In preparing for our upcoming Fashion and Function exhibit at the State Museum, I was reminded of some interesting objects in our museum collection. They appear to be run-of-the-mill objects: a quilt, and a couple of dresses, pillowcases, Native American leggings, and a homemade sheet. These everyday objects have a very interesting connection—they are all made from flour or feeds sacks. People tend to say any items made with the small cotton prints in colors typical of the 1930s are made with flour sacks, but I find very few items that really are made from these. People also seem to forget that women went to stores and bought yardage, sometimes in the same design and colors used in the sacks. There are two ways that I know of proving that an item is made of flour or feed sacks. Firstly, are they printed with a label? A home-made sheet displays this well.

SHSND 1975.23.245

Leggings made by Anne Good Eagle, Lakota, sometime in the 1920s, show traditional materials of leather and dyed porcupine quills on the lower half —the part that was visible below a dress. On the upper part that is hidden by the dress, she used flour sacks from Rex Flour.

Front and back of leggings. SHSND 1986.234.222v

While having a flour sack logo where no one could see it was fine, women would try to bleach away the printing when the fabric would be more visible to others, usually with mixed results. A Dresden Plate quilt, made by Anna Johnson of Coteau sometime between 1925 and 1934, used flour sacks for the white background. If you look carefully around the plates, you can see the black printing of the Russell-Miller Inc., North Dakota Milling Company, Occident Flour logo.

Dresden Plate Quilt and close-up of flour sack printing. SHSND 1981.1.5

As we can see on the quilt, bleaching didn’t always work. Of course, women complained about the ink not coming out, so the mills started to use paper labels. Those could be soaked off, leaving a nice piece of fabric.

Dakota Maid Feed sack with paper label, SHSND 1982.197.11

From the 1920s to 1950s many flour and feed mills, including the North Dakota Mill and Elevator, used pretty printed cloth for the sacks to encourage reuse.

Woman wearing an evening dress made from feed sacks standing in front of a Dakota Maid promotional display. SHSND SA 2019-P-134-00046

With the printed labels gone, I rely on the second way of identifying flour sacks. I look for the stitch holes in the fabric. Sacks were sewn together with a large needle using string for thread. When the sack was taken apart, a series of small holes were left behind from where the needle broke threads in the fabric. Note the row of small holes along the edges of this pillowcase.

A pillowcase and close-up of sack stitch holes. SHSND 1976.00160.00093A

A pillowcase is the obvious item to make from a sack, and some sacks were made with a pretty border across the top for just that purpose. Looking carefully at the dress image above, you can see the same print used for the pillowcase. Other sacks having an overall design were more like yardage, perfect for creating clothing items. Wives would send their husbands to the feed store with strict orders to get bags all with the same design and color. Dresses could require five or more bags. Occasionally patterns would even indicate not only yardage but how many bags it would take to make the dress. A dress made by Carol Eklund in the 1950s as a 4-H project was said to be made from feed sacks given to her by a neighbor. Carol was diligent to avoid or hide most of the holes, but near the hem at the back a tell-tale row of holes is visible, confirming the story.

Dress made from flour sacks and close-up showing the holes. SHSND 2018.72.5

Many items might be legitimately made from sacks, yet we can never know for sure because the maker managed to bleach out the printing, or hide the holes, or used such small pieces they avoided the holes all together. Also, most of the items made from feed sacks were utilitarian. The items were used until they were no longer usable, so they were rarely passed down in families. Even so, we can’t discount our grandparents’ stories about using feed sacks for all kinds of things from dish towels to shirts and dresses. I have had more than one person who grew up in the 1930s tell me about having underwear with “Russell-Miller” across their bottoms. Unfortunately, we don’t have any in the collections for me to share with you. A few of these stories might be like the stories they told us of walking to school uphill both ways through 6-foot-high snow drifts. You’ll be able to view some of the pieces referenced in this blog in our Fashion & Function exhibit opening in 2021.

Documentation and housing are integral to museum collections work, and they make up a large part of my project as an intern at the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Last year during a storm, the roof was damaged at one of the State Museum’s offsite collections storage facilities, known as Storage East. During the recovery activities, the collections team noted that most of the objects in the facility had poor documentation, lacked current photographs, and were in need of cleaning and rehousing. That’s where I come in.

My job is to update the information we have about objects housed at Storage East. Most of the objects stored there are furniture: bookcases, desks, chairs, trunks, and the like. Big stuff. Stuff that’s mostly made of wood, glass, and metal, and used to furnish exhibits and tell stories. But the records we have for them are outdated or incomplete. For example, we have a large collection of trunks, and for a few of them their documentation has the word “trunk” with no further description. This sparse documentation doesn’t do us much good if we’re trying to find a specific trunk and have no idea what it looks like. My task is to write a more thorough description of the objects’ materials, color, dimensions, and style.

