Educational Experiences at the sources of Wyoming Identity

Frontier schooling has been a rich and multifaceted reality, whose influence on American culture and identity cannot be overestimated. In nineteenth-century Wyoming, the intersection of several educational components gave a distinct peculiarity to the state’s culture and identity. Although the general lines of this history are typical of frontier education – a blend of territorial-state provisions, private initiatives, Sunday Schools and missions – the context and the personalities of the men involved gave it a distinct flavor. On the missionary side, three religious groups collaborated together: the “Jesuit-Native” culture founded by De Smet, the Lutherans and, later, the Episcopalians who not only worked alongside the Jesuits in the St. Stephen’s Mission but even shared land and teachers.