"In Charles C. Painter, Mathes sets out to restore Painter's prominence within the Indian reform movement, and encourage further scholarship on the sources he left behind. Her detailed work successfully establishes Painter's importance in terms of his skills, compromises, contradictions, and personal sacrifices. Along with Painter's career, Mathes captures the complexities, achievements, and shortcomings of the larger Indian reform movement."--New Mexico Historical Review "Few who study early twentieth-century federal Indian policy will immediately recognize the name Charles C. Painter. But, as Valerie Sherer Mathes demonstrates in this first book-length study of the Indian reform advocate, Charles Cornelius Coffin Painter (1833-1895) was one of the most prominent, active, and influential promoters of American Indian rights in the late nineteenth century. Drawing from Painter's extensive archive of public letters, articles, speeches, investigative reports, and papers, Mathes reconstructs the working life of an overlooked, yet significant, Indian reformer.

Mathes offers a thoroughly researched and detailed account of the work of this important Indian rights supporter which furthers our understanding of nineteenth-century Indian reform history."--South Dakota History "Mathes does not fall into a classic trap of biography and romanticize Painter. To the contrary, she explains that he was an unapologetic assimilationist as well as "a reformer who devoted his life work to doing what he thought was best for America's Indian population and doing it with elan" (x). There is no question that Painter was both productive and consequential. This fine-grained study of the work of reform in the 1880s and 1890s makes an important contribution to the scholarly literature and anyone interested in the subject matter should read this book carefully."---Nebraska History "Valerie Sherer Mathes's Charles C. Painter offers a fine-grained and meticulously chronicled biography of one of the most important Indian reformers of the post-Civil War period. Mathes's detailed and readable study succeeds in acknowledging the work and legacy of an important and often overlooked advocate for Native American rights.

"-- Montana the Magazine of Western History.