Pine Ridge South Dakota Indian Day School Teacher 1909 Real Photo Postcard

Indian Day Schools, such as the one at Pine Ridge, were an integral part of the United States government's late 19th and early 20th-century assimilation policy aimed at Native American children. Established on reservations, these schools sought to integrate Native youth into mainstream American society by teaching English, vocational skills, and Western cultural norms, often at the expense of traditional Indigenous languages and practices. While distinct from the more distant and often harsher Indian boarding schools, day schools still served the broader goal of cultural re-education within the children's home communities.