This undated North Dakota Council of Defense poster advertised “official war pictures of state troops at Ft. Lincoln and in France.” SHSND SA 10935-P0217

This April marks the 104th anniversary of the United States’ 1917 entry into World War I. While the commemoration of that conflict’s centenary is already part of history, it does not mean that interest in World War I has ceased, as researchers still request materials on the conflict or attempt to find out about ancestors who served in the war.

One of the State Archives’ unique collections features hundreds of WWI posters. This collection contains 921 posters, including some from overseas, which were collected during the final two years of the war by Melvin Gilmore, curator of the State Historical Society of North Dakota from 1916–1923. The posters fall into a number of distinct thematic categories, including recruiting efforts, Liberty Loan campaigns, wartime propaganda, supply drives, and patriotic appeals. The poster styles vary from simple textual or artistic designs to poignant illustrative works of art. Given that print media was the dominant form of information dissemination at that time, these posters represent an important link to the past. Many of these posters are digitized and viewable on our Photobook site.

Each branch of the U.S. armed forces during the war created posters to entice young men and women into service. While women’s opportunities to serve were limited compared to today, efforts were made to reach them as well. Nursing was one avenue by which women were recruited into the war effort. In addition, imagery of women was used in some recruiting posters, portraying them often in the role of helpless victim or appealing to the perceived protective impulses of young men.

A U.S. Army poster listing service opportunities and recruiting stations in North and South Dakota. SHSND SA 10935-P0064

This U.S. Army Air Service recruiting poster, left, drew on visceral imagery of an American bald eagle attacking a “German” eagle to promote enlistment. At right, a poster aimed at bolstering the U.S. presence in France. SHSND SA 10935-P0189, SHSND SA 10935-P0305

The heroic U.S. Marine was front and center in this poster designed by James Montgomery Flagg, creator of the iconic “I want YOU” recruiting poster. SHSND SA 10935-P0346

One of the most famous images from the era, this Navy recruiting poster played on traditional notions of masculinity, using an image of an attractive young woman in a sailor’s uniform to goad men to join up. SHSND SA 10935-P0277

It wasn’t just soldiers who were in demand—the nation also needed nurses to tend to the wounded as evidenced by this U.S. Student Nurse Reserve recruiting poster targeted at women. SHSND SA 10935-P0028

In addition to the armed forces, service organizations actively tried to acquire new members to aid in their war-related efforts. These groups included such organizations as the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and the U.S. Boys’ Working Reserve, which aimed to offset war-related labor shortages and provide farm labor to help increase agricultural production. Many of these organizations’ campaigns appealed to the patriotism of Americans, as evidenced in this pair of posters below.

Left: SHSND SA 10935-P0554
Right: SHSND SA 10935-P0071

Several posters in the collection also urged the purchase of Liberty Loans and Victory Loans. These programs were bond issues by the Treasury Department meant to encourage those Americans not off fighting in the war to invest in the country’s success by buying government bonds, which funded the war effort. Such posters featured explicit visual appeals to Americans’ sense of patriotism and justice, drawing on imagery of suffering women and children to pull at the heart strings. Most were quite artistic, though some were simple in style.

Left: SHSND SA 10935-P0001
Right: SHSND SA 10935-P0022

The visuals may have been simple but there was no missing the overarching message of this striking 1919 poster advertising Victory Liberty Loans, the final bond drive of the war. SHSND SA 10935-P0209

In addition to the loan drive posters, several in the collection speak to the prevalence of wartime propaganda intended to mobilize support for the Allied cause or stoke fear of the enemy. Germans were portrayed in starkly negative ways, with some posters warning of the dangers of loose lips. Our collection also comprises foreign language posters including some in Czech and French.

French and English versions of this poster played on stereotypes of German barbarism to discourage consumers from buying German-made products after the war. SHSND SA 10935-P0773

As the war neared its end, the world was gripped by the Spanish flu pandemic so some of the posters in the collection also relate to the global health crisis and government efforts to deal with it. This event exacerbated the suffering of many nations, which had already lost so much in people, property, and goods during the Great War.

