Henrietta Mann

[3] In 1954, she earned her bachelor's degree[2] in English and her parents gave her the Indian name "The Woman Who Comes to Offer Prayer".

[3] She married while working as a high school English teacher, Alfred Whiteman, who died in 1980, and had four children with him.

[2][3] As an elected board member for the Tribal Council, she was one of the authors of the federal legislation which resulted in a $15 million judgment from the US government in favor of her tribe in 1967 as part of the settlements of the Indian Claims Commission.

[10] After teaching for two years at UC Berkeley, in 1972, she was hired to direct the Native American Studies program at the University of Montana, in Missoula.

[3] As a Danforth Fellow, Whiteman continued her education, earning a PhD in American Studies from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque in 1982.

[3][9] In 1991, Morton stepped away from her duties as director of the Native Studies Program and was promoted to a professorship which would give her more time to focus on writing.

[13] During her time at the University of Montana, she took eight sabbaticals and became a widely respected speaker nationally on the issue of Indian education.

[3][14] During one of those leaves in 1993 and 1994, she helped design a Native American Studies Program for Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas.