The Archives and Special Collections has a 1937 atlas by the Clay County Planning Board. It depicts the county after the stock market crash of 1929 and during the Great Depression. The maps show parcels of land owned by private individuals, the Federal Land Bank, other banks, insurance companies, land associations, etc. "The Clay County Farm Ownership Atlas was sponsored by the Clay County Planning Board. The work of securing the data, drafting, blue printing, and all clerical work was done by students of the University of South Dakota who were on the National Youth Administration program. While utmost care was used in obtaining the data from the official records, the correctness of the information contained herein cannot be guaranteed." Quote and image from the Farm Ownership Atlas of Clay County South Dakota. Image used with permission of Planning, Zoning & Veterans Service, Clay County, South Dakota.

“As soon as we were across the [Missouri] river, we started up the river on our long westward journey. Late in the evening we camped at a farm house some six miles from Covington. The road we traveled is very smooth and level. The Missouri bottom here is some 18 or 15 miles wide and, for between one to three miles in width, is covered with a heavy growth of cottonwood timber. Back of Covington, for several miles, the country is not settled and cultivated as it should be, for, to all appearances, a more beautiful locality could not more easily be found. The soil is deep and rich and covered with an abundance of grass, with water and timber within convenient distance.” This description of the Sioux City, Iowa area in 1865 is from the Edward Edwards’ journal. (I will use diary and journal interchangeably in this post.) Other towns mentioned in the next couple of pages of the diary are Decotah, Franklin, St. John, Ponka, St. James, and Niobrara. Some of these towns still exist and can be visited by driving west of Sioux City. A portion of the Edward H. Edwards journal is in the Archives and Special Collections. The diary’s writer Edward Edwards was from Sioux City, and he was 24 years old when he joined the Sawyers expedition as teamster. The expedition’s goal was to construct a wagon road from the Missouri River at Niobrara City, Nebraska to the gold mines of Virginia City, Montana (Drago and Mott). There are many different types of diaries. Some give an account of day-to-day life. Edward’s journal is not that type. It doesn’t have daily entries, and it doesn’t tell us much about constructing a road or what it was like living in a camp. It does contain detailed descriptions of the land, plants, weather, and major events like meeting Natives or finding fossils. It reads like a travelogue. When reading a diary for historical research, it is useful to ask yourself questions similar to the following: What was the diary’s context? What was the writer’s intent? Was it promotional? If so, what was the goal? Was it written while the events were occurring or later? Are there phrases borrowed from other contemporary literature? Clichés may indicate that the writer is repeating common knowledge rather than writing personal observation. Drago and Mott tell us that Edwards wrote to his family during the same trip. I wonder how the observations in this journal compare with observations in those letters. Some of the diaries from the Archives and Special Collections are on the Digital Library of South Dakota. Diaries by Austin Horace and an unnamed Civil War soldier are available there for viewing. If you are looking for a fun volunteer activity, consider transcribing handwritten diaries for an archive. One of our diaries is in shorthand. If you know how to read shorthand, you could tell us what a young man in Sioux Falls in the 1870s-1880s was journaling. Source: Harry Sinclair Drago and Phyllis Mott. “The Edwards Letters and the Wagon Road to Virginia City.” In The Westerners, New York Posse Brand Book, Volume 9, Number 1, 1962.