This U.S. Public Health Service poster urged Americans to take precautions in the fight against the Spanish flu pandemic. SHSND SA 10935-P0200

As you can see, the World War I poster collection is a fascinating set of print media from a bygone era, offering a glimpse into the artistry and messaging surrounding a historic world event. You can browse the digitized images of these items on our Photobook site from home, or when you are researching in the reading room during our open hours.

During my first months as an historic sites manager, I was struck by some similarities in furniture and decor at many of our 19th-century sites. Examples include geometric or flattened floral patterns, folksy surface carvings, fluted parallel trim lines ending with rosettes, and daisy and sunburst motifs. At some of these state historic sites, just a couple of pieces of furniture had the look, while at others it permeated nearly the entire building. Then I also noticed these features in dozens of furniture pieces in the agency’s artifact collection. These features are representative of Eastlake style, a 19th-century design craze inspired by Charles Locke Eastlake’s 1868 book, “Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery, and Other Details.”

Original silverware and reproduction wallpaper at the Chateau de Morès State Historic Site represent an American take on Eastlake style. Note the abstract and geometric patterns, as well as the medieval and Asian influences.

I’ve been a fan of architecture and interior design since childhood. Some of my earliest memories are of different buildings and how their designs shaped my emotions. So it should come as no surprise that I read “Hints on Household Taste” when I was a teenager. It’s stuck with me ever since.

American Eastlake style is known for its sumptuous hardware. The Former Governors’ Mansion State Historic Site in Bismarck is blessed with many examples.

Eventually I realized there’s a simple reason why Eastlake style is so common at our sites and in our collections: Its popularity coincided with the completion of the Northern Pacific Railway. In the 1880s, this railway would bring in thousands of new settlers and facilitate the shipment of furniture, fancy-cut millwork, hardware, and wallpaper throughout Dakota Territory. Although Eastlake, the man, was British, his book had been a huge hit in the United States, going through six editions by 1881, and American manufacturers copied the look with gusto. Since the 1880s, most Eastlake influences in North Dakota have been torn down, thrown away, or remodeled, but numerous traces survive at state historic sites, including at the Chateau de Morès (1883), Stutsman County Courthouse (1883), Former Governors’ Mansion (1884), and Bread of Life Church (1880-1885) at Camp Hancock.

The 1883 Stutsman County Courthouse in Jamestown preserves several Eastlake features, including the original courtroom bar. Its turned spindles, parallel grooves along the upper railing, and chamfered (beveled) corners are typical of the Eastlake movement. As with most American Eastlake woodwork, the abstract star patterns were probably not handcarved but stamped with a press.

Eastlake had grabbed Victorians’ attention with a bold claim: Their homes were filled with lies. Gilding, metal plating, surface veneers, as well as imitation wood and stone made their possessions look more expensive than they really were. Likewise, new machines tried to make mass-produced objects appear as if they had been handcarved, embroidered, woven, painted, or forged by artisans. People had grown so accustomed to trickery, he wrote, that they no longer questioned why a chair should have lion’s paws as if it could scurry away, or why rugs should be covered in lifelike flowers when we would never step on flowers in real life. He believed that living among dishonest design was stressful and uneasy.

The judge’s bench, rear center, and the desks in the front left and right are other textbook examples of American Eastlake style preserved in the 1883 Stutsman County Courthouse. The court recorder’s desk, front center, with its neoclassical pilasters is a different style and was probably purchased years later.

To illustrate his point, Eastlake identified the wooden mop bucket as a truly beautiful object. Though simple, its design honesty reflected how it was made and what it was used for. Eastlake was so dedicated to the honesty of materials that he believed wood shouldn’t even be stained a different color. His philosophy significantly influenced modernist design during the 20th century.

At left, a circa 1890 photograph of the parlor of what would become the Former Governors’ Mansion State Historic Site reflects an eclectic blend of Eastlake, Asian, Empire, and Rococo styles. The flat floral design of the original wallpaper specimen, right, had a lustrous metallic gold background but is now faded and barely visible. We hope to recreate its original appearance the next time we wallpaper the room. SHSND SA 00071-00040

Today, Charles Eastlake is remembered, along with art critic John Ruskin and designer William Morris, as a leader of the Arts and Crafts movement, which celebrated old-fashioned handcraftsmanship during an age of increasing machine production. The movement valued workers taking pride in objects they made themselves, with any resulting flaws in their creations reflecting the real human effort that had produced the objects. Much to Eastlake’s chagrin, however, American manufacturers who used his name weren’t interested in handcraftsmanship. They simply used industrial machinery to copy the looks seen in his book. Hence, the Eastlake furnishings you’ll see at our sites include plenty of machine-stamped “carving,” gold foil, wood stain, metal plating, and imitation materials.

