Undergraduate research and community-based learning are key components of Reckoning With Lancaster, a curricular project at F&M supported by a Humanities for All Time Grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Students Jessica Kinker ’26 and Hallie Hushion ’25 had a chance to experience both this summer while researching the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.

Kinker and Hushion documented the experience of students who participated in “outing” programs, where students worked as domestic servants, on farms, or in businesses. Both students also conducted interviews to collect oral histories and gain insight into contemporary Indigenous experiences in Pennsylvania. 

Kinker, an English major, studied letters and articles written by Henry North (Arapaho) to learn about the day-to-day operations of the school. Hushion, a double major in public health and anthropology, chronicled the lives of three students who participated in an outing program at Lancaster General Hospital between 1911 and 1916. 

“I would collect materials, and piece back together the stories of these children’s lives,” Hushion said of the research process.

"I pursued this research so that I would have the opportunity to give voice to those who had been oppressed."

-Jessica Kinker '26

Kinker and Hushion said the digital archives provided a glimpse into the Carlisle Indian School’s attempts to force Indigenous students to abandon their native languages and culture.

“An important aspect of this research was reading ‘against the grain’ of the archives,” Hushion said. “We needed to keep in mind how something even as seemingly mundane as a student information card served to uphold the colonial institution of the Carlisle Indian School.”

"I would collect materials and piece back together the stories of these children's lives."

-Hallie Hushion '25

Learning about the mistreatment of Native American children at the school was often troubling, but both students said they felt it was important to acknowledge the reality of that history.

“As a student of public health, sociology, and anthropology, dealing with the ugliness of U.S. history is inevitable,” Hushion said. “I am grateful to have had the ability to evaluate these moments and legacies in the classroom.”

Equally important was sharing what they learned with a broader audience.

“I pursued this research so that I would have the opportunity to give voice to those who had been oppressed,” Kinker said. “I wished to be a means for these stories to safely and justly come to light.”