[6] Although her work was not often highly thought of by male historians and anthropologists, she was known as an authority on and friend of the Ojibwe and Odawa people who make their homes by the Great Lakes.

[6] From 1984 to 1985, Tanner was the interim director at D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History at the Newberry Library.

[3] Tanner was given a National Endowment for the Humanities grant which allowed her to complete the Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History.

Margaret Ramirez of the Chicago Tribune said that it was "hailed as the most comprehensive study of the region's Indian tribes".

[4] While in her 80s, Tanner was a part of the major case Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians at the Supreme Court of the United States in 1999.

[3] The case involved Ojibwe people being mistreated for more than a century for hunting, fishing, and gathering in land that was theirs via treaty rights.