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	Record Group Number:	900000
	Series/Collection Number:	M82- 148
	Creator:	Bedell, Harriet M., b. 1875
	Title, Dates:	Seminole mission photographs, 1933-1961.
	Amount:	69.00 photographs
	Medium Included:	photographs
	Organization/Arrangement:	Numerical.
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	Biographical/Historical:	Harriet Bedell (1875-1969) was a missionary and friend to the Seminole Indians of Florida Born in Buffalo, New York, Bedell trained as a schoolteacher but in 1906 attended the New York Training School for Deaconesses, where her one-year course of study included instruction in religious matters, missions, teaching, hygiene, and hospital nursing. Following her training she was sent as a missionary-teacher to the Cheyenne Indians at Whirlwind Mission in Oklahoma. In 1916, she accepted an assignment in a remote area of Alaska, where she worked until 1931 when she returned to New York to plea for funds. Through speaking engagements following her service in Alaska, Bedell was invited to visit a Seminole Indian reservation in southern Florida. Appalled by their living conditions, she began her campaign to improve the quality of life among the Mikasuki-Seminole Indians by living and working with them, not merely teaching them. She sought to revive the doll making and basket weaving skills that had become nearly extinct. She encouraged the incorporation of the intricate patchwork designs made by Indian women into articles of clothing for both women and men. Sales from the arts and crafts store at Blades Cross Mission helped to provide improved income for the Mikasuki-Seminoles. Bedell emphasized health and education rather than religious conversion in her work with the Seminoles; their spiritual and physical comfort was more important to her than religious conversion, and her work and friendship with the Seminoles of Florida reflected those values.
	Summary:	This collection consists of black-and-white photographs that depict the lives of Florida's Seminole Indians and the missionary activities of Deaconess Harriet Bedell among them in the mid-twentieth century. The photographs include group portraits of Seminole men, women, and children, as well as images of the Seminoles engaged in a variety of daily work and recreational activities.
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	Additional Physical Form:	Images from this collection have been digitized and are available on the Florida Memory web site: https://www.floridamemory.com/discover/photographs/
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	General Note:	Florida Photographic Collection Number 1982-147, "Bedell Collection."
	Electronic Records Access:	https://www.floridamemory.com/discover/photographs/
	Subject Access Fields:	Indians of North America Florida Missionaries Florida Missions Florida Seminole Indians. Seminole Indians Children Seminole Indians Education Seminole Indians Family relationships Seminole Indians Food Seminole Indians Games Women missionaries Florida Photographs. aat
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