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Stanley Ann Dunham (November 29, 1942 – November 7, 1995) was an American
anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and v ...
who specialized in the economic anthropology and
rural development Rural development is the process of improving the quality life and economic well-being of people living in rural areas, often relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas. Rural development has traditionally centered on the exploitation of ...
of Indonesia. She is the mother of
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
, the 44th president of the United States. Dunham was known as Stanley Ann Dunham through high school, then as Ann Dunham, Ann Obama, Ann Soetoro, a.k.a. Ann Sutoro, and resumed her maiden name, Ann Dunham, later in life.Scott (2011), p. 6
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Anyone writing about Dunham's life must address the question of what to call her. She was Stanley Ann Dunham at birth and Stanley Ann as a child, but dropped the Stanley upon graduating from high school. She was Ann Dunham, then Ann Obama, then Ann Soetoro until her second divorce. Then she kept her husband's name but modernized the spelling to Sutoro. In the early 1980s, she was Ann Sutoro, Ann Dunham Sutoro, S. Ann Dunham Sutoro. In conversation, Indonesians who worked with her in the late 1980s and early 1990s referred to her as Ann Dunham, putting the emphasis on the second syllable of the surname. Toward the end of her life, she signed her dissertation S. Ann Dunham and official correspondence (Stanley) Ann Dunham.

p. 363
/span>:
''modernized the spelling:'' The spelling of certain Indonesian words changed after Indonesia gained its independence from the Dutch in 1949, and again under a 1972 agreement between Indonesia and Malaysia... Names containing ''oe'',... are now often spelled with a ''u''... However, older spellings are still used in some personal names... After her divorce from Lolo Soetoro, Ann Dunham kept his last name for a number of years while she was still working in Indonesia, but she changed the spelling to Sutoro. Their daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng, chose to keep the traditional spelling of her Indonesian surname.
Born in Wichita, Kansas, Dunham studied at the
East–West Center The East–West Center (EWC), or the Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West, is an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peop ...
and at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in Honolulu, where she attained a bachelor of arts degree in anthropology (1967), and later received master of arts (1974) and PhD (1992) degrees, also in anthropology. reprinted by: * She also attended the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle ...
in Seattle from 1961 to 1962. Interested in craftsmanship, weaving, and the role of women in
cottage industries The putting-out system is a means of subcontracting work. Historically, it was also known as the workshop system and the domestic system. In putting-out, work is contracted by a central agent to subcontractors who complete the project via remote ...
, Dunham's research focused on women's work on the island of Java and blacksmithing in Indonesia. To address the problem of poverty in rural villages, she created
microcredit :''This article is specific to small loans, often provided in a pooled manner. For direct payments to individuals for specific projects, see Micropatronage. For financial services to the poor, see Microfinance. For small payments, see Micropayme ...
programs while working as a consultant for the
United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...
. Dunham was also employed by the Ford Foundation in Jakarta and she consulted with the
Asian Development Bank The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966, which is headquartered in the Ortigas Center located in the city of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines. The bank also maintains 31 field office ...
in
Gujranwala Gujranwala ( ur, , label=none; ) is a city and capital of Gujranwala Division located in Pakistan. It is also known as "City of Wrestlers" and is quite famous for its food. It is the 5th most populous city proper after Karachi, Lahore, Faisal ...
, Pakistan. Towards the latter part of her life, she worked with
Bank Rakyat Indonesia PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk ( 'Indonesian People's Bank', commonly known as BRI) is one of the largest banks in Indonesia. It specialises in small scale and microfinance style borrowing from and lending to its approximately 30 milli ...
, where she helped apply her research to the largest microfinance program in the world. After her son was elected president, interest renewed in Dunham's work: the University of Hawaiʻi held a symposium about her research; an exhibition of Dunham's Indonesian
batik Batik is an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth. This technique originated from the island of Java, Indonesia. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a ''ca ...
textile collection toured the United States; and in December 2009, Duke University Press published ''Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia'', a book based on Dunham's original 1992 dissertation. Janny Scott, an author and former '' New York Times'' reporter, published a biography of her titled ''A Singular Woman'' in 2011. Posthumous interest has also led to the creation of the Ann Dunham Soetoro Endowment in the Anthropology Department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, as well as the Ann Dunham Soetoro Graduate Fellowships, intended to fund students associated with the East–West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. In an interview, Barack Obama referred to his mother as "the dominant figure in my formative years ... The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics."



