The Archives and Special Collections received 31 boxes of rolled architectural drawings, floor plans, and blueprints of buildings in Vermillion SD and the University of South Dakota. We are in the process of flattening and inventorying this gift. Projects date from 1920s to 2000s. Some of the projects are the Clay County Courthouse, Vermillion public schools, DakotaDome, Chemistry Building fire repair, animal quarters, and many dorms. The brief inventory included with the gift also lists items that are not buildings, such as a plot plan/old map and campus development. I look forward to finding them.

When did the USD football team play Notre Dame? The USD football team play Notre Dame 1913-1917. Information from The history of intercollegiate football, basketball, track, and baseball at the State University of South Dakota, Richard T. Haase, USD M.A. thesis, 1965. Consult Haase’s thesis to find out if USD beat Norte Dame and when. Image of USD football team from Digital Library of South Dakota. Happy Dakota Days.

Did you feel like a penguin this last week? Penguins are in my favorite research project logo. USD zoology professor Raymond Dillon and two grad students participated in a United States Antarctica research program for 10 weeks in 1969, collecting fresh water and soil protozoa samples. For more information on the research project, please see The University of South Dakota Alumni Dakotan, volume 1, number 1, January 1969. This alumni publication is available in the Archives and Special Collections.

Was a professor from the University of South Dakota, Dr. Marjorie Eastwood Dudley (1891-1961), the first woman in America to write a symphony for a major orchestra? (The South Dakotan, November 1977, p. 3) It would be fun to find what symphony she wrote and for which orchestra. Maybe the answer is in her papers, which were at the Archives and Special Collections but now reside at the National Music Museum. Image from USD Photograph Collection

I need to find a bowler hat and a dark suit. Should I dress up and sit outside of Old Main now while there are not many people on campus, or wait until fall when the leaves are off the trees, allowing us to photograph a clearer view of Old Main and East Hall? The image is from Catalogue of the University of South Dakota for the year 1892-3. Catalogs for USD are in the USD Archives.

You’ll want to read Civil Defense In-Shelter Guide for University of South Dakota (November 18, 1963) to find out what learning to love crackers has to do with bomb shelters. It is in the USD Archives collection General Publications. Do you know what movie title I am misquoting for my title? Hint, it came out in 1964, and it is about the nuclear bomb.

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 Collection in the Archives and Special Collections at the University of South Dakota.

In January 1920, the University of South Dakota’s winter term began one week later than scheduled because of a coal shortage and the uncertainty of future coal supply. The shortage and uncertainty were due to a coal miners’ strike. Sources: Information from The Alumni Quarterly, January 1920, page 134. Image from the leather cover of USD’s 1921 commencement.

Images are from the South Dakota State Fair Collection, Archives and Special Collections, University of South Dakota. Also in this collection is a list of the 1923 Women’s Building events at the fair. The National Archives sponsors #ArchivesHashtagParty once a month, and July’s topic is #ArchivesVacay. They invite archives to submit information about summer vacation and travel-related items in their collections.

Some events are listed in this flyer from the Archives and Special Collection’s folder on the South Dakota State Fair.