Portrait of Zitkala-Sa by Gertrude Kasebier, about 1898. Zitkala-Sa was the pen name of writer and activist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (1876-1938).  She exposed the hardships faced by students at Native American boarding schools by writing about her own experiences as a student and as a teacher.  Zitkala-Sa also published a book of tribal folklore called Old Indian Legends and composed The Sun Dance Opera with composer William F. Hanson.  In 1930, Zitkala-Sa founded the National Council of American Indians, the first trans-tribal Native American organization to lobby the government for better treatment of Natives.  A selection of Zitkala-Sa’s writings can be read online here. An analysis of Gertrude Kasebier’s portraits of Zitkala-Sa can be read here.

Portrait of Zitkala-Sa by Gertrude Kasebier, about 1898.

Zitkala-Sa was the pen name of writer and activist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (1876-1938).  She exposed the hardships faced by students at Native American boarding schools by writing about her own experiences as a student and as a teacher.  Zitkala-Sa also published a book of tribal folklore called Old Indian Legends and composed The Sun Dance Opera with composer William F. Hanson. 

In 1930, Zitkala-Sa founded the National Council of American Indians, the first trans-tribal Native American organization to lobby the government for better treatment of Natives. 

A selection of Zitkala-Sa’s writings can be read online here.

An analysis of Gertrude Kasebier’s portraits of Zitkala-Sa can be read here.