Early life

Dunham was born on November 29, 1942, at St. Francis Hospital in Wichita, Kansas, the only child of Madelyn Lee Payne and
Stanley Armour Dunham Stanley Armour Dunham (March 23, 1918February 8, 1992) was the maternal grandfather of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. He and his wife Madelyn Payne Dunham raised Obama from the age of 10 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Early lif ...
. She was of predominantly English ancestry, with some Scottish, Welsh, Irish,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
and Swiss.
Wild Bill Hickok James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837August 2, 1876), better known as "Wild Bill" Hickok, was a folk hero of the American Old West known for his life on the frontier as a soldier, scout, lawman, gambler, showman, and actor, and for his involvement ...
is her sixth cousin, five times removed. Ancestry.com announced on July 30, 2012, after using a combination of old documents and
yDNA The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...
analysis, that Dunham's mother was descended from John Punch, an enslaved African man who lived in seventeenth-century colonial Virginia. Her parents were born in Kansas and met in Wichita, where they married on May 5, 1940. After the
attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, ju ...
, her father joined the United States Army and her mother worked at a
Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and produc ...
plant in Wichita. According to Dunham, she was named after her father because he wanted a son, though her relatives doubt this story and her maternal uncle recalled that her mother named Dunham after her favorite actress
Bette Davis Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her p ...
' character in the film ''
In This Our Life ''In This Our Life'' is a 1942 American drama film, the second to be directed by John Huston. The screenplay by Howard Koch is based on the 1941 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Ellen Glasgow. The cast included the establishe ...
'' because she thought Stanley, as a girl's name, sounded sophisticated. As a child and teenager she was known as Stanley. Other children teased her about her name. Nonetheless, she used it through high school, "apologizing for it each time she introduced herself in a new town." By the time Dunham began attending college, she was known by her middle name, Ann, instead. After World War II, Dunham's family moved from Wichita to California while her father attended the University of California, Berkeley. In 1948, they moved to
Ponca City, Oklahoma Ponca City ( iow, Chína Uhánⁿdhe) is a city in Kay County in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The city was named after the Ponca tribe. Ponca City had a population of 25,387 at the time of the 2010 census- and a population of 24,424 in the 2020 ...
, and from there to
Vernon, Texas Vernon is a city and the county seat of Wilbarger County, Texas, United States. and as of the 2010 Census had a population of 11,002. History The original town was called Eagle Springs by the indigenous community as early as 1858. After th ...
, and then to El Dorado, Kansas. In 1955, the family moved to Seattle,
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
, where her father was employed as a furniture salesman and her mother worked as vice president of a bank. They lived in an apartment complex in the
Wedgwood Wedgwood is an English fine china, porcelain and luxury accessories manufacturer that was founded on 1 May 1759 by the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and was first incorporated in 1895 as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons Ltd. It was rapid ...
neighborhood where she attended Nathan Eckstein Junior High School. In 1956, Dunham's family moved to Mercer Island, an Eastside suburb of Seattle. Dunham's parents wanted their 13-year-old daughter to attend the newly opened
Mercer Island High School Mercer Island High School (MIHS) is a public high school located in Mercer Island, Washington, United States, as part of the Mercer Island School District. As of the 2018–19 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,552 students and 77.5 ...
. At the school, teachers Val Foubert and Jim Wichterman taught the importance of challenging social norms and questioning authority to the young Dunham, and she took the lessons to heart: "She felt she didn't need to date or marry or have children." One classmate remembered her as "intellectually way more mature than we were and a little bit ahead of her time, in an off-center way", and a high school friend described her as knowledgeable and progressive: "If you were concerned about something going wrong in the world, Stanley would know about it first. We were liberals before we knew what liberals were." Another called her "the original feminist". She went through high school "reading beatnik poets and French existentialists".


Family life and marriages

On August 21, 1959, Hawaii became the 50th state to be admitted into the Union. Dunham's parents sought business opportunities in the new state, and after graduating from high school in 1960, Dunham and her family moved to Honolulu. Dunham enrolled at the
University of Hawaii at Mānoa A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...
.


