Sheldon Jackson was a prominent Presbyterian missionary in Alaska, beginning in the 1870s, who played a prominent role far beyond the church, especially in education and ethnography. As a minister, educator, and social reformer, he occupied a key position in the development of education and social services in Alaska during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Several other Presbyterian ministers, such as Reverend S. Hall Young, joined Jackson as the first Protestant missionaries who came north following the Alaska Purchase from Russia in 1867. While having an extensive educational and economic impact upon Alaska, Sheldon Jackson’s legacy also proved controversial as he and other contemporary missionaries pursued unfortunate assimilationist policies and strict Anglicization practices typical of the era that had a negative cultural and linguistic impact on indigenous communities.
Jackson was born in Minaville, New York, in 1834, and studied at Union College and Princeton Theological Seminary. He began his missionary work in the Pacific Northwest before being appointed as the United States General Agent for Education in Alaska in 1885. In this role, he established schools, churches, hospitals, and other social services for Alaska Natives, as well as promoted economic development and the preservation of cultural artifacts. He famously imported reindeer in the 1890s to help stimulate the rural economy in western Alaska. Jackson also played a role in establishing the Alaska Native Brotherhood, a fraternal organization advocating for Native rights and social justice. During his ministry throughout Alaska, he also collected Alaska Native artifacts and ethnographic materials, many of which are preserved in the Sheldon Jackson Museum in Sitka, Alaska, as well as other repositories across the United States such as the Smithsonian Institution and Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois.
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The Circumpolar Navigator project aims to bring together Arctic and sub-Arctic collections from a wide range of northern heritage materials that will provide access for modern researchers to previously hidden sources of information that can offer data and insights on multiple subjects.