The Bread of Life Church at Camp Hancock State Historic Site blends Gothic Revival, Stick, and Eastlake styles—all of which drew inspiration from the Middle Ages. Note the chamfered corners on the pillars, in this instance highlighted with silver paint. Only a portion of the original silk-screened leaded glass windows survived intact like the beautiful detail seen here, but the Bismarck Historical Society is currently fundraising to restore the rest.

It’s fitting that Eastlake style is evident in so many of Dakota Territory’s earliest buildings. After all, the territory represented a sort of tension between individual work and industrial might—the hand labor of homesteaders and the power of railroads and grain mills on which they depended. Next time you visit, I hope these insights will help you enjoy our sites on a new level. You never know what you’ll find hiding in plain sight!

A road trip beckons in the not-too-distant future!

We are currently at work on a new exhibition about Sitting Bull for the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center (MYCIC). Located in the northwestern part of the state near Garrison and Williston, MYCIC is an ideal venue to showcase the life of this iconic Hunkpapa Lakota leader.

Detail of studio photograph of Sitting Bull with hand-painted accents by H.A. Plante, circa 1885.
SHSND 5356

The Interpretive Center is a beautiful place—a contemporary facility built at the confluence of two meandering rivers set in a wide valley beside low bluffs. The building faces south with a stunning vista of sky, water, and cottonwood trees. The property has numerous walking paths and is a birder’s paradise. It was a stopping point for the Corps of Discovery on both legs of its famous expedition, and it shares proximity with Fort Buford State Historic Site, a landmark in the story of Sitting Bull.

A bucolic view looking toward the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center.

For the past year and a half I’ve been almost exclusively focused on the production of Fashion & Function: North Dakota Style, so the opportunity to explore a new story and space is a welcome change. The Sitting Bull exhibit takes a closer, more nuanced look at a story I thought I knew.

Indeed, the first lesson this project has taught me is that much of what I previously learned about Sitting Bull was incomplete. But then, when dealing with history, that is often a good starting point. Periodically one finds the need to hit refresh.

For instance, I was well aware Sitting Bull was a significant player in the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, and that he later toured with William “Buffalo Bill” Cody in the 1880s. Yet his role in both these events was markedly different than I had thought, and the intervening years were a complete mystery. I knew nothing of his early life or his rise as a respected leader. I was ignorant of the fact he and his people moved to western Canada following the Battle of the Little Bighorn. While conducting background research for Fashion & Function, I had discovered his involvement in the Ghost Dance movement of the late 19th century but was completely unfamiliar with the circumstances surrounding his violent 1890 death. It is a very different story than I expected.

Die Vereinginten Staaten von Nord-America by C.F. Weiland, 1831. SHSND SA OCLC59108748

Curator of Collections Research Mark J. Halvorson is our subject specialist for Sitting Bull. The production team also includes multiple members of the State Historical Society of North Dakota’s Audience Engagement and Museum Department, along with Fort Buford and MYCIC Site Supervisor Joseph Garcia and his staff. It’s our own version of “it takes a village.”

Halvorson has assembled a rich collection of objects and images with which to relay Sitting Bull’s story. I am drawn to visual elements, and this exhibition delivers some jewels. We are using an image of a stunningly detailed 1831 map of the United States from the State Archives. It shows the massive, central Missouri Territory and includes information provided by the Corps of Discovery’s expedition. The map, which also notes the many regional tribal groups as well as the position of Fort Mandan, represents the United States at the time of Sitting Bull's birth.

We will also exhibit a dramatic poster from the 2000 U.S. census featuring Sitting Bull’s quote: “I have spoken. I will continue to be heard.” The poster also depicts Sitting Bull’s unflinching gaze and that of his great-great-grandson Ron His Horse Is Thunder (Ron McNeil) to make its point.