First marriage

While attending a Russian language class, Dunham met
Barack Obama Sr. Barack Hussein Obama Sr. (; 18 June 1934 – 24 November 1982) was a Kenyan senior governmental economist and the father of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. He is a central figure of his son's memoir, '' Dreams from My Fa ...
, the school's first African student. (online)
(print)
At the age of 23, Obama Sr. had come to Hawaii to pursue his education, leaving behind a pregnant wife, Kezia, and their infant son in his home town of
Nyang'oma Kogelo Nyang'oma Kogelo, also known as Kogelo, is a village in Siaya County, Kenya. It is located near the equator, 60 kilometres (37 mi) west-northwest of Kisumu, the former Nyanza provincial capital. The population of Nyangoma-Kogelo is 3,648 ...
in Kenya. Dunham and Obama Sr. were married on the Hawaiian island of
Maui The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...
on February 2, 1961, despite parental opposition from both families. (online)
("Special Democratic Convention issue") (print)
Dunham was three months pregnant. Obama Sr. eventually informed Dunham about his first marriage in Kenya but claimed he was divorced. Years later she discovered this was false. Obama Sr.'s first wife, Kezia, later said she had granted her consent for him to marry a second wife in keeping with
Luo Luo may refer to: Luo peoples and languages *Luo peoples, an ethno-linguistic group of eastern and central Africa **Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania or Joluo, an ethnic group in western Kenya, eastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania. *** Luoland, th ...
customs. On August 4, 1961, at the age of 18, Dunham gave birth to her first child, Barack Obama in Honolulu. Friends in the state of Washington recall her visiting with her month-old baby in 1961.
Regarding the 1961 visit to Washington state: "Susan Blake, otkinanother high-school classmate, said that during a brief visit in 1961, Dunham was excited about her husband's plans to return to Kenya."
Regarding her enrollment at University of Washington: "By 1962, Dunham had returned to Seattle as a single mother, enrolling in the UW for spring quarter and living in an apartment on Capitol Hill."
She studied at the
University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle ...
from September 1961 to June 1962, and lived as a single mother in the
Capitol Hill Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...
neighborhood of Seattle with her son while her husband continued his studies in Hawaii. LeFevre and Lipson wrote:
Mary Toutonghi ... recalls as best she can the dates she baby sat Barack as her daughter was 18 months old and was born in July of 1959 and that would have placed the months of babysitting Barack in January and February of 1962 ... Anna was taking night classes at the University of Washington, and according to the University of Washington's registrar's office her major was listed as history. She was enrolled at the University of Washington in the fall of 1961, took a full course load in the spring of 1962 and had her transcript transferred to the University of Hawaii in the fall of 1962. Along with the Seattle Polk Directory, Marc Leavipp of the University of Washington Registrar's office confirms 516 13th Ave. E. was the address Ann Dunham had given upon registering at the University.
Both Anna Obama and Joseph Toutonghi were listed as residing at the same address, in the ''Seattle Reverse Directory, 1961–1962.'' See:
When Obama Sr. graduated from the University of Hawaii in June 1962, he was offered a scholarship to study in New York City, but declined it, preferring to attend the more prestigious Harvard University. He left for
Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...
, where he began graduate study at Harvard in the fall of 1962. Dunham returned to Honolulu and resumed her undergraduate education at the University of Hawaii with the spring semester in January 1963. During this time, her parents helped her raise the young Barack. Dunham filed for divorce in January 1964, which Obama Sr. did not contest. In December 1964, Obama Sr. married Ruth Baker, a
Jewish American American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora J ...
of Lithuanian-Jewish heritage; they were separated in 1971 and divorced in 1973 after having two sons. In 1965, Obama Sr. received a MA in economics from Harvard. In 1971, he stayed in Hawaii for a month and visited his 10 year old son Barack. In 1982, Obama Sr. was killed in a car accident.