As part of the South Dakota Oral History Project, individuals from all South Dakota counties were interviewed in the 1960s through the 1970s. These oral histories present a window into the life of South Dakotans during the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. This blog concerns Carl M. Cornell, a long-tern resident of Harding County, South Dakota. Professor Stephan Ward interviewed Cornell on August 4,1970. Selected excerpts of Cornell’s words from the thirty-five-page transcribed interview are presented in quotations. As a convention in transcripts of oral history interviews, I made no grammatical or spelling corrections. According to the interview, Carl M. Cornell’s family moved to Dickinson, Dakota Territory in 1889 from Coldwater, Michigan and then settled in Harding County on a ranch twelve miles NE of what became the city of Buffalo, South Dakota. With just a fifth-grade education, as a young man Cornell was able to become a foreman building sod houses for homesteaders. He mentioned that a person could also make a living picking up bones from cattle who had succumbed to the preceding harsh winter. “They'd bring those bones in and, uh, yet as I remember they'd said a cent a pound for 'em. Bones in those days were in plenty places that use plastic now, use them for buttons and combs.” Cornell also discussed that prior to the advent of settlers; ranchers grazed their branded cattle in the open range without fences. At that time Intermingling cattle on the same land was no problem. “The settlers came in there so thick that, that, uh, I had to give up the idea there was no free range anymore. They had to..now be careful, boy, be careful. There had been free range up there when I started in but the settlers came in.” Moreover, Cornell mentioned the existence of ancient inhabitants’ petroglyphs (relief carvings in stone) in Ludlow Cave north of Buffalo. He noted that people, including Custer’s men, defaced the cave with graffiti. Referring to the petroglyphs, He stated “They cut 'em out. There's places where they, where they got this, where you couldn't put your hand on the wall, on the rock that would have been plain before you couldn't put your hand on the rock there. A lot of areas of that covering up somebody's initials.” Cornell was a highway superintendent from 1919-1933 and then worked for Tobin Construction Company. Through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), he built the first highways in Harding County. During the Great Depression, Cornell oversaw Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps and discussed the pros and cons of the program. He stated: “You know, giving a fellow a living that he doesn't have to work for, uh, is about the worst thing they can do to you.” Thus, while the program provided money for many people, it also stripped them of their dignity. Later in his life, Cornell was a surveyor and engineer, and worked on water storage projects including dugouts, reservoirs, and irrigation projects. In World War II he was a clerk for the Selective Services Board for three years. Toward the end of the interview, Cornell discussed his family and friends’ recollections and involvement in the Messiah War (Ghost Dance War) from 1890-1891. He also befriended John Kirkwood, a veteran of the 1876 Battle of Slim Buttes. Cornell recounted that lying on a stretcher; the gravely wounded Kirkwood survived the trek from Slim Buttes to Deadwood. “And they carried him down and he rode a hundred miles in that and they were going pretty slow because the horses were played out and a lot of the cavalry, most of the cavalry had to walk. It was, I think, it was five days or something like that that they were on the road. No, no, uh, anesthetics or sedatives at all, you know or whiskey and tobacco.” Kirkwood lived for another fifty years after the battle. Cornell helped with the erection of the Slim Buttes Battle Monument that stands today. In 1978, the South Dakota Hall of Fame inducted Cornell (1881-1975) posthumously. The nomination cited that Cornell was a pioneer road builder, water rights advocate, conservationist, historian, and poetry and short story writer. In addition, the nomination noted Cornell’s life long and extensive work experiences as well as his appreciation of South Dakota western history and Indigenous culture. Moreover, “Cornell was a member of the Harding County Chamber of Commerce; Montana and South Dakota Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors; the Archaeological Society of South Dakota and life member of the South Dakota State Historical Society.” From: (https://www.sdexcellence.org/Carl_Cornell_1978). Below is a photograph of Carl Cornell from this website. A 1971 map of Harding County, South Dakota. The insert indicates the location of the county bounded north by North Dakota and west by Montana. * https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/33659/pg33659-images.html *The map is from: KENNETH W. ANDERSEN and J. KNOX JONES, JR., Mammals of Northwestern South Dakota. University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History, Vol. 19, No. 5, pp. 361-393, January 18, 1971.

On this election day, Archives and Special Collections has created a list of Dakota Territory’s governors and delegates and a list of South Dakota’s governors, U.S. senators, and U.S. representatives. If you notice any misspellings or other errors, please let us know. The link will take you to: The location of South Dakota politicians’ archives can be found in The Plains Political Tradition: Essays on South Dakota Political Culture, Volume 3. This book is in the Chilson Collection.