Detail of the beaded buckskin pipe bag chronicling the life and accomplishments of Sitting Bull.
SHSND 3359

Among the other objects that will be on display is a pipe bag given by Sitting Bull to his friend Bullhead in summer 1883. The bag, while subdued in appearance, is rich in history as it chronicles Sitting Bull’s many accomplishments. It includes a beaded registry of the many horses Sitting Bull captured from his enemies and also memorializes the horse that was shot from beneath him in battle. We are fortunate that Bullhead documented the imagery on the pipe bag before he was killed along with Sitting Bull in 1890.

The exhibition’s future location at the Interpretive Center places it near an important site in the life of Sitting Bull. In 1881, after several years of nomadic existence in western Canada, Sitting Bull and his band returned to the United States, agreeing to settle at the Standing Rock Agency. He surrendered his rifle in the front parlor of the commander’s house at Fort Buford. Fort Buford is part of the MYCIC complex, and the commander’s house is one of the few full structures that remains.

In early June 2021, we will make our way to MYCIC to install the exhibition. It is scheduled to be featured at the site for the next five years. That means you have plenty of time to make the northwest trek, enjoy the scenery, walk the trails, and test your understanding of Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull.

Entrance to the exhibition is included in the MYCIC admission fee, as is access to neighboring Fort Buford.

Historic site supervisors are a varied lot. We have backgrounds not only in history but also in museums, construction, art, and science to name a few. We tend to be quite attached to our historic sites, putting our heart and soul into educating the public about them and ensuring their preservation for future generations. It is not uncommon for visitors to the Former Governors’ Mansion State Historic Site, where I am the site supervisor, to ask if I live in the house since I seem so attached to it. No, I do not live in the house, though I live so close I can see my 1890 Victorian house from my office window.

Our hobbies and other occupations tend to intermingle and impact the work we do for our various sites and for the State Historical Society of North Dakota more generally. For instance, multiple state historic site staffers are also teachers and bring the skill of working with young people to their State Historical Society roles. Many staff also have hobbies that benefit their state historic sites with skills in carpentry, model making and textile arts to name a few.

When I’m not at the Former Governors’ Mansion or Camp Hancock State Historic Site, where I am also supervisor, I spend time honing my craft as a professional artist creating light paintings and capturing the night sky with my many cameras. You may have seen my photographs on the web or in publications of the State Historical Society, North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department, and North Dakota Tourism.

Our state historic sites are a great place for photography. Two sites I often visit once the sun goes down are Menoken Indian Village and Double Ditch Indian Village not far from Bismarck. Both sites offer great views of the night sky and both have 1930s Depression-era fieldstone shelters that make excellent foregrounds for photography. Of course, I visit other places, too, such as state parks, rural churches, and abandoned buildings—all of these locations tied together by their connection to North Dakota’s history. The opportunity to see and learn about North Dakota through my photography, in turn, makes me a better state historic site supervisor.

The northern lights illuminate the sky over Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site.

In “Starry Night on the Prairie,” I created star trails over Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site by taking a few hundred photographs and layering them using computer software. The center of the trails is Polaris (North Star) which sits directly over the axis of the Earth and from our point of view does not move.

My light painting “Night Walkers” is set against the backdrop of the Menoken Indian Village State Historic Site.

The stone shelter at Menoken Indian Village State Historic Site under a dome of clouds, stars, and the northern lights.

A magical night at Menoken Indian Village State Historic Site.

A Pendleton wool cape featured in the State Museum’s new Fashion & Function: North Dakota Style exhibit will no doubt catch your eye. Its clean, classic lines and matched plaids certainly drew my attention, as did the exhibit label, which informed me that the cape had been made in the late 1960s by one Linda Harmsen of LaMoure.

Since my dad grew up in that quintessential small town in southeastern North Dakota during the same time period, I suspected he could tell me more about the garment’s maker. A quick text confirmed that he had indeed known Harmsen, who was a year behind him in school. And by the way, he added, she was also the first female firefighter hired in Bismarck.