Second marriage

It was at the
East–West Center The East–West Center (EWC), or the Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West, is an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peop ...
that Dunham met
Lolo Soetoro Lolo Soetoro ( EYD: Lolo Sutoro; ; 2 January 1935 Google Translate'sEnglish translationLolo studied geography at Gadjah Mada University and got a scholarship from the Indonesian Army Topographic Service. After working for the Indonesian Army Topo ...
, a Javanese surveyor who had come to Honolulu in September 1962 on an East–West Center grant to study geography at the University of Hawaii. Soetoro graduated from the University of Hawaii with an MA in geography in June 1964. In 1965, Soetoro and Dunham were married in Hawaii, and in 1966, Soetoro returned to Indonesia. Dunham graduated from the University of Hawaii with a B.A. in anthropology on August 6, 1967, and moved in October the same year with her six-year-old son to Jakarta, Indonesia, to rejoin her husband. In Indonesia, Soetoro worked first as a low-paid topographical surveyor for the Indonesian government, and later in the government relations office of
Union Oil Company Union Oil Company of California, and its holding company Unocal Corporation, together known as Unocal was a major petroleum explorer and marketer in the late 19th century, through the 20th century, and into the early 21st century. It was headqu ...
. The family first lived at 16 Kyai Haji Ramli Tengah Street in a newly built neighborhood in the Menteng Dalam
administrative village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred t ...
of the Tebet
subdistrict A subdistrict or sub-district is an administrative division that is generally smaller than a district. Equivalents * Administrative posts of East Timor, formerly Portuguese-language * Kelurahan, in Indonesia * Mukim, a township in Brunei, Ind ...
in
South Jakarta South Jakarta ( id, Jakarta Selatan; bew, Jakarte Beludik ), colloquially known as ''Jaksel'', is one of the five administrative cities which form the Special Capital Region of Jakarta, Indonesia. South Jakarta is not self-governed and does not ...
for two and a half years, with her son attending the nearby Indonesian-language Santo Fransiskus Asisi (St. Francis of Assisi) Catholic School for 1st, 2nd, and part of 3rd grade, then in 1970 moved two miles north to 22 Taman Amir Hamzah Street in the Matraman Dalam neighborhood in the Pegangsaan administrative village of the Menteng subdistrict in
Central Jakarta Central Jakarta ( id, Jakarta Pusat) is one of the five administrative cities () which form the Special Capital Region of Jakarta. It had 902,973 inhabitants according to the 2010 censusBiro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011. and 1,056,896 at the 2 ...
, with her son attending the Indonesian-language government-run Besuki School one and half miles east in the exclusive Menteng administrative village of the Menteng subdistrict for part of 3rd grade and for 4th grade. On August 15, 1970, Soetoro and Dunham had a daughter, Maya Kassandra Soetoro. In Indonesia, Dunham enriched her son's education with
correspondence course Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually in ...
s in English, recordings of
Mahalia Jackson Mahalia Jackson ( ; born Mahala Jackson; October 26, 1911 – January 27, 1972) was an American gospel singer, widely considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century. With a career spanning 40 years, Jackson was integral to ...
, and speeches by
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
In 1971, she sent the young Obama back to Hawaii to attend
Punahou School Punahou School (known as Oahu College until 1934) is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school in Honolulu, Hawaii. More than 3,700 students attend the school from kindergarten through twelfth grade, 12th grade. Protestant missionar ...
starting in 5th grade rather than having him stay in Indonesia with her. Madelyn Dunham's job at the
Bank of Hawaii The Bank of Hawaii Corporation ( haw, Panakō o Hawaii; abbreviated BOH) is a regional commercial bank headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is Hawaii's second oldest bank and its largest locally owned bank in that the majority of the voting ...
, where she had worked her way up over a decade from clerk to becoming one of its first two female vice presidents in 1970, helped pay the steep tuition, with some assistance from a scholarship. A year later, in August 1972, Dunham and her daughter moved back to Hawaii to rejoin her son and begin graduate study in anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Dunham's graduate work was supported by an
Asia Foundation The Asia Foundation is a nonprofit international development organization committed to "improving lives across a dynamic and developing Asia". The Asia Foundation (TAF) was established in 1954 to undertake cultural and educational activities on be ...
grant from August 1972 to July 1973 and by an East–West Center Technology and Development Institute grant from August 1973 to December 1978. Dunham completed her coursework at the University of Hawaii for an M.A. in anthropology in December 1974, and after having spent three years in Hawaii, Dunham, accompanied by her daughter Maya, returned to Indonesia in 1975 to do anthropological field work.
Actually I had hoped to move to Jogja at midyear, but was unable to win a contract release from my old school in Jakarta (they sponsored me via an Asia Foundation grant for my first two years in Hawaii). As it turns out, however, I had plenty to do to keep me busy in W. Java, and was able to carry out reasonably complete surveys of 3 village areas within radius of Jakarta.

