Cecelia Svinth Carpenter | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 2, 1924 Roy, Washington, U.S. |
| Died | June 25, 2010 (aged 85) Tacoma, Washington, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Pacific Lutheran University |
| Occupation(s) | Historian, writer, publisher |
| Known for | Nisqually people historian |
Hope Cecelia Svinth Carpenter (September 2, 1924 – June 25, 2010) was the first historian to write in detail about the Nisqually people.[1][2] As a Tacoma, Washington schoolteacher and enrolled member of the Nisqually tribe, when Carpenter discovered that her students' history books provided an inaccurate relation of the history of native people, she began researching and writing the tribe's history to set the record straight.[1][2]
Relying upon only primary sources and original documents, which took her to distant archival repositories such as the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C., and London, England to locate original materials,[1] she authored some 23 books.[3]
Carpenter's expertise in writing and disseminating the history of the Nisqually people as a record of and supplement to their rich traditional oral history earned her the office of Nisqually tribal historian, chief consultant on Indian history for the permanent exhibit of the Washington State Historical Society, and curator of the society's Remembering Medicine Creek exhibit at the Washington State History Museum.[1]