Measuring the dimensions of a shopping cart at Storage East.

I also need to conduct a thorough analysis of each object’s condition. Does it have any cracks? Any peeling varnish? Is the color faded? Or maybe the object is in great condition, almost as flawless as the day it was made. It’s my job to update this information, so we can track any future changes to the object, whether through another disaster or general deterioration.

Creating a movable workstation while updating documentation.

When the object has been described, photographed, and labeled, it is easier to track as it moves from storage to exhibit, or even from storage room to storage room. For example, while working my way through one of the rooms, I found a lampshade. The shade had no object number, and there were no shadeless lamps in that room. I made a note of it, and a few rooms later, I found a lamp without a shade. By checking the photo in the lamp’s file, I was able to verify that the shade belonged to it, and reunite them. Without the previous documentation of the lamp, the objects would have stayed separate, making it difficult to use the lamp for exhibits or research.

The separated lampshade is on the blue box, marked with orange flagging tape as a disassociated object.

Left: Original documentation photo of lamp. Right: Photo of the reunited lamp.

When I’m not describing the collections, I’m finding new ways to house them. Most of the objects have been stored on wood pallets, which is a good start. Museum objects should not sit directly on the floor, in case of flooding and to avoid any damage. Yet objects need additional protection from roof leaks and potential falling debris. Part of my project has been to research shelving options for the storage facility. I am using floor plans to measure how many shelving units we can fit into each room, using as much of our space as possible.

The progress on this project has been slow but significant. I’m always delighted when I locate a missing object or reunite pieces, and it’s a great feeling to do everything I can to make sure they will not be lost again. There’s a lot to do, but the project will help future collections staff, whether it’s through documentation, preparing for shelving, or dusting the objects. It all helps preserve these objects for the future.

What are some ways to make the best of a bad situation? How do we use the closing of the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum to the advantage of everyone: the public; staff; and exhibit specimens and artifacts? We clean, of course! Not just everyday cleaning that happens whether the museum is open or closed, but “deep” cleaning that requires portions of the building to be closed off. Think of it as spring cleaning the dinosaurs!

The Adaptation Gallery: Geologic Time was opened to the public in November of 2014. Since that time, thousands of visitors from around the globe have enjoyed and learned about these prehistoric beasts that once roamed the place we now call North Dakota. In March of 2020, the Heritage Center was closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was decided that staff should take advantage of this situation and do something we wouldn’t normally be able to do, or at least not do as easily. Large-scale cleaning of the exhibits is not a quick or easy task–not without disrupting the experience for visitors to a museum.

Deep cleaning can involve large equipment, loud noises, and lots of dirt and dust. Nevertheless, exhibits do need to get deep cleaned periodically, and after five years it was time to break out something a bit more powerful than the feather dusters.

Paleontologist Becky Barnes cleaning the Highgate Mastodon with a feather duster.

We gathered together all the equipment we thought we might need in the Geologic Time Gallery and got to work. With the help of a multi-speed leaf blower, an electric lift, and a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filter vacuum, we were able to remove accumulated dust from very hard to reach places.

Getting into hard-to-reach places inside the Geologic Time Gallery exhibits to dust the skeletons. A multi-speed leaf blower on the lowest setting was used to remove most of the accumulated dust. HEPA vacuums were then used to suck up the material that rained down onto the exhibit bases and carpet of the gallery.

The amount of dust we removed was surprising, and everyone involved was happy the removed dust bunnies were not “raining” down on visitors.

All of the creatures on exhibit were treated to a dusting, with the taller and harder to reach areas benefiting more than the lower ones. From the large T. rex to the small, tree-climbing Plesiadapis, everything in the Geologic Time Gallery is now clean and ready for another five years of silently watching the parade of visitors stroll by below.

From the tip of the Pteranodon’s nose
To the end of the T. rex’s toes,
No one knows
How the dust bunny grows.

Appearing in American cinema films from The Devil’s Brigade to Bonnie & Clyde, a Thompson submachine gun with a drum magazine has joined the mythos of America. Sold primarily to the military and law enforcement, “Tommy guns” were also purchased by private citizens. With the fictionalized and serialized tales of the “mob vs. G-men,” it became part of our collective conscience.

In the first part of March 1990, I joined the staff of the Museum Division of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Within days, our senior curator, Norman C. Paulson, told me of a Thompson submachine gun at the North Dakota State Penitentiary that had been "promised" to the State Historical Society by the former and current warden when they decided to surplus or transfer the gun.