These are in the Archives and Special Collections. Governor Archie Gubbrud In the I.D. Weeks Library are the reports of the South Dakota Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. The earliest one in the library is dated March 1963 and is about discrimination against Black airmen (especially with housing, restaurants, and bars) in Rapid City, South Dakota, call number F659.R2 U5.

Charles Burney’s and John Hawkins’s multi-volume histories were both published in London in the late 1700s (around 1776.) How are they different, and how are they similar? Why did the authors say negative comments about the other’s history?

The Archives and Special Collections has many Vermillion newspapers, but we don’t have the Dakota Republicans before 1923. You can find this 1869 ad in the Digital Archives at the Vermillion Public Library.

The archivist and staff of the Archives and Special Collections write guides to our collections, papers, and records called finding aids and collection inventories. Some of the finding aids and collection inventories finished during 2024: Crow Creek Site collection Day (John) collection on Arthur Amiotte Fahsing (William Frederick) papers Gallup-Livingston (Mary) papers Holm (Richard) notebook Johnson (John A.) Alumni photographs McKusick (Marshall B.) papers McMaster (William Henry) papers Northern Great Plains Resource Program Pommersheim (Frank) papers Williamson (William) papers Willman (Ron and Lois) ephemera Content Descriptions: Crow Creek Site collection This collection contains material related to the osteological lab analysis of a Plains Coalescent archaeological site. Date range of lab work 1978 – 2012. Day (John) collection on Arthur Amiotte The John Day collection on Arthur Amiotte was collected by John Day. It contains mostly documents pertaining to the creation of the Arthur Amiotte: Retrospective Exhibition, Continuity and Diversity book and exhibition. Date range 1962 – 2010. Fahsing (William Frederick) papers This collection pertains to William Fahsing and his work with the Technology Training Program and the Electro Technical Education Company on the Yankton Indian Reservation and at Greenwood, SD. Date range 1948 – 1974. Gallup-Livingston (Mary) papers This collection is composed of books on Whitewood, SD. Date range 2013-2014. Holm (Richard) notebook This collection is Richard Holm’s class notes from Gross Anatomy class, fall 1971-spring 1972. Johnson (John A.) Alumni photographs The John A. Johnson Alumni Photographs contain articles and photographs related to Vermillion, SD, and specifically the University of South Dakota, during the 1910s. McKusick (Marshall B.) papers The Marshall B. McKusick papers are comprised of notes and correspondence centered around the University of South Dakota and its School of Law from 1899 to 1949. The papers reflect two passions in McKusick’s life: law and sports. McMaster (William Henry) papers This collection contains materials primarily related to the work of William Henry McMaster during his time as South Dakota governor and US senator from South Dakota. Date range of most of the material 1923 – 1929. Northern Great Plains Resource Program The Northern Great Plains Resource records contain material from studies submitted by the Northern Great Plains Resource Program. The material related to resource development and Native American land rights. Date range 1974 – 1975. Pommersheim (Frank) papers The Frank Pommersheim papers revolve around two individuals. The first is Frank Pommersheim, a judge, lawyer, and teacher who has spent almost 40 years in the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in a legal capacity and a law professor at USD for almost 30 years. The second is Frederick Nichols papers during his time as a judge during the Wounded Knee trials from 1974-1975. Date range 1973 – 2008. Williamson (William) papers The Williamson Papers consist of manuscripts, typescripts, and print materials including correspondence, diaries and items relating to Indian jurisdictional legislation, reclamation, and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The materials range from 1892-1958. The material revolves around party politics (sometimes involving the Homestake Company) in the early 20th Century, local legal cases in Pennington County and regarding Native Americans, voting among Pine Ridge Indians, and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Committee. Willman (Ron and Lois) ephemera The collection contains 2 fossils from the Missouri River, a bottle containing 2 bullets from the Civil War, a Calvary Patch, and a military belt buckle.

