Tom Whitecloud

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The late Thomas S. Whitecloud (1914-1972) was an author, a doctor, and a poet, as well as a Chippewa and one of the Association of American Indian Physicians's founding members. Mr. Whitecloud innovated several techniques in spine surgery.

His entire name was Thomas St. Germain Whitecloud. He was born in New York, but spent most of his youth on Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation near Woodruff, Wisconsin (United States). Whitecloud attended to colleges in New Mexico and California, receiving from Tulane University his degree in medicine. Throughout his life, he worked with institutions to help Indian causes and even worked for the Texas Commission on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse for Indians.

Blue Winds Dancing (published in 1938) is among Mr. Whitecloud's most famous stories, about a young man's struggle to exist in ancient and modern America as he returns home. Widely taught in university literature classes, the story has attracted very little attention from the general public.