March being Women’s History Month, I was keen to learn more. Well, I would have wanted to learn more anyway, but you have to admit the timing was propitious.

“Yes, I was the first,” Harmsen confirmed, when I reached her by phone a few days later.

In fact, as I would soon discover, Harmsen, now 70, was not only the first female firefighter hired in Bismarck, she was also the first paid female firefighter in North Dakota. One of her Bismarck Fire Department uniforms has long been on exhibit in the State Museum’s Inspiration Gallery: Yesterday and Today, she told me.

Linda Harmsen, pictured next to her firefighter’s uniform, is the rare woman who can boast garments currently on view in two different exhibits at the State Museum. At right, her plaid cape, which she sewed with Pendleton fabric won in the Make It Yourself With Wool competition. SHSND 2006.328.1-3, SHSND 1991.121.12

So how had the former teenage seamstress from rural North Dakota come to crack this particular glass ceiling?

In a word: necessity. After budget cuts forced the closure of the North Dakota State University Land Reclamation Research Center where she worked, Harmsen needed a job, and the Bismarck Fire Department was hiring.

“Well, I’ll give it a shot,” she remembers thinking. She passed the agility test, the same one used by the National Guard, and joined the department in May 1994 along with six men, all in their 20s. Harmsen was 43.

“One guy said, ‘Wow, you are older than my mother,’” she recalls.

She adds with a laugh: “To be truthful, they were afraid of me. Just having a woman around was a whole new ballgame for them; they had to modify their behavior.”

They also had to modify the city’s fire stations, reconfiguring the dorms for increased privacy and installing separate bathrooms for women in all the stations.

In her 12 years at the Bismarck Fire Department, Harmsen remained the only woman firefighter. After leaving the department in 2006, she went to work as a trauma registrar at St. Alexius Medical Center. Her background responding to trauma situations was “pretty useful there,” says Harmsen, who is now retired.

Harmsen made headlines when she became North Dakota’s first paid female firefighter in May 1994. Bismarck Tribune, May 6, 1994, p. 1

Harmsen in full turnout gear, 1994. Courtesy Linda Harmsen

But back to that cape. Before she was a trailblazing female first responder, Harmsen was a teenage girl growing up in LaMoure who “liked having a lot of clothes to wear.” And in an era before fast fashion and cheap overseas-produced apparel, sewing was “how you got clothes to wear,” she says.

At “15 or 16,” Harmsen made an orange wool, double knit, drop-waist dress, with a short, pleated skirt and brass buttons, and subsequently entered the mod-style frock in the 1967-1968 Make It Yourself With Wool competition. She won the junior division in the district contest and went on to place second at the state competition in Devils Lake. Her prize: several yards of Pendleton wool fabric, which she turned into the cape currently on view in the Fashion & Function exhibit. (The orange wool dress is also in our museum collection although not on display as part of this exhibit.)

The orange dress, which won Harmsen second place in the state Make It Yourself With Wool competition. Among the feedback provided contestants: “Be sure to try for inconspicuous hems.” SHSND 1991.121.11

Harmsen, second from left in the front row, is pictured with fellow contestants in the 1967-1968 North Dakota Make It Yourself With Wool contest. SHSND 1991.121

Harmsen is still immensely proud of how she “perfectly matched” the cape’s plaid stripes, though she concedes the garment wasn’t as practical as she would have liked.

“You couldn’t drive in it, [your arms] were tied down,” she says ruefully, when she and her sister Candy, a former Miss North Dakota, dropped by the museum earlier this month.

These days, Harmsen doesn’t get her Singer sewing machine out that often, though she occasionally applies her seamstress skills to making costumes for her a cappella singing group Sweet Adelines. And once, when she was still on the line, Harmsen brought her sewing machine into the fire station to add buttonholes to hoods so that they could be attached to the inside of the firefighters’ helmets.

The hoods “weren’t designed to go in that style of helmet. … They were just going to slice holes in them with a knife,” she says of her male colleagues.

So which was more demanding–firefighting or sewing?

“Firefighting is certainly harder,” Harmsen asserts, “and I guess it’s more rewarding because you are actually helping people.”

Not that the domestic arts don’t have their own unique appeal.

