Herman P. Chilson’s Donation of the Western Americana Collection to I. D. Weeks Library

evelynschlenker
Oct 7, 2025
2 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

On November 18, 1976, Herman Chilson (1905-1986), a scholar, historian of the Northern Plains, and author, donated his entire Western Americana collection to the University of South Dakota. According to a December 7, 1976, Volante article, the gift encompassed items Chilson collected over a 60-year period.

To amass this large private library, Chilson visited bookstores and auctions and acquired other collections containing western art and literature. Notable holdings include works by Leonard Jennewein, S. S. Visher, W. O. Wemette, and Hjalmar Holand, as well as Alfred Petersen’s bird paintings and books. Among other endeavors, Chilson was an avid and well-known ornithologist. Even after his initial donation, he continued to contribute materials to USD’s library holdings.

Robert Carmack, then director of the USD Libraries, described the collection as a “living legacy to one man’s concern about the past and the future” in his 1982 forward to a catalog of about 6,000 items in the Chilson Collection (Herman P. Chilson Western Americana collection – University of South Dakota). To lend further credence to this idea, the library has continually added more items to the Chilson Collection, which now constitutes the largest collection in the Archives and Special Collections, holding over 19,100 items.

In recognition for his work, Chilson, along with Herbert Schell, historian, author, and USD Professor Emeritus, received the 1978 Dakota Conference Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Preservation of Cultural Heritage of South Dakota and the Northern Plains. In 1982, Chilson received an honorary doctorate from the University of South Dakota to acknowledge the enduring impact of his Northen Plains scholarship.

Aside from printed materials from the Chilson Collection available at Archives and Special Collections (https://libguides.usd.edu/ASCCollections/chilson), items are accessible digitally as part of the South Dakota Digital Library (https://explore.digitalsd.org/digital/collection/chilson).

Chilson’s vast collection of books, maps, manuscripts, and images are a treasure trove for researchers of western American history and culture including a large section about Indigenous peoples’ culture and history.