Laura Adams Armer
Laura Adams Armer was an influential American author and artist, born on January 12, 1874, in Sacramento, California. After attending the California School of Design, she married fellow artist Sidney Armer and balanced her roles as a mother and a creative professional while maintaining a photography studio. Her significant interaction with the Navajo people began in 1923 during a family vacation, where her genuine interest in their culture earned her their trust and respect. Armer's immersion in Navajo life allowed her to document their traditions and ceremonies, culminating in her acclaimed book, *Waterless Mountain*, published in 1930, which won the Newbery Medal in 1932. Over her career, she authored several other books that provided insightful representations of Native American culture, alongside her own illustrations. Armer's works continue to be recognized for their cultural sensitivity and educational value, making her contributions significant in understanding Native American traditions. She passed away on March 3, 1963, leaving behind a legacy that bridges art, literature, and cultural appreciation.
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Subject Terms
Laura Adams Armer
Children's Writer
- Born: January 12, 1874
- Birthplace: Sacramento, California
- Died: March 3, 1963
Biography
Laura May Armer was born on January 12, 1874, in Sacramento, California, one of three children. The family struggled as her father tried to support the family as a farmer, a carpenter, and then a gold miner. Her mother was an accomplished seamstress. Laura attended public schools in San Francisco until she fell ill at sixteen, and the family arranged for her to be tutored at home. In 1893, with financial help from an uncle, she entered the California School of Design in San Francisco, where she studied art for six years. She married another art student, Sidney Armer, in 1902. The next year, the couple had a son, Austin, and Armer spent the next twenty years as a mother and homemaker in Berkeley, while maintaining a photography studio and keeping up her skills in painting. A daughter, born in 1905, died in infancy. Her husband was a successful commercial artist, also with a studio in San Francisco. Although their marriage was not a comfortable one, they were successful artistic collaborators.
In 1923, when she was fifty, Armer visited a Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona on a family vacation. After purchasing a beautiful pair of turquoise earrings from the man who was wearing them, she befriended a group of Navajo. There was little communication between the Navajo and outsiders at that time, and the Indians were surprised to meet a white woman who was so interested in them. She copied rug patterns and asked about their significance, and she made watercolor paintings and took photographs of the people and their way of life.
The fact that she was “the woman who wears the turquoise” opened many doors for her, and eventually Armer gained enough trust and respect that she set up a home on the reservation, and was allowed to see and record even the most secret ceremonies of the Navajo and the Hopi. In 1928, she was allowed to observe the sacred Mountain Chant ceremony, and to film it for public release. Later, she became the first white woman to have a Navajo sand painting done in her honor. For many years she went back and forth between various apartments in the southwest and a rough camp at the base of Blue Canyon.
In 1930, she published Waterless Mountain, a story she had written about a Navajo boy, Younger Brother, and his education in the sacred ways. It was lavishly illustrated by Armer and her husband. In later years she published seven more books about Native Americans and the southwest, most of them illustrated either with her own work or with her husband’s. She died on March 3, 1963.
Armer won the Newbery Medal in 1932 for Waterless Mountain, and her The Forest Pool was named a 1939 Caldecott Honor Book. She was so immersed in her own work and the lives of the Navajo that she had not heard of the Newbery before she received it. Armer’s work is still important as a respectful and insightful presentation of Native American culture for young readers.