At present I am staying with my mother-in-law on the corner of Taman Sari inside the Benteng, but according to old law foreigners are not allowed to live inside the Benteng. I had to get a special dispensation from the kraton on the grounds that I am "djaga-ing" my mother-in-law (she is 76 and strong as a horse but manages to look nice and frail). In June I am having Barry come over for the summer, however, and will probably need to find another place, since I don't think I can stretch an excuse and say we are both needed to djaga my mother-in-law.
Her son chose not to go with them back to Indonesia, preferring to finish high school at Punahou School in Honolulu while living with his grandparents. Lolo Soetoro and Dunham divorced on November 5, 1980; Lolo Soetoro married Erna Kustina in 1980 and had two children, a son, Yusuf Aji Soetoro (born 1981), and daughter, Rahayu Nurmaida Soetoro (born 1987). Lolo Soetoro died, age 52, on March 2, 1987, due to liver failure. Dunham was not estranged from either ex-husband and encouraged her children to feel connected to their fathers.


Professional life

From January 1968 to December 1969, Dunham taught English and was an assistant director of the Lembaga Persahabatan Indonesia Amerika (LIA)–the Indonesia-America Friendship Institute at 9 Teuku Umar Street in the Gondangdia administrative village of the Menteng subdistrict in
Central Jakarta Central Jakarta ( id, Jakarta Pusat) is one of the five administrative cities () which form the Special Capital Region of Jakarta. It had 902,973 inhabitants according to the 2010 censusBiro Pusat Statistik, Jakarta, 2011. and 1,056,896 at the 2 ...
–which was subsidized by the United States government. From January 1970 to August 1972, Dunham taught English and was a department head and a director of the Lembaga Pendidikan dan Pengembangan Manajemen (LPPM)–the Institute of Management Education and Development at 9 Menteng Raya Street in the Kebon Sirih administrative village of the Menteng subdistrict in Central Jakarta. From 1968 to 1972, Dunham was a co-founder and active member of the Ganesha Volunteers (Indonesian Heritage Society) at the National Museum in Jakarta. From 1972 to 1975, Dunham was crafts instructor (in weaving,
batik Batik is an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth. This technique originated from the island of Java, Indonesia. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a ''ca ...
, and dye) at the
Bishop Museum The Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, designated the Hawaii State Museum of Natural and Cultural History, is a museum of history and science in the historic Kalihi district of Honolulu on the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu. Founded in 1889, it is the lar ...
in Honolulu. Dunham then had a career in
rural development Rural development is the process of improving the quality life and economic well-being of people living in rural areas, often relatively isolated and sparsely populated areas. Rural development has traditionally centered on the exploitation of ...
, championing women's work and
microcredit :''This article is specific to small loans, often provided in a pooled manner. For direct payments to individuals for specific projects, see Micropatronage. For financial services to the poor, see Microfinance. For small payments, see Micropayme ...
for the world's poor and worked with leaders from organizations supporting Indonesian human rights, women's rights, and grass-roots
development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development hell, when a project is stuck in development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting *Development (music), the process thematic material is reshaped *Photographi ...
. In March 1977, Dunham, under the supervision of agricultural economics professor Leon A. Mears, developed and taught a short lecture course at the Faculty of Economics of the
University of Indonesia The University of Indonesia ( id, Universitas Indonesia, abbreviated as UI) is a public university in Depok, West Java and Salemba, Jakarta, Indonesia. It is one of the oldest tertiary-level educational institutions in Indonesia (known as the ...
(FEUI) in Jakarta for staff members of
BAPPENAS The Ministry of National Development Planning/National Development Planning Agency ( id, Kementerian Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional/Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional) (abbreviated PPN/Bappenas) is a ministry of the Republic of Indonesia t ...
(Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional)—the Indonesian National Development Planning Agency. From June 1977 through September 1978, Dunham carried out research on village industries in the Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta (DIY)—the
Yogyakarta Special Region The Special Region of Yogyakarta (; id, Daerah Istimewa (D.I.) Yogyakarta) is a provincial-level autonomous region of Indonesia in southern Java. It has also been known as the Special Territory of Yogyakarta. It is bordered by the Indian ...
within
Central Java Central Java ( id, Jawa Tengah) is a province of Indonesia, located in the middle of the island of Java. Its administrative capital is Semarang. It is bordered by West Java in the west, the Indian Ocean and the Special Region of Yogyakarta in th ...
