Angie Debo

Angie Elbertha Debo (January 30, 1890 – February 21, 1988), was an American historian who wrote 13 books and hundreds of articles about Native American and Oklahoma history. After a long career marked by difficulties (ascribed both to her gender and to the controversial content of some of her books), she was acclaimed as Oklahoma's "greatest historian" and acknowledged as "an authority on Native American history, a visionary, and an historical heroine in her own right."

Biography

Early life and education

Born in Beattie, Kansas in 1890, Angie Debo moved with her parents, Edward P. and Lina E. in a covered wagon to the Oklahoma Territory when she was nine years old. Her family settled in the rural community of Marshall, where Debo would live, on and off, for the rest of her life. She earned a teacher's certificate and began teaching when she was 16. Because Marshall did not have a high school until 1910, Debo did not receive her high school diploma until 1913, when she was 23 years old.