author
Elaine Goodale Eastman
1863–1953
A child poetry prodigy who grew into a teacher, reformer, and writer, she built a remarkable career around literature and Native education. Her life joined New England literary culture with the history of the Dakota and Sioux communities she worked alongside.
3 Audiobooks
Wigwam Evenings: Sioux Folk Tales Retold
by Charles A. Eastman, Elaine Goodale Eastman
Yellow Star: A Story of East and West
by Elaine Goodale Eastman
Indian Legends Retold
by Elaine Goodale Eastman
About the author
Born in Massachusetts in 1863, Elaine Goodale Eastman first became known as a poet while still a child, publishing with her sister Dora. As an adult, she moved far beyond early literary fame, teaching at Hampton Institute and later helping establish a day school at Pine Ridge in Dakota Territory.
Her work brought her into long engagement with Native education and public life in the American West. She married physician and writer Charles Eastman in 1891, and sources describe her as an editor, collaborator, and co-writer as well as an author in her own right.
Across her career she wrote poetry, fiction, journalism, and nonfiction, and she is often remembered for the way her writing connected literature, reform, and cross-cultural experience. She died in 1953, leaving behind a body of work tied to both American letters and the history of Native education.