USD graduation commencement programs are a great source for names of people who have received honorary degrees from the University of South Dakota. Honorary degrees before 1985 are not shown in the list below. 1985 Dietrich, Ernst Doctor of Humane Letters 1985 Floyd, Joseph L. Doctor of Humane Letters 1985 Patterson, Samuel C Doctor of Humane Letters 1986-Summer Bridgeford, Ethel Doctor of Humane Letters 1986-Summer Shepersky, A Duane Honorary Master of Arts 1987 Solberg, Winton U. Doctor of Humane Letters 1987-Summer Spies, Joseph Doctor of Humane Letters 1988-Summer Cunningham, Marjorie Julian Doctor of Humane Letters 1989 Yellow Robe, Rosebud Doctor of Humane Letters 1989 Gregg, John B. Doctor of Science 1989 Legvold, Robert Doctor of Laws 1990 Harris, John W. Doctor of Humane Letters 1991 Kent, Earle L. Doctor of Humane Letters 1991 O’Brien, Pat Doctor of Laws 1991 Schwartz, A. Truman Doctor of Science 1993 Manfred, Frederick F. Doctor of Letters and Literature 1993 Schaaf, Derek J. Vander Doctor of Laws 1993-Summer Young, Phillip T. Doctor of Humane Letters 1993-Summer O’Brien, Daniel H. Doctor of Letters and Literature 1994 Colwell, Richard Doctor of Humane Letters 1994 Vidal, Gore Doctor of Letters and Literature 1995 Thompson, Charles M. Doctor of Laws 1995 Waitt, Theodore W. Doctor of Science 1995-Summer Rawlins, Marjorie T. Doctor of Humane Letters 1995-Winter Pascucci, Vito 1995-winter Hillenbrand, William G. 1996 Bode, Ken A. Doctor of Laws 1996-Summer Lin, Yung-Shi Doctor of Humane Letters 1997-Summer Cutler, Richard A. Doctor of Humane Letters 1997-Summer Houtz, Jim Howard Doctor of Laws 1998 Morgan, Susan Jane Doctor of Humane Letters 1998 Odeen, Philip A. Doctor of Humane Letters 1998-Summer Two Hawk, Sr., Webster Doctor of Laws 2001-Summer Wagner, Robert T. Doctor of Humane Letters 2002 Lohre, John Doctor of Humane Letters 2002 Swanson, Robert K. Doctor of Humane Letters 2002-Summer Ziolkowski, Ruth Doctor of Humane Letters 2004 Doyle, James Michael 2006 Weaver, James Lloyd Doctor of Humane Letters 2006 Williams, Robert Neff Doctor of Letters and Literature 2006-Summer Aman, Thomas E. Doctor of Humane Letters 2007 Sanford, T. Denny Doctor of Humane Letters 2008 McGovern, George Doctor of Public Service 2008-Winter Trimble, Charles E. Doctor of Humane Letters 2009 Myers, Mary Lynn Doctor of Public Service 2009 Myers, Shephen R. Doctor of Public Service 2010 Dexter, Pete Doctor of Letters and Literature 2011 Boritt, Gabor Doctor of Humane Letters 2014 Seigenthaler, John Doctor of Humane Letters 2015 Gallagher, Thomas D. Doctor of Humane Letters 2016 Neuharth, Jan Doctor of Humane Letters 2017 Hill, Pamela Smith Doctor of Humane Letters 2018 Abbott, James W. Doctor of Public Service 2018 Jewett, Harvey C. Doctor of Public Service 2019 Meierhenry, Judith Doctor of Laws 2020 none listed in program 2021 none listed in program 2022 none listed in program 2023 none listed in program 2024 Johnson, Tim Doctor of Public Service 2024 Johnson, Barb Doctor of Public Service Archives and Special Collections has programs for most of the graduation commencements at the University of South Dakota. Please contact the Archives and Special Collection if you spot errors.

Drawing by Cable from Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries Volume XLVIII. Dr. Cable received B.A. (1926) and M.A. (1927) degrees from the University of South Dakota. She worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, later called the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, from 1927 to 1970. Louella Cable, photograph from the Coyote yearbook.