Hattie Tom

This studio portrait shows Hattie Tom, a young Chiricahua Apache woman, photographed by Frank A. Rinehart during the U.S. Indian Congress held at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska, around 1898.

The event brought together more than 500 Native Americans from 35 different tribes, making it the largest gathering of its kind at the time. Among the participants was the famous Apache leader Geronimo, who also attended the exposition.

Hattie Tom was born during the period when the Chiricahua Apache were held as prisoners of war by the United States following the Apache Wars. The Chiricahua people remained in captivity for twenty-seven years, until 1913.

She later attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, one of the boarding schools established to assimilate Native American youth into Euro-American culture. Sadly, Hattie Tom died of tuberculosis in 1901 while still a student there.

Source: National Museum of the American Indian.