About the Author

Helen Hornbeck Tanner (1916-2011) was a distinguished scholar of American Indian history and literature, publishing books on the Caddo and the Ojibwa as well as on early eighteenth-century Spanish Florida. Her crowning scholarly achievement in print was the Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Helen’s commitment to the development of scholarship by American Indians is symbolized by the Susan Kelly Power and Helen Hornbeck Tanner Fund, co-named for her, which supports work at The Newberry Library by Ph.D. candidates and post-doctoral scholars of American Indian heritage. 

Helen graduated with distinction from Swarthmore College in 1937 and went on to complete a Master’s degree at the University of Florida (1948) and a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan (1961). She taught at Michigan for several years but she was always proudest of her academic affiliation with the Newberry Library.