in Indonesia under a student grant from the East–West Center. As a weaver herself, Dunham was interested in village industries, and moved to Yogyakarta City, the center of Javanese handicrafts. In May and June 1978, Dunham was a short-term consultant in the office of the
International Labour Organization The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and o ...
(ILO) in Jakarta, writing recommendations on village industries and other non-agricultural enterprises for the Indonesian government's third five-year development plan (REPELITA III). From October 1978 to December 1980, Dunham was a rural industries consultant in Central Java on the Indonesian Ministry of Industry's Provincial Development Program (PDP I), funded by
USAID The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...
in Jakarta and implemented through Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI). From January 1981 to November 1984, Dunham was the program officer for women and employment in the Ford Foundation's Southeast Asia regional office in Jakarta. While at the Ford Foundation, she developed a model of microfinance which is now the standard in Indonesia, a country that is a world leader in micro-credit systems. Peter Geithner, father of
Tim Geithner Timothy Franz Geithner (; born August 18, 1961) is a former American central banker who served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013. He was the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of ...
(who later became U.S. Secretary of the Treasury in her son's administration), was head of the foundation's Asia grant-making at that time. From May to November 1986 and from August to November 1987, Dunham was a cottage industries development consultant for the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan (ADBP) under the Gujranwala Integrated Rural Development Project (GADP). The credit component of the project was implemented in the
Gujranwala Gujranwala ( ur, , label=none; ) is a city and capital of Gujranwala Division located in Pakistan. It is also known as "City of Wrestlers" and is quite famous for its food. It is the 5th most populous city proper after Karachi, Lahore, Faisal ...
district of the Punjab province of Pakistan with funding from the
Asian Development Bank The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is a regional development bank established on 19 December 1966, which is headquartered in the Ortigas Center located in the city of Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines. The bank also maintains 31 field office ...
and IFAD, with the credit component implemented through Louis Berger International, Inc. Dunham worked closely with the Lahore office of the Punjab Small Industries Corporation (PSIC). From January 1988 to 1995, Dunham was a consultant and research coordinator for Indonesia's oldest bank,
Bank Rakyat Indonesia PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia (Persero) Tbk ( 'Indonesian People's Bank', commonly known as BRI) is one of the largest banks in Indonesia. It specialises in small scale and microfinance style borrowing from and lending to its approximately 30 milli ...
(BRI) in Jakarta, with her work funded by USAID and the World Bank. In March 1993, Dunham was a research and policy coordinator for
Women's World Banking Women's World Banking is a nonprofit organization that provides strategic support, technical assistance and information to a global network of 55 independent microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks that offer credit and other financial services ...
(WWB) in New York. She helped WWB manage the Expert Group Meeting on Women and Finance in New York in January 1994, and helped the WWB take prominent roles in the UN's
Fourth World Conference on Women The Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace was the name given for a conference convened by the United Nations during 4–15 September 1995 in Beijing, China. At this conference, governments from around the ...
held September 4–15, 1995 in
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 2 ...
, and in the UN regional conferences and NGO forums that preceded it. On August 9, 1992, she was awarded PhD in
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
from the University of Hawaii, under the supervision of Prof. Alice G. Dewey, with a 1,043-page dissertation titled ''Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving and thriving against all odds.'' Anthropologist Michael Dove described the dissertation as "a classic, in-depth, on-the-ground anthropological study of a 1,200-year-old industry". According to Dove, Dunham's dissertation challenged popular perceptions regarding economically and politically marginalized groups, and countered the notions that the roots of poverty lie with the poor themselves and that cultural differences are responsible for the gap between less-developed countries and the industrialized West. According to Dove, Dunham
found that the villagers she studied in Central Java had many of the same economic needs, beliefs and aspirations as the most capitalist of Westerners. Village craftsmen were "keenly interested in profits", she wrote, and entrepreneurship was "in plentiful supply in rural Indonesia", having been "part of the traditional culture" there for a millennium.

