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Summer projects in the archives can be tedious, monotonous, and seemingly endless. Luckily (this time) I got something fun . . . The expansive Mahoney Music Collection is slowly being cataloged by the University library, and much of what is yet uncataloged lives in file cabinets and is simply called “Mahoney pamphlets” — though most […]

This year will mark the 175th anniversary of the death of the legendary violinist Nicoló Paganini. Regarded as the most famous violinist of all time, Paganini is remembered in history for his supreme virtuosity and technique, but his life is also shadowed in mystery and lore. Born in 1782, Paganini spent most of his childhood in Genoa, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Preliminary List of USD Campus Projects 1997-2011 For my first project as a volunteer at the University of South Dakota archives, I compiled a list of building projects that occurred from 1997-2011. This list will be added to for use in the Buildings, Other Structures, and Utilities collection at the archives. The main resource for […]

The Artistic Diversity of the Mahoney Music Collection […]

Lately I have been assigned to the exciting task of carefully vacuuming books and wiping the shelves clean in the Chilson collection. It is a task that would be boring if there weren’t so many interesting books on every shelf. I’ve been working my way through beautifully illustrated Native American children’s books, histories of Wounded […]

Well, all of the University Herbarium specimens collected by W.H. Over have been photographed and put back into their proper folders/cabinets. Altogether, we photographed 1,154 specimens! Now we are working on metadata and digital specifications in order to upload the photos, batch by batch, onto the Digital Library of South Dakota. We’ll start the upload […]

William Henry Over was a natural historian who lived in Vermillion from 1913 to 1956. While in Vermillion, he served first as the Assistant Curator and then full Curator for the University Museum. He studied numerous subjects relating to the natural world, including botany; however, until recently, little was known about Over’s work with plants. […]

From Cleata B. Thorpe’s Education in South Dakota 1861-1961: Teachers will fill lamps, clean chimneys and trim wicks each day. Each teacher will bring a scuttle of coal and a bucket of water for the day’s use. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs for the individual tastes of children. Men teachers may take […]

Last Friday, Doris and I were sent out into the world with an expensive camera as a part of a class that Sarah was teaching about using said expensive camera. It was daunting, mostly because I’m really clumsy so I was afraid of dropping and breaking the camera, but also exciting because I had never […]