A striking three-quarter portrait cabinet card of Amy Dolphus (1878-1938), a member of the Sioux Nation and student at the Carlisle Indian School, wearing a long black coat, leather gloves, a wide-brimmed straw hat with silk ribbon, and her hair up in a chignon. Her inscription to the verso reads: “To sister ‘Phillips’ from sister ‘Beaver.’ Remembering the day this was taken.” Underneath it has been signed in pencil Amy Dolphus.
According to the Carlisle Indian School records, Amy Dolphus entered the school on June 28th 1895, and departed on February 18th 1903, after which she married a Robert Pearlman and settled in Isabel, South Dakota. Pearlman was also a student at Carlisle, enrolling in the same year, and from the Cheyenne River Agency like Amy. Pearlman, however, was only at the residential school for a year and was discharged after he ran away in 1896. In 1910 his occupation was given as stockman.
At her commencement ceremony in 1903, Amy gave a recitation of “Great Stone Face” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and during her studentship at Carlisle, she contributed to the school newspaper The Red Man and Helper, with a piece appearing in the April 5, 1901 issue titled “The Bone Ghost - An Indian Myth.” This is listed on page 38 of A Bibliography of Native American Writers 1772-1924: A Supplement.
The inscription to the verso to “sister Phillips” could be Martha or Mary Phillips, both members of the Mohawk Nation whose time at Carlisle overlapped with Dolphus. Both are described in their school records as Catholics, hence the epithet sister, which Martha uses to give news of another former student in a letter back to the school.
Neither this image nor a corresponding portrait of either of the Phillips girls is recorded in the extensive Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource. The Hertzler photographic studio on Main Street in Carlisle took portraits of many students, and regularly advertised in The Arrow.
