to state
that Sickels was fired for her opposition to Putnam, showing that the director would not stand for
the idea that his view was wrong. After showing Putnams vision for the portrayal of the Native
Americans and how it was opposed by his own staff, Rinehart then uses other primary evidence
to show the Native Americans opposition.
Rinehart does well in using the newspaper articles on the Columbian Worlds Fair to
show how the public received the Native American exhibits and how this angered the Native
Americans.