MARY GOLDA ROSS B A CHEROKEE EDUCATION
orn in 1908, Mary Golda Ross grew up in Park Hill, Okla. Her great-great grandfather was Cherokee Chief John Ross, who led the Cherokee Nation during the traumatic and tur-
bulent Indian Removal era of the 1830s that resulted in the forced relocation of thousands of Cherokee people to west of the Mississippi River in present-day Oklahoma. Ross attributed her successes to the rich
heritage of her Cherokee people and the importance of tribal emphasis on education. “I was brought up in the Cherokee tradition of equal education for boys and girls,” she said. “It did not bother me to be the only girl in the math class.” Her home town was the original site of the famed Cherokee Female Seminary, the first women’s institution of higher education west of the Mississippi. Its cornerstone was placed by Chief Ross in
1847, and it opened in 1851. The curriculum emphasized science, with courses in botany, chemistry and physics. In 1909, the seminary became part of
Oklahoma’s state educational system and was renamed the Northeastern State Teacher’s College. Mary Ross enrolled here at the age of
16 and graduated with a degree in mathemat- ics. During the Great Depression, she taught science and math in rural Oklahoma. She put her skills to work on behalf of other Native people, first as a statistician for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and then as an advisor to girls at the Santa Fe Indian Boarding School in New Mexico. (The school later became the Institute of American Indian Arts.)
A ROCKET SCIENTIST
It’s a tribute to both Ross’s ability and the quality of her eduction that she was able to launch successfully into the next stage of her career. Pursuing a passion for astronomy, she took a master’s degree at the Colorado State College of Education (now Northern Colo- rado University). After earning her degree, Ross joined
Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in 1942, helping design the P-38 fighter airplane. Six years later, she was an integral part of what
TOP: Mary Golda Ross, circa 1970, published in the Society of Women Engineers newsletter. ABOVE: Graduating students at the Cherokee Female Seminary, Tahlequah, Okla., circa 1902. The Cherokee Nation’s emphasis on equal education for men and women laid the foundation for the later success of Mary Golda Ross. The photo was taken by her aunt Jennie Ross Cobb (1881–1959), considered to be the first known female American Indian photographer. 18 AMERICAN INDIAN WINTER 2018
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE OKLAHOMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY [20661.14]
PHOTO COURTESY SOCIETY OF WOMEN ENGINEERS PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION, WALTER P. REUTHER LIBRARY
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