“I was probably more comfortable sewing,” she says.

Norma Baker-Flying Horse, Casey Paul, and Lauren Good Day

North Dakota has historically been the home of women changemakers—inspiring self-starters who create lasting impacts. Women’s History Month is the perfect time to highlight three contemporary fashion designers from the Peace Garden State—Norma Baker-Flying Horse, Casey Paul, and Lauren Good Day—making their mark in the clothing industry. All three incorporate traditional inspiration, hand-crafted designs, and an intent to empower the wearer in their work.

We feature stunning dresses by these style innovators in our newly opened Fashion & Function: North Dakota Style exhibit, which includes more than 400 historical and contemporary garments. Come see these designers’ gorgeous creations at the State Museum in Bismarck and learn about the role of clothing in North Dakota life!

Norma Baker-Flying Horse

Norma Baker-Flying Horse’s couture apparel brings contemporary Indigenous design to the wider fashion world. Among her growing list of accomplishments, she holds the distinction of being the first contemporary Native American fashion designer to have a gown worn on the Oscar stage and at the Grammy Awards. Her work has even been featured at Paris Fashion Week, attracting global attention to her exquisite Indigenous designs.

Red Berry Woman, Baker-Flying Horse’s Dakota Sioux name as well as that of her business brand, creates one-of-a-kind formal wear in New Town. Using a variety of textiles, she sews and embellishes clothing for both female and male clients. Baker-Flying Horse’s designs merge her cultural heritage with a modern sense of style. An enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, Baker-Flying Horse is also a member of the Dakota and Assiniboine tribes. She pays homage to family traditions through her nationally recognized appliqué work and beading, skills learned from her grandmother and mother. A few months ago, this rising star was honored with the International Indigenous Designer of the Year award by International Indigenous Fashion Week in Regina, Canada.

Casey Paul

An accomplished New York City fashion illustrator and dressmaker, North Dakota native Casey Paul has created evening wear for celebrities and Broadway stars—Liza Minnelli, Mary-Louise Parker, and Madonna among them. Paul grew up in the sewing rooms of her mother and grandmother, where she discovered her love of fabrics, fine beadwork, and couture. As a young girl, she pressed the costumes of entertainers like Johnny Cash at Norsk Høstfest in Minot. (Her family played a role in the annual Scandinavian festival’s founding and continues to be involved in its management today.) She studied apparel and textile design at North Dakota State University and couture dressmaking at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology.

“I always feel extremely grateful that I grew up there,” the designer says about her state roots. “We, from North Dakota, have a strong compass, good values, and a good work ethic.”

Most recently, Paul and her friend the model/actor Stephanie Seymour co-founded Raven & Sparrow, a company creating vintage-inspired sleepwear at their New York City studio. Barneys New York launched their original 2017 line, which was widely featured in fashion magazines.

Lauren Good Day

Lauren Good Day’s skills as an artist and an imaginative fashion designer have landed her works in Vogue and in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. Good Day, “Good Day Woman,” is a multiple award-winning Arikara, Hidatsa, Blackfeet, and Plains Cree influencer in the international worlds of art and clothing.

Honoring cultural lifeways is key to Good Day’s design inspiration. This Bismarck designer’s clothing lines are inspired by traditional culture and attire and include the beadwork, quillwork, and ledger art illustration skills learned from her mother and grandmother. An enrolled member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and a registered Treaty Indian with the Sweet Grass Cree First Nation in Saskatchewan, Good Day is passionate about creating authentic, culturally appropriate patterns for her fabrics. She first develops digital graphic designs for a new clothing idea, adding modern twists to traditional inspirations. Those designs are then printed onto fabrics and produced as everyday wear clothing lines.

Good Day includes her signature on each piece, signifying that her fashion designs are works of art. When I talked with Good Day recently, I was curious to know how she felt about non-Native people wearing her clothing collections. She assured me that her designs are meant for all, and she is honored when non-Native people choose to wear her culturally inspired designs.

In addition to her fashion career, Good Day is an accomplished artist, who has garnered top awards at prestigious Native American juried art shows for her tribal arts, beadwork, drawings, and textiles. Her art is featured in museums and private collections across the country.