When I discovered Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States two decades ago, it rocked my world. The stories of Indigenous peoples, women, slaves, and the working class were a revelation beyond the whitewashed textbook history taught in my public high school.

Today’s historians have gotten better about telling stories of the marginalized, though we still have a long way to go to disrupt the dominant narrative written by “the winners.” This is why I’m excited to direct you toward our North Dakota Studies curriculum, specifically to People Living on the Land, which contains primary sources and commentary on the lives of the everyday North Dakotans who shaped our history.

In honor of Women’s History Month — and March Madness, which we’ll get to in a bit — check out five links on North Dakota’s remarkable, but too often overlooked, women and girls.

Women braid corn for drying. SHSND 0086-0277

1. Corn farmers
Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara women traditionally handled agricultural production for their tribes. Women grew sunflowers, beans, and squash, in addition to multiple varieties of corn, providing a reliable source of nutrition and wealth.

Drawing water from a well, used for washing, cooking, cleaning, and bathing, was one of the heaviest chores a woman had to complete. SHSND 2009-P-012-006

2. Hired girls
Among settler families, teenage girls and young women often found work as “hired girls,” helping farm families with the demanding domestic tasks of childrearing and farmhouse life.

While campaigning for the woman suffrage law, the Votes for Women League hosted a tent at the 1914 Bottineau County Fair. SHSND 10204

3. Suffragists
As we prepare to celebrate the 100th anniversary of U.S. woman suffrage in 2020, it’s enlightening to look back on the women dressed in white a century ago. Even before passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, white women in Dakota Territory could vote in local school elections starting in 1883. Native American women fully gained the right to vote, along with U.S. citizenship, in 1924.

Veronica Brown of Cass County patches the inner tube of a tire circa 1918. SHSND 0032-CS-06-14

4. Mechanics
Women began driving as soon as cars appeared in North Dakota, and even some girls learned to drive, such as 12-year-old Esther Nichol who made deliveries for her father in Souris. During World War I it is likely more women began to work as mechanics since so many men served overseas.

Athletes compete at Bismarck Indian School, an all-girls boarding school. SHSND 11113-73

5. Basketball stars
Enter hoops madness! Girls’ basketball became a competitive sport in the first half of the 20th-century in North Dakota, when girls began playing half-court games in bulky woolen uniforms. Uniforms and skills improved up until girls’ basketball was suspended in 1960. The game was reinstated for North Dakota girls in 1973.

One of our key missions in the North Dakota Geological Survey paleontology department is to educate the public about the paleontology of North Dakota. Traditionally this has been done through a number of tried-and-tested methods such as exhibits, tours, and public lectures. However, due to the physical nature of these methods, the people on the receiving end of this outreach are primarily local. While it is very important to interest our fellow North Dakotans, we must reach a larger audience if we want to have a broader impact. Within the last two decades we have added the public fossil dig program as an important, hands-on means of reaching both North Dakota residents and nonresidents, and informing participants of the importance of North Dakota fossils. This program has proven successful, and we are reaching a large audience that includes both local participants and some from as far away as Italy! The public fossil dig program continues to grow and interest people from all over, but it can be hampered by the cost of travel to North Dakota for nonresidents. This is just the nature of the public fossil digs—in order to enjoy the excitement of physically helping us uncover our rich fossil history, you must travel to North Dakota.

Public Dig photos from various sites we visited in 2018. Come out and join us! A few spots still remain for 2019, visit 2019ndgspaleodigs.eventbrite.com for more information.

Local news stories are a great way to reach a larger audience without the burden of travel costs on the viewer. However, unless you are watching your television the moment the news story airs and you happen to live within the broadcast range of the news outlet, you might miss it. We have been featured on national television programs such as Dino Autopsy, NASA 360, Prehistoric Predators, and NBC’s Today Show, which is wonderful; but again, if you aren’t tuned in the moment it airs, you might miss it.

The advent of social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) and streaming (Facebook Live, Skype, and Twitch) has dramatically increased our opportunities for public outreach. Instead of blasting out information to a general audience, we can distribute our message with surgical precision to those who are really interested, and who will likely share it with other like-minded individuals.

We have started a video channel on Twitch where we post videos on a variety of topics of interest to aspiring paleontologists, young and old. From molding and casting fossils to just chatting about an upcoming exhibit while asking for feedback from viewers, this is a new platform to engage not only a local audience, but potentially a global one. A true benefit of posting videos in this way is they can easily be found and viewed by anyone at any time.

The North Dakota Geological Survey Twitch page showing various videos available for viewing by anyone.

