This volume describes the past in South Dakota from prehistory to the outset of the twenty-first century. Some chapters provide new interpretations for topics already evaluated in the historical literature while others present themes not previously addressed in any publications. Sixteen authors include men and women who have earned the greatest recognition for their cultural and historical studies of the northern Great Plains. Accordingly, at the time of publication, the aggregate of their contributions must be regarded as a definitive study.

A New South Dakota History Second Edition

David A. Wolff

Herbert T. Hoover

Edward P. Hogan

Rex C. Myers

Gary D. Olson

Betti C. VanEpps-Taylor

John E. Miller

Lynwood E. Oyos

Bob Lee

Carol Hoover

Arthur R. Huseboe

Ron Robinson

Michael J. Mullin

The Center for Western Studies

For the very first time, some of South Dakota's best poets have been gathered together into one book. A Harvest of Words offers an excellent snapshot of poetic life as it currently exists in the state and each of these literary artists has been given an entire chapter to showcase their award-winning work. These are poets at the top of their game. Their work illuminates what it means to come from this state, from this region, and from this country.

A Harvest of Words: Contemporary South Dakota Poetry (Prairie Plains Series No. 13)

Lee Ann Roripaugh

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

Patrick Hicks

David Allan Evans

Lydia Whirlwind Soldier

Jeanne Emmons

Allison Hedge Coke

Debra Nystrom

Leo Dangel

Jim Reese

Dennis Sampson

Christine Stewart-Nuñez

Linda Hasslestrom

From dust jacket notes: "...The Wind Blows Free, a personal reminiscence of a 1934 hitchniking trek from Doon, Iowa, to the shining Western mountains, is a trip which the author said 'released his soul.' It is an odyssey of the outsetting novelist, an adventure into some of the beginnings of Frederick Manfred's art. For that reason alone The Wind Blows Free is an important book. But it is also a rich and wonderfully humorous account, a moving picture of the young artist, in which Manfred sits (that's too quiescent a term somehow) for his own portrait. In Vivian, South Dakota, a dust-bowl town of boardwalks and moaning winds, youthful Frederick Feikema Manfred meets Minerva Baxter enroute West with her 1926 Essex and her spinster's phobias. As a condition for his becoming her passenger-driver he must stand for a portrait - this time a chalk outline of his six-foot, nine-inch frame to be drawn by an attendant on a gas-station wall as Miss Minerva's precaution against any criminal ardor latent in the young man. Examining the great human map which results, she pronounces it satisfactory and say it's time to be on their way...."

The Wind Blows Free

Literature & Fiction

Frederick Manfred

United States

Where does the Midwest end and the Great Plains begin? And does it matter?
 The authors of essays in this latest collection from the Center for Western Studies believe such questions are important to understanding how regional identity forms and persists--or erodes and even disappears.
Contributing authors: James S. Aber, Susan W. Aber, Julie Courtwright, James E. Davis, Anna Thompson Hajdik, Rachael Hanel, Debbie A. Hanson, Maria Howe, Mara W. Cohen Ioannides, Christopher R. Laingen, Jon K. Lauck, Matthew S. Luckett, Nathalie Massip, Michael J. Mullin, Paula M. Nelson, Lance Nixon, David Pichaske, Jay M. Price, Joseph D. Schiller, Brad Tennant, Harry F. Thompson, Will Weaver, and Gleaves Whitney.

The Interior Borderlands: Regional Identity in the Midwest and Great Plains

Edited by Jon K. Lauck with Preface by Harry F. Thompson

Center for Western Studies

CNBC's annual survey America's Top States for Business ranked South Dakota No. 1 in 2013. Among the ten categories of competitiveness cited in the study, the criterion that business leaders consistently rank as most important -Cost of Doing Business- proved especially favorable for the state that attracts millions of visitors each year to the Shrine of Democracy, Mount Rushmore. In Business Friendliness, a measurement of the state's legal and regulatory climate, South Dakota came in No. 2. Also recognized in the survey was South Dakota's low tax burden- no individual or corporate income taxes and low sales and property taxes and low utility rates, wages and commercial rent costs. Further, South Dakota boasts low unemployment, strong state finances (surplus budgets), and a healthy housing market.
 In his new study of entrepreneurship in South Dakota, Little Business on the Prairie, economic historian Robert Wright reviews the state's economic history through the lenses of its public policies, politics, and institutions of governance. The book demonstrates that an economy that suffers from palpable disadvantages, like long distance from major markets and low population density, will still thrive if it is governed efficiently. In other words, crucial public goods like education, infrastructure, and justice should be provided at minimal cost, and entrepreneurs should not be burdened with excessive regulatory and tax expense.
 Economic performance suffers when governance is poor and public goods are provided at an unnecessarily high cost. This Wright shows by comparing South Dakota to other states and by examining the economies of the state's Indian reservations. Public goods provisions on reservations is spotty and generally very poor and, not surprising, reservation economies lag far behind that of the state even though individual Native Americans have shown considerable entrepreneurial skill. Little Business on the Prairie concludes with Wright's prescription for confronting the economic and governance challenges that lie ahead for South Dakota.