Based on these observations, Dr. Soetoro concluded that underdevelopment in these communities resulted from a scarcity of capital, the allocation of which was a matter of politics, not culture. Antipoverty programs that ignored this reality had the potential, perversely, of exacerbating inequality because they would only reinforce the power of elites. As she wrote in her dissertation, "many government programs inadvertently foster stratification by channeling resources through village officials", who then used the money to strengthen their own status further.
Dunham produced a large amount of professional papers that are held in collections of the National Anthropological Archives (NAA). Her daughter donated a collection of them that is categorized as the ''S. Ann Dunham papers, 1965-2013''. This collection contains case studies, correspondence, field notebooks, lectures, photographs, reports, research files, research proposals, surveys, and floppy disks documenting her dissertation research on blacksmithing, as well as her professional work as a consultant for organizations such as the Ford Foundation and the Bank Raykat Indonesia (BRI). They are housed at the
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with ...
. Her field notes have been digitized and, in 2020, Smithsonian Magazine noted that an effort had been established for a project to transcribe them. Public participation in the transcription project was announced at the same time.


Illness and death

In late 1994, Dunham was living and working in Indonesia. One night, during dinner at a friend's house in Jakarta, she experienced stomach pain. A visit to a local physician led to an initial diagnosis of indigestion. Dunham returned to the United States in early 1995 and was examined at the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and diagnosed with uterine cancer. By this time, the cancer had spread to her ovaries. She moved back to Hawaii to live near her widowed mother and died on November 7, 1995, 22 days short of her 53rd birthday. Following a memorial service at the University of Hawaii, Obama and his sister spread their mother's ashes in the Pacific Ocean at Lanai Lookout on the south side of
Oahu Oahu () ( Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over two-thirds of the population of the U.S. state of Hawaii. The island of O� ...
. Obama scattered the ashes of his grandmother
Madelyn Dunham Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham ( ; October 26, 1922 – November 2, 2008) was the American maternal grandmother of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. She and her husband Stanley Armour Dunham raised Obama from age ten in their ...
in the same spot on December 23, 2008, weeks after his election to the presidency. Obama talked about Dunham's death in a 30-second campaign advertisement ("Mother") arguing for health care reform. The ad featured a photograph of Dunham holding a young Obama in her arms as Obama talks about her last days worrying about expensive medical bills. The topic also came up in a 2007 speech in Santa Barbara:
I remember my mother. She was 52 years old when she died of ovarian cancer, and you know what she was thinking about in the last months of her life? She wasn't thinking about getting well. She wasn't thinking about coming to terms with her own mortality. She had been diagnosed just as she was transitioning between jobs. And she wasn't sure whether insurance was going to cover the medical expenses because they might consider this a preexisting condition. I remember just being heartbroken, seeing her struggle through the paperwork and the medical bills and the insurance forms. So, I have seen what it's like when somebody you love is suffering because of a broken health care system. And it's wrong. It's not who we are as a people.
Dunham's employer-provided health insurance covered most of the costs of her medical treatment, leaving her to pay the deductible and uncovered expenses, which came to several hundred dollars per month.Scott (2011), pp. 328–336.
Her employer-provided disability insurance denied her claims for uncovered expenses because the insurance company said her cancer was a preexisting condition.