Paulson and James E. Sperry, State Historical Society superintendent, had been informed about the Thompson as early as 1968. Former prison guards had sporadically kept Paulson informed about the gun from 1973 into the 1980s. Since Norman was on the verge of retiring, it now fell to me to “keep my ears open” about that gun. The torch had been passed, and I continued to “keep my ears open” and wait. After 50 years, on Sept. 11, 2018, the submachine gun was transferred to the State Historical Society by the Penitentiary. Truly, good things had come to those who wait.

Timeline

• 1928–Purchased by the Barnes County Sheriff’s Department, Valley City, North Dakota
• Feb. 24, 1958–Transferred to North Dakota State Penitentiary by Theodore Hedstorm, sheriff of Barnes County, Valley City, North Dakota
• Sept. 11, 2018–Transferred to State Historical Society by the Penitentiary

The “dope” on the gun
US Navy, Model 1928 Thompson submachine gun, .45 caliber, made by Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company for Auto-Ordnance Company. It was designed by John T. Thompson, a former US Army officer. This gun is fully automatic and uses either a 20-round stick magazine or a 50-round drum magazine.

This weapon uses .45 caliber, 230 grain, .45 ACP Ball ammunition (11.43 x 23 mm). The rate of fire is approximately 830 rounds per minute, with a muzzle velocity of 935 feet/second (285 meters/second).

• Weight (empty): 10 pounds (4.5 kg)
• Length: 33.7 (860 mm)
• Barrel Length: 10.5"

It has three magazines:

Two XX-Type 20-shot stick magazines. These were preferred by law enforcement because they do not jam.

One L-Type 50-round Thompson drum magazine. Popular in American fiction, this magazine can jam the action, rendering the gun useless.

FAQs
Q: Was the gun used by criminals?
A: No, it was used by the Barnes County Sheriff’s Department from 1928–1958 and by State Penitentiary staff from 1958–2018.

Q: Was anyone shot by this gun?
A: Not to our knowledge.

Q: Can I buy a gun like this?
A: Not likely. The National Firearms Act of 1934 required that owners of this type of weapon must register them with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms and follow the law regarding possession, transfer, and transport of this weapon.

My October 2018 blog discussed our plan to digitize newspapers beyond what we have done with Chronicling America. We began by sending microfilm to our vendor, Advantage Preservation, who digitizes and processes newspapers from the microfilm. In 2019, we were able to purchase a microfilm scanner so we could do the scanning and processing in-house.

The Mekel MACH12 microfilm scanner

The MACH12 scanner is amazing! It scans a roll of microfilm with about 1,000 images in about six minutes. For some weekly newspapers, that is a whole year of issues.

After scanning, we use the Quantum Process software to make any necessary adjustments to the pages, making sure the scans are clear and easily readable. This is necessary for a successful optical character recognition (OCR) process, which makes the text searchable. After adjusting the scans, we create two digital files for each page–a TIFF and a PDF. The TIFF serves as our preservation copy. This copy of the scan ends up in our digital repository for preservation. The PDF is our presentation copy. This copy is transferred to Advantage Preservation to upload to the North Dakota newspaper site for searching by the public. You can either select a title to search or simply search across all the titles by entering your keyword or a person’s name in the search box.

Running optical character recognition (OCR) from home

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the social distancing orders have many of us working from home. Finding work to do from home could have been a challenge, but working on scanned newspapers from home became a reality with the help of Zoho Assist software that allows me to access the PC connected to the microfilm scanner. The Beulah newspapers (1914-2017) are my focus at the moment. Look for them to be up on the site in the next few months.

Scanning with the Mekel and PC

The Sanish and New Town newspapers will be next. Both the Beulah and New Town public libraries applied for and received grants from the State Library to have this done, with the permission of the newspaper publishers. For more information on costs and funding opportunities for your community newspapers to be digitized, please contact me at smolander@nd.gov.

A Remington No. 7 typewriter is on the auditor’s desk.

It’s been five very busy months for the new civics exhibit in Jamestown. Time for an update!

Back in November, I wrote that we had received a $24,000 grant from Jamestown Tourism to develop the interior of the 1883 Stutsman County Courthouse State Historic Site as a museum about American civics.

Of course, the current COVID-19 pandemic adds significant complication to the project. We’re hoping we can open as scheduled on May 23—and indeed that all our sites and museums can open by then—but only time will tell. Exhibit design involves work with people of all kinds of professions, both locally and around the country. It has been so uplifting to see how many of them love what they do and want to figure out creative ways to do what they can under challenging conditions. Of course, their safety comes first, and if a project has to stop to protect their health, they know we can wait.

The courtroom walls and ceiling are being restored to their original colors.

We had one very good piece of news this year. Our historic sites budget permitted us to repaint the courtroom and install historically appropriate brass chandeliers. This room with its soaring pressed-tin ceiling must have been inspiring to look at in its day. Soon we’ll see that again.

