'White Fawn' and the lost history of James Young Deer: Reading Race, Collecting Cultures - The Roving Reader Files

The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre is an open access University of Manchester facility. The Roving Reader Files category of blog posts is produced by Alison Newby (under the pseudonym The Roving Reader) in collaboration with Hannah Niblett (Collections Access Officer). The Roving Reader Files are designed as public engagement materials, the intention being to introduce research skills and terminology to the general user/reader in an entertaining yet informative manner by revealing hidden stories, making unusual connections and sharing insights into using the Centre's collection for research. The blog post ' 'White Fawn' and the lost history of James Young Deer' complements the Centre's holdings on Native American history and culture by uncovering the work of James Young Deer, the first Native American film director, who had been one of the most successful film-makers of the silent era in Hollywood. Including a link to one of the few examples of his work to survive ('White Fawn's Devotion' from 1910), the post highlights the fact that Young Deer strove to oppose the emerging stereotype in popular culture of Native Americans as savage unreasoning killers to present them as civilised and capable of mercy and love. The recently-solved mystery of Young Deer's own racial background is also examined, revealing him as genuinely Native American even though he had been officially designated as 'mulatto'.