Posthumous interest

In September 2008, the
University of Hawaii at Mānoa A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...
held a symposium about Dunham. In December 2009, Duke University Press published a version of Dunham's dissertation titled ''Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia.'' The book was revised and edited by Dunham's graduate advisor, Alice G. Dewey, and Nancy I. Cooper. Dunham's daughter,
Maya Soetoro-Ng Maya Kasandra Soetoro-Ng (; ; born August 15, 1970) is an Indonesian-American academic, who is a faculty specialist at the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, based in the College of Social Sciences at the University ...
, wrote the foreword for the book. In his afterword,
Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...
anthropologist Robert W. Hefner describes Dunham's research as "prescient" and her legacy as "relevant today for anthropology, Indonesian studies, and engaged scholarship". :See also: * The book was launched at the 2009 annual meeting of the
American Anthropological Association The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...
in Philadelphia with a special Presidential Panel on Dunham's work; The 2009 meeting was taped by C-SPAN. In 2009, an exhibition of Dunham's Javanese
batik Batik is an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth. This technique originated from the island of Java, Indonesia. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a ''ca ...
textile collection (''A Lady Found a Culture in its Cloth: Barack Obama's Mother and Indonesian Batiks'') toured six museums in the United States, finishing the tour at the
Textile Museum A textile museum is a museum with exhibits relating to the history and art of textiles, including: * Textile industries and manufacturing, often located in former factories or buildings involved in the design and production of yarn, cloth and clot ...
of Washington, D.C., in August. Early in her life, Dunham explored her interest in the textile arts as a weaver, creating wall hangings for her own enjoyment. After moving to Indonesia, she was attracted to the striking textile art of the batik and began to collect a variety of different fabrics. In December 2010 Dunham was awarded the Bintang Jasa Utama, Indonesia's highest civilian award; the Bintang Jasa is awarded at three levels, and is presented to those individuals who have made notable civic and cultural contributions. A lengthy major biography of Dunham by former '' New York Times'' reporter Janny Scott, titled ''A Singular Woman'', was published in 2011. The University of Hawaii Foundation has established the Ann Dunham Soetoro Endowment, which supports a faculty position housed in the Anthropology Department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and the Ann Dunham Soetoro Graduate Fellowships, providing funding for students associated with the
East–West Center The East–West Center (EWC), or the Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West, is an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peop ...
(EWC) in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 2010 the Stanley Ann Dunham Scholarship was established for young women graduating from Mercer Island High School, Ann's alma mater. In its first six years the scholarship fund has awarded eleven college scholarships. On January 1, 2012, President Obama and his family visited an exhibition of his mother's anthropological work on display at the
East–West Center The East–West Center (EWC), or the Center for Cultural and Technical Interchange Between East and West, is an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peop ...
. Filmmaker Vivian Norris's feature length biographical film of Ann Dunham entitled '' Obama Mama'' (La mère d'Obama-French title) premiered on May 31, 2014, as part of the 40th annual Seattle International Film Festival, not far from where Dunham grew up on Mercer Island.


Personal beliefs

In his 1995 memoir '' Dreams from My Father'', Barack Obama wrote, "My mother's confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn't possess... In a land ndonesiawhere fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hardship ... she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism." In his 2006 book ''
The Audacity of Hope ''The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream'' is the second book written by Barack Obama. It became number one on both the ''New York Times'' and Amazon.com bestsellers lists in the fall of 2006, after Obama had been endor ...
'' Obama wrote, "I was not raised in a religious household ... My mother's own experiences ... only reinforced this inherited skepticism. Her memories of the Christians who populated her youth were not fond ones ... And yet for all her professed secularism, my mother was in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I've ever known." "Religion for her was "just one of the many ways—and not necessarily the best way—that man attempted to control the unknowable and understand the deeper truths about our lives," Obama wrote: Dunham's best friend in high school, Maxine Box, said that Dunham "touted herself as an atheist, and it was something she'd read about and could argue. She was always challenging and arguing and comparing. She was already thinking about things that the rest of us hadn't." On the other hand, Dunham's daughter, Maya Soetoro-Ng, when asked later if her mother was an atheist, said, "I wouldn't have called her an atheist. She was an agnostic. She basically gave us all the good books—the Bible, the Hindu '' Upanishads'' and the
Buddhist scripture Buddhist texts are those religious texts which belong to the Buddhist tradition. The earliest Buddhist texts were not committed to writing until some centuries after the death of Gautama Buddha. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts a ...
, the '' Tao Te Ching''—and wanted us to recognize that everyone has something beautiful to contribute." "Jesus, she felt, was a wonderful example. But she felt that a lot of Christians behaved in un-Christian ways." In a 2007 speech, Obama contrasted the beliefs of his mother to those of her parents, and commented on her spirituality and skepticism: "My mother, whose parents were nonpracticing Baptists and Methodists, was one of the most spiritual souls I ever knew. But she had a healthy skepticism of religion as an institution." Obama also described his own beliefs in relation to the religious upbringing of his mother and father:


Publications

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References


References

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Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dunham, Ann Obama family American women anthropologists American women social scientists American feminists American humanists University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa alumni University of Washington alumni People from Honolulu People from Mercer Island, Washington People from Wichita, Kansas American people of English descent American people of German descent American people of Irish descent American people of Scottish descent American people of Swiss descent American people of Welsh descent American expatriates in Indonesia American expatriates in Pakistan Deaths from cancer in Hawaii Deaths from uterine cancer Mothers of presidents of the United States 1942 births 1995 deaths 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American scientists Mercer Island High School alumni 20th-century American anthropologists American people of African descent