All Posts

On this election day, Archives and Special Collections has added a list of Dakota Territory’s governors and delegates and a list of South Dakota’s governors, U.S. senators, and U.S. representatives to its online site. If you notice any misspellings or other errors, please let us know. The link will take you to: The location of […]

On November 7, 1922, South Dakotans were asked to vote whether to move the University from Vermillion to Sioux Falls. This initiated law lost, and it had the lowest yes vote of any initiated law in the years analyzed by Alan Clem, i.e., 1889-1960 (page 35). Shown in the image are the constitutional amendments (CA) […]

I found this handwritten recipe in a cookbook in the Archives and Special Collections. What does it make? Who put it there? Does cathup equal ketchup? Is there still shredded wheat in the breakfast food aisle? I must use it soon and find out what it makes. Meatloaf? Meatloaf Appreciation Day is October 18th. The […]

This year, make a trip to Mitchell to see the Corn Palace and/or visit our Archives and Special Collections to read about the once common Corn Palaces: 1976. Schutt, Robert. The Corn Palace Story: with a Description of Early South Dakota and Mitchell, and a Map Indicating South Dakota Indian Reservations. Dakota News. CHILSON COLLECTION. F659.M5 […]

Historian Everett Sterling wrote in Vermillion Story (1959) that there was “a 1910 map preserved in the City Building, on which every residence is shown and identified …” Does anyone know where the map is now? Sterling’s Vermillion Story is in the Chilson Collection. Other histories about Vermillion and Clay County SD are listed on […]

This recipe is from Good Things to Eat and How to Prepare Them. Buffalo NY: Larkin Co., 1906. This book is in the Chilson Collection in the Archives and Special Collections.

She was active and influential in politics and public education in the early 20th century at the local (Vermillion SD) level and the state level. She also wrote for a local newspaper, the Vermillion Plain Talk, and taught school. 1866 – birth. Circa 1888 – graduation from USD and started teaching at Vermillion. 1901 – […]

Even his wife Eleanor did not know what was in it. In her cookbook, she described the dressing as having a tangy flavor all its own. George McGovern was an US senator from South Dakota and the Democratic Party presidential nominee 50 years ago in the 1972 presidential election. This cookbook is in the Chilson […]

It was south and west of Yankton, Dakota Territory. This 1872 map can be viewed in the Archives and Special Collections. Map of Military Department of the Platte, Nebraska. Washington, D.C.: Engineer Dept., U.S. Army (Washington D.C. : N. Peters, Photo-lithographer), 1872. CHILSON COLLECTION MAP 4190 W728 1872

Map of the Ceded Part of Dakota Territory: Showing Also Portions of Minnesota, Iowa & Nebraska, Smith, B. M., et al, 1861. Archives and Special Collection has this map in the Chilson Collection with the call number 4130 S64 1861. The inset map in the upper left corner shows the entire Dakota Territory and its boundaries.

At 33 inches by 25 inches and weighing more than 50 pounds, this lunar atlas is the largest book in the Archives and Special Collection at USD. The moon was photographed through the Observatory of Paris’ telescope in the late 1890s, and the photographs used to produce photogravure plates for the atlas. Library of Congress […]

according to a book in Chilson Collection with this title. Hint – many of the letters that look like a “f” are actually a “s”.

-while at the time having a region called New South Wales in a book with a long title in the Chilson Collection in the Archives and Special Collections: Payne, John. A New and Complete System of Universal Geography; Describing Asia, Africa, Europe and America; with Their Subdivisions of Republics, States, Empires, and Kingdoms: The […]

Salute to Oscar Micheaux, who homesteaded near Gregory (SD) before becoming a film maker and author. The Archives and Special Collections at USD has many books by and about him. Books by Micheaux in the Herman P. Chilson Collection of Americana: Micheaux, Oscar. The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer. Lincoln, Nebr.: Woodruff Press, […]

What bend of the Missouri River between Vermillion and Yankton, SD is named after a famed 19th century naturalist who stayed at Fort Vermillion in 1843? He was traveling on the Missouri River while researching his book on quadrupeds? Archives and Special Collections has his quadruped and bird books in the Chilson Collection. Image from […]

The national woman suffrage story ultimately became a success because of the success of suffragists at the state and local levels. Next year, as we celebrate a century since the ratification of the 19th Amendment, it is important to remember the significance of the state and local stories as well. Simultaneously the most fun and […]

List from Knutson, Wayne S. “A story of faith and endurance: The University of South Dakota.” In From idea to institution: higher education in South Dakota, edited by Herbert T. Hoover et al, page 32. Vermillion, SD: University of South Dakota Press, 1989, call number LA364.5 .F76 1989. name date of initial appointment academic areas […]

E.O. Lawrence won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1939 for his work on the cyclotron, which uses an electric field to accelerate charge particles. Most cyclotrons are utilized in medicine and physics research. He also has an element on the periodic table named after him, Lawrencium. The Archives and Special Collections at the University […]

If you think banning books is solely a modern pastime, stop by Special Collections to take a look at this 1541 edition of Petrarch’s Canzoniere. The book was not banned in its entirety, but some sonnets were subject to censorship by the Catholic Church via the Index Expurgatorius. This index required the expurgation of selected sonnets from […]

maps from: Illustrated Historical Atlas of Clay County, South Dakota : Including a Brief History of Clay County by E. Frank Peterson, 1901. Standard Atlas of Clay County, South Dakota : Including a Plat Book of the Villages, Cities and Townships of the County, Map of the State United States and World, Patrons Directory, Reference […]