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F rom 1926 to 1927, Montana State College (later Montana State University) English instructor Jessie Donaldson Schultz organized The Masque of the Absaroka, a threeact drama telling the history of the Crow (Absaroka) people (fig. 1).1 The Masque of the Absaroka was a collaborative effort of Montana State College’s (MSC) Eurodelphian Society, a women’s literary club Schultz founded, together with the college’s departments of English, drama, and theater, and more than twenty members of the Crow tribe whom Schultz enlisted as consultants, actors, and dancers in the production. In her roles as faculty adviser for the MSC literary club and pageant master of the event, Schultz secured significant financial support from the local community as well as from national corporations with local interests. Widely publicized, the production also enjoyed the endorsement of major literary and artistic figures of national stature, such as Hamlin Garland, George Bird Grinnell, Vachel Lindsay, and Mary Roberts Rinehart.2 The Masque of the Absaroka was, by all accounts, a successful production that held enormous potential as a vehicle for future community development. Hoping to build on the masque’s success, Schultz sought to make it a semiannual Bozeman event as well as tour it to nearby Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. However, shortly after its performance, the chair of the MSC English Department, William Brewer, declared that the masque would not be repeated. Claiming that during the production Bozeman had been transformed into “an Indian camp,” Brewer deemed such activities detrimental to the welfare of the college and the wider community.3 Yellowstone National Park superintendent Horace M. Albright, who had expressed great interest in holding future performances of the |
