During the centennial of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, we’re looking back at our archives and sharing fascinating stories from our alumni over the past 100 years. This time we are exploring the story of Edward Carl ‘44.  

In 1944, Edward Carl won the Scholastic Magazine contest’s Martin B. Leisser Memorial Prize for his painting Shiprock while attending the Ute Vocational School in Ignacio, CO, one of the more than 400 Native American boarding schools operating between 1819 and 1969. These schools were run by the U.S. government with the objective of assimilating Native American children into European American culture, which included forbidding the children from learning and practicing their traditional language, culture, and religion. Hundreds of thousands of Native American children were placed in these boarding schools, some forcibly removed from their families and homes. These children often faced abuse and neglect while malnutrition, overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, and exhaustion frequently led to the outbreak of infectious diseases.

At just 19 years old, Edward Carl died of tuberculosis.  

Despite his hardships, Edward Carl did not forget his Native American culture and community. In his essay “Profile of My People” which was published in the magazine Arizona Highways (1948), he wrote, “This is what it means to be Navajo Indian, son of the Dineh. I am a part of my people. This picture has given me a dream that will live. A dream that causes me to shake inside with a burning to paint the beauty whispers and hope whispers of my people. To paint for the world to see.”

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