Little Business on the Prairie: Entrepreneurship, Prosperity, and Challenge in South Dakota

Robert E. Wright

The Thresher

Herbert Krause

Introduction by Patrick Hicks

It took over fifty years to make the Center for Western Studies the cultural powerhouse it is today. “Bright, Clear Sky Over a Plain So Wide” is the story of how one of America’s first regional studies centers, located in the borderlands between the Midwest and Great Plains/West, grew into a distinctive humanities, arts, and public affairs program at Augustana University. The book traces three themes (mission, governance, and finance) throughout the center’s 56-year history and examines the development of an idea to preserve and interpret the history and cultures of the region surrounding the university, while also seeking to improve the quality of the area’s social and cultural life. Launched in 1964 by English professor and historical novelist Herbert Krause, the center was expanded in 1970 by the Augustana board of trustees and has since been sustained by a community-university board and council. Today, the Center for Western Studies looks forward to a future that, in the words of O.E. Rolvaag, an Augustana Academy graduate and author of the Great Plains novel Giants in the Earth, holds the promise of a “bright, clear sky over a plain so wide.” Included are recollections by founders Herbert Krause, Gary D. Olson, and Sven G. Froiland, a reminiscence of Herbert Krause by former student Jane Torness Rasmussen, remarks on the Center’s 25th anniversary by Arthur R. Huseboe, and the dedication of the Fantle Building by Tom Kilian. An account of the work of early co-director William R. “Bill” Wyatt is included in Thompson’s narrative.

Bright, Clear Sky Over a Plain So Wide

Harry F. Thompson

Collection of 13 essays by various writers on South Dakota history: borders, railroads, weather, West River Country, wildlife and parks, radical tradition, German-language press, changing foodways, sports, hunting and fishing, American Indian Movement (AIM), and movies.

Old Trails and New Roads

Jon K. Lauck, Editor

Conservation on the Northern Plains: New Perspectives challenges widespread assumptions about people and nature, reframing understandings of both in the process. In eleven essays, ten authors trek across the Plains to find the people, places, and stories that define conservation.In addressing conservation's reach, the authors reflect on the ordinary, the extraordinary, and the spaces in between, covering species ranging from horses to honeybees and from pheasants to wolves. Each essay is a call to revisit conservation and re-engage in discussions of use and the environment. This collection tackles conservation issues in eight states and Canada, giving special attention to Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
The volume is edited by Dr. Anthony J. Amato, Associate Professor of Social Science at Southwest Minnesota State University
. . . the essayists in this volume will help readers understand the vitality and potential of one of North America's most distinctive and productive landscapes - Greg Breining, author of Wild Shore and Paddle North. 
Foreword by Dennis Anderson, Outdoors Editor and Columnist, Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
Of related interest . . . Birding in the Northern Plains: The Ornithological Writings of Herbert Krause, by Ronald R. Nelson, and Natural History of the Black Hills and Badlands, by Sven Froiland and Ronald Weedon, published by The Center for Western Studies.
ISBN: 978-0-931170-95-9 215 pages 16 photographs $12.00

Conservation on the Northern Plains: New Perspectives

William Hoffman

Linda M. Hasselstrom

Anthony J Amato

Joseph A. Amato

Peter Carrels

Stephen L. Eliason

Andrea Glessner

Miles D. Lewis

Lisa Payne Ossian

Barry L. Stiefel

In his introduction to Heartland River, Midwest / Great Plains historian and son of the Big Sioux River valley Jon K. Lauck, writes, “Recognizing the Big Sioux River is not only a critical exercise in finding place in an increasingly digital and placeless world, but also an important exertion of cultural identity, a quest for the recognition of a lost watershed in the center of our nation during an era when the coasts dominate our society and the American interior remains neglected.” In the 19 essays that follow, readers will find a cornucopia of delights and warnings. From “A River Through Time” to “Don’t Drink the Water,” for example, the writers document early river cultures and bacterial contamination today. The collection’s six sections cover almost every conceivable aspect of this 420-mile-long prairie river dividing South Dakota and Iowa and Minnesota and a major tributary to the Missouri River, never before the subject of a book: Natural History and Indigenous Peoples; Explorers, Settlers, Outlaws, and War; Writers, Scholars, and Artists; Politics; Water Quality; and Personal Reflections.

Heartland River: A Cultural and Environmental History of the Big Sioux River Valley

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Books by The Center for Western Studies