Photograph of Jim Thorpe, Carlisle Indian School
This photograph is of Jim Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox Nation and gold medal–winning, multisport Olympic athlete. The photograph comes from Thorpe’s Carlisle student file, which documents his time at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, PA, beginning in 1904. Learn more about Jim Thorpe from the 2012 blog post “The Greatest Athlete of the First Half of the Century” and the 2022 presentation “Path Lit by Lightning: The Life of Jim Thorpe with author David Maraniss and Anita Thorpe.”
The National Archives in Washington, DC, has student case files and other records created by the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Record Group 75, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Carlisle was one of the first federally operated off-reservation boarding schools for Native Americans, and it played a pivotal role in shaping the federal government’s policy to assimilate Native Americans through boarding school education. Learn more about Carlisle Indian School records and other BIA headquarters records documenting the history of Native American boarding schools.
Photograph of Jim Thorpe, Carlisle Indian School. National Archives Identifier: 595347
View and download the Photograph of Jim Thorpe on the National Archives Catalog. You can explore more of our holdings by visiting our online Catalog or by visiting the National Archives in Washington, DC. This record is located with Record Group 75: Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Series: Student Records, 1879–1918, File Unit: Jim Thorpe Student File. We encourage researchers to visit us onsite to explore these records and learn more about the archival collections held in the National Archives in Washington, DC.