Local art fabricator Jonah Eslinger volunteered to install warm yellow LED lighting in the Burroughs adding machine, which will help visitors see how this ancestor of modern computers worked.

One of the joys of this project has been finding and fixing up functional antiques. We’ve purchased surveyor’s tools, a stenotype machine, a coin sorter, wall clocks, and more. The one that’s captured everyone’s hearts is the circa 1908 Burroughs adding machine, an 80-pound mechanical calculator that was state-of-the-art in its day. It has glass sides to show off its elaborate mechanical interior.

It was very satisfying to figure out how to press “chords” with the stenotype machine and type a basic sentence in shorthand—a satisfaction I hope many visitors will feel as well.

I was surprised by the stenotype machine, which we found easily at a local antique store. To write instructions on how to use it, of course, I had to first learn the basics myself. I really had no concept of how amazing this little device is, nor did I realize that it may be more relevant today than ever. Modern stenotype machines with automated shorthand-to-English text outputs are not only still used in courtrooms, but they are also used to close caption live broadcasting.

One of the original Emmons County ballot boxes was donated by Allan Burke.

We were also fortunate to have several items donated to the project. For example, Allan Burke, editor of the Emmons County Record, donated five actual ballot boxes that had been used in Emmons County, probably during the first half of the 20th century. One will be used for our voting activity, in which visitors can express their opinions on some of the most interesting and intriguing issues to ever appear on North Dakota ballots.

Writing the exhibit texts has been made a joy by the incredible outpouring of support from our reviewers, many of whom have been volunteers. While I ultimately accept responsibility for any inaccuracies that may sneak past into the final exhibit, the texts have been made vastly stronger by these individuals’ diverse areas of expertise. An incomplete list includes historians Barbara-Handy Marcello, Tom Isern, and Mark Joy; attorney Tory Jackson; former public service commissioner Susan Wefald; Dakota and Lakota knowledge keepers Kevin Locke and Lisa Rainbow; political scientist Tom Johnson; exhibit designers David Newell and Allison Limke; former North Dakota Studies coordinator Neil Howe; agency editor Pam Berreth Smokey, and 1883 Courthouse Committee members Barb Lang, Art Todd, and Jackie Tarpinian.

Visitors will be able to stamp their own Courthouse bookmark with a seal press, certifying that yes, the Courthouse officially supports reading.

I’ll close with some favorite facts I’ve learned while researching this project.

In 1908, Stutsman County established a poor farm. I had basically never heard of a poor farm, but it turns out that many counties across the state and around the country had them up to about the mid-20th century. Citizens who needed shelter and food received them in exchange for farm labor, at least to the extent that they were physically able. It’s an institution that raises a lot of questions and provokes a lot of thought.

I had initially assumed this was a service counter, but it may have been considered a bookkeeper’s desk in its day.

Standing desks are nothing new. The courthouse has a built-in bookkeeper’s desk over 20 feet long and spanning two rooms. It was considered convenient to place the most commonly used ledgers and spreadsheets in accustomed places on such a standing desk and let the clerks walk from one ledger to another as they referenced and wrote down data. It would be as if, instead of having one or two widescreen computer monitors, you had a 20-foot one—that you shared with a half dozen colleagues.

A gavel was more likely to have been used in the 1880s than the 1980s.

There were very few years when you would have seen a gavel, robes, and courtroom flag used together. What could be more iconic than a judge in black robes, wielding a gavel, with an American flag behind the bench? Well, it turns out that you didn’t get all three of these for most of North Dakota history. I learned that judges seldom if ever use gavels anymore. They may have been more common in the 19th century, when many members of the public considered trials to be a form of free entertainment (the ultimate reality show, I suppose), but apparently actual outbursts in court today are considered so rare that the only gavels many judges own are screwed to a commemorative plaque in their offices. Robes and flags, meanwhile, have had the opposite trajectory, becoming more common over time. Newspaper searches suggest that early North Dakotans associated judges’ robes with European (read: undemocratic) courts, and accordingly I’ve barely found any photos of North Dakota judges in robes before about World War II. Likewise, photographs in the State Archives indicate that although US flags were common throughout courthouse interiors, the classic floor-standing flag behind the judge’s bench only gradually became common between the 1950s and the 1980s. Before 1950, you were far more likely to see a wall clock behind the bench than a flag.

This museum will be one of the first of its kind—a historic courthouse filled with objects and activities that illustrate multiple aspects of American citizenship. It would be wonderful if this project inspires people to establish civics museums in other historic courthouses, too. But either way, I think we’ll have a very rewarding experience for our visitors in Jamestown.