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The Archives and Special Collections invites you to view our display featuring military-related pieces from the William J. Janklow Papers. Items now on display include: • Marine Corps Jacket, two USMC lapel pins, and business cards from Governor and Congress • Longlive Friendship Plaque, gifted to Janklow by the Republic of […]

Image from the Albert Sidney Frost papers. He was a colonel in the 1st Regiment, South Dakota Volunteers while they were in the Philippines for the Spanish American War.

In addition to books, magazines, pamphlets, and ephemera, the Mahoney Music Collection also contains unpublished material, such as: All About Violin Varnish : Its Manufacture And Application. Gould, John A. Illustrations To Old Violins And Their Value Fleming, James M. John Gould’s Violin Instrument Appraisals – 1945-1984 Gould, John Sur Sylvestre, […]

Did you know that the Archives and Special Collections has a time capsule? It was filled with items related to the centennial of the University of South Dakota and is scheduled to be opened in 2082.

The Herman P. Chilson Collection of Western Americana, located in the Archives and Special Collections, includes books, journals, maps, pamphlets, and other print materials relating to local histories, South Dakota history, Native American cultures, and United States western expansion. The Chilson Collection is cataloged and information about items in the collection can be found using […]

During the 1940s to the 1960s, Vermillion hosted a vibrant set of concerts sponsored by the Vermillion Community Artists’ Series. The following description is from one of its programs: “The annual concert program was inaugurated in 1947 when Arthur H. Whittemore and Jack Lowe, duo-pianists, presented a concert to establish the A. H. Whittemore Memorial […]

American History in the Mahoney Music Collection This week we celebrate the birth of our nation, with this Friday marking the 238th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Throughout those two centuries, music has played a key role in shaping our American culture, and the Mahoney Music Collection is lucky to hold some of the […]

The Archives and Special Collections invites you to check out our new display featuring pieces from the Mahoney Music Collection. Items now on display in front of the Archives include: Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1st edition The Strad, Vol. 1 Portraits of Musical Celebrities, from Steinway & Sons (showing a testimonial from […]

John Phillip Sousa is widely known in the world of music as the “March King.” Yet, his prolific compositional career included operettas, songs, and suites in addition to the more famous 135 individual marches: Stars and Stripes Forever, The Washington Post, Semper Fidelis, The Liberty Bell, Minnesota March, et al. Sousa was more than an […]

This cartobibliography consists of eighteenth and nineteenth century maps housed in the Archives and Special Collections Department of the University Libraries at the University of South Dakota. The maps selected focus on the Northern Great Plains with special emphasis on South Dakota. Also included are select maps of Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Iowa, and Nebraska. Entries […]

A Postcard Collection from the University of South Dakota’s Archives The USD Archives and Special Collections is home to many unique holdings from South Dakota’s past. This on-line exhibit, Greetings from South Dakota, is a compilation of 27 postcards rendering images from throughout the state. As a part of our Chilson Collection, this group of […]

Introduction: Emmy-nominated screenwriter Dorothy Cooper Foote was born in Vermillion, SD in 1911. She was also a USD alum who graduated in 1933 with a degree in journalism. After moving to California, she soon began to work her way up the ranks at Universal Studios. Under the name Dorothy Cooper, she wrote such films as […]

A Brief Introduction Being a music performance major besides being a bibliophile, I was elated to begin working with the Mahoney Music Collection this semester. One of the first projects assigned to me was to find books to potentially be digitized in the next project, after treatises and Lyon & Healey catalogues. They were to […]

The Archives and Special Collections is acquiring digital copies of the 16mm films in the Educational Media Film Collection. We have just received this year’s DVDs from the company contracted to do the conversion. They are: The Great Lakes of South Dakota Happiest Gold Rush Ever Have You Really Seen South Dakota? Health Care: Crisis […]

Fraser Harrison, British writer and author of Infinite West: Travels in South Dakota will speak on “A Visit to Yankton, the River City” at the W. H. Over Museum in Vermillion at 7:00 PM on Monday, June 17, 2013. In honor of his visit, I present the following travel and description books from the Chilson […]

The following collections in the Archives and Special Collections have content about the U.S. Military. Army Specialized Training Programs – WWII Austin, Horace – Civil War Beede Family – 1st Dakota Cavalry Bellamy, Paul E. – Spanish-American War Burton, Frederick – WWII Civil War Diary, Union Soldier, 1861-1863 Civilian Aeronautics Administration, USD Training Program, 1939-1945 […]

I recently attended the South Dakota State Historical Society 2013 History Conference. There were many great papers, but the one that stands out in my mind used maps plus a diary as primary resources. Graham Callaway talked about G.K. Warren’s 1856 maps of the Missouri River. These maps were only available at the National Archives, […]

Ella Deloria (1888 or 1889 – 1971) was born on the Yankton Reservation. She was “a teacher, speaker, author, and researcher in linguistics and anthropology” (Murray 1974, viii). She was associated with the University of South Dakota from 1961 to 1964 (Murray 1974, 146-149). The Chilson Collection contains the following books that she authored, coauthored, […]

Bill Nye. There’s a name that automatically brings back memories. No, not Bill Nye the Science Guy, but don’t worry… I was fooled too! I stumbled across this story while rambling through the Chilson Collection. The voice and history of the Western enthusiast, Edgar Wilson Nye, more commonly known by his pseudonym Bill Nye, comes […]

For quick tips on how to save your audio tapes, books, film and home movies, data, textiles, documents, slides, photographs, and scrapbooks, go to http://www.ala.org/alcts/preservationweek/howto.