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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.

Within the Chilson collection, there is a great wealth of information on the Battle of Little Bighorn. Within these books, there are a delightful little bunch of narratives regarding the animals of Little Bighorn, most of them focusing on Keogh’s horse Comanche. One book, Marching with Custer by Elwood L. Nye, outlines the hardships the […]

Women’s History The following collections in the Archives and Special Collections are by or about women: American Association of University Women Anderberg, Ina Anderson, Rebecca Collection on Whiteclay, Nebraska Beede Family Breeden, Jane Rooker Broughall, V.V.H. [textiles] Cooper-Foote, Dorothy (Wright) Cramer, Petrea Diaries Dillion, Charles H. and Frances J. Scrapbook Dimmick, Lauretta Edelen, Mary B. […]

The Faculty Woman’s Club collection has been processed and is available for research. The Faculty Woman’s Club was a group at USD that was formed for female faculty members and wives of professors. On a program cover letter from September 21, 1954, program chairwoman Edith M. Eyres states that the Faculty Woman’s Club’s “purpose is […]

What if everyone in South Dakota read the same book?” This is the premise behind One Book South Dakota. Dammed Indians Revisited by Michael L. Lawson is the 2012 One Book South Dakota selection. Discussions on this book will be held on campus March 18 and April 15, 2013. Dammed Indians Revisited and five of […]

Although Edith Wharton may be best known for her novels analyzing New York’s upper crust, the author lived in France from 1907 until her death in 1937. There, she witnessed the ravages of World War I, especially the hardships endured by refugees. She helped by establishing The Children of Flanders Relief Committee and The American […]

While wandering through the labyrinth of books in the Archives and Special Collections, I came across a title that caught my eye. Taking it off the shelf, the tale of Ellen McGowan Biddle was unveiled in her memoir Reminiscences of a Soldier’s Wife. The story mainly focuses on experiences that occurred after the Civil War […]

In the Archives and Special Collections are watercolor reproductions of three University of South Dakota buildings: Slagle Auditorium (now called Aalfs Auditorium), the Carnegie Library (now houses the National Music Museum) and the Coyote Student Center (demolished in 2007, current location of the Muenster University Center). These images were created by Gray’s Watercolors. The Archives and Special Collections copies […]

Once again, Dakota Days has come. Though the festivities have begun early in the week, the parade is still an exciting highlight of Game Day. A screaming sea of red and white converges upon the Dome to cheer the Coyotes to victory. One lucky girl is crowned Miss Dakota. In the evening, merry USD students […]

While the Chilson Collection focuses on Midwestern history and culture, it also has many other interesting gems. One in particular that caught my eye was Water Birds of North America by Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, a two-volume set containing hundreds of illustrations of heads and portraits of birds. In the set that can be found […]