Lastly, we have started using the platform Skype as a way of conducting virtual tours of the vertebrate paleontology exhibits, labs, and collection areas. It also gives members of the public the opportunity to chat with paleontologists. Offering tours and video chats in this way completely eliminates the burden of travel on either party and allows us to reach a much larger audience. Although nothing beats seeing fossil preparation firsthand, watching a video on Twitch may serve to inspire a young person, student, or someone looking to fulfill a bucket list item to visit our great state and discover the fabulous fossils of North Dakota.

1. That’s made out of butterflies?

Friend to gardeners, ecotourists, and second-grade science projects, the butterfly is the flagship for biodiversity in your front yard. Butterflies are an essential part of the food web and plant pollination. And artwork, it turns out.

Look closely at this portrait and you will see it’s not just a silhouette of a woman — the piece is made entirely out of butterfly wings.

2. The most dangerous animal in the museum is what?

When museum bloggers discuss dangerous animals, the usual suspects come to mind: bears, mountain lions, and venomous snakes are certainly to be respected in the North Dakota wilderness. Relatively few people think of the bison, which was perhaps the biggest killer of humans even 500 years ago. Imagine being part of a hunting party, crouching in the grass, while thousands of 2,000-pound bison, strong enough to plow snow with their faces, graze a few feet away from you. Horses were reintroduced to North America in 1519, and that made the bison hunt faster, but not necessarily safer.

The point is bison are tough. Our taxidermy mounts have been on display since 1925. Depending on your age, you might remember them from when the museum was housed in the Liberty Memorial Building, the ND Heritage Center & State Museum constructed in the 1980s, or as they are displayed today in the Innovation Gallery: Early Peoples. They are beautiful to appreciate, but it’s still advisable to keep your distance.

3. Why does your exhibit contain arsenic?

I am not a museum preparator or conservator. I don’t even play one on TV. But common sense tells me if the word “arsenic” is involved, it would be a good idea to keep my distance. Arsenic used to be a mainstay in industries like embalming, agriculture, and even cosmetics. It was also a champion bug killer, so it was used heavily in taxidermy until people realized that it wasn’t very good for your health.

Taxidermy specimens have a lot of uses for researchers and are great tools for interpretation and education. But when the sign says “don’t touch” — we really mean it.

4. Why do you freeze the artifacts?

Some things don’t come in the door dangerous; they just get that way over time. Silver nitrate film is a good example of when good things go bad. When State Archives staff open a box of old film and get a strong whiff of vinegar from the silver nitrate, they take action to preserve the negatives. This is done through digitization, scanning, and good, old-fashioned refrigeration.

Why store things in a freezer? Without cold storage, materials can deteriorate rapidly. Silver nitrate film can spontaneously combust, which is pretty high on the crisis scale. With cold storage, negatives can remain unchanged and accessible for many centuries.

5. Just how many guns do you have?

While museum security is not as exciting as actor Ben Stiller would have you believe, remember that what you see at a museum is only about 10 percent of the actual collection (there many reasons for that, but that’s another blog post). Most of the museum’s gun collection, for example, is kept in a gun vault. There are muskets, cannons, pistols, guns from 19th-century campaigns and both World Wars. There’s even a flame thrower in the arsenal. (When the zombies come, we’re ready.)

The North Dakota Legislative Assembly meets every odd year to determine the state’s budget and whether new laws or changes to current laws need to be made. State agency leaders testify in front of appropriation committees to explain why their proposed budget is necessary to fulfill their commitment to the people of the state. People from all walks of life contact their senators and representatives to express their beliefs about what is right and what is wrong for North Dakota. Whether it’s business owners wanting to be open Sunday mornings, the energy industry seeking tax breaks, or the livestock industry seeking more stringent restrictions on cattle imports, a plethora of issues comes before the legislature each session.

As the repository for state government records of historical value, the North Dakota State Archives collects much of the work accomplished during (and in between) these legislative sessions. We have archived all the bills and resolutions introduced in the House and Senate since statehood in 1889. Probably one of the more interesting and most requested sets of records we archive is the written and recorded testimony from standing committee hearings. These audio tapes run from 1977 to 2005. The majority is on mini-cassette tapes, organized chronologically and by committee and bill number (digital recording of these hearings began in 2007). Because many bills resurface in subsequent sessions, interested parties will often look back and listen to what opponents and proponents said about the bill as they prepare for an upcoming hearing.

The State Archives also preserves videos of television news. Our collection includes substantial television coverage of legislative issues in North Dakota from the 1970s through the 1990s. For example, the blue laws, or Sunday restrictions on sales, have garnered much attention for decades. This session features a bill that would repeal the last of the blue laws, allowing all stores to open before noon on Sundays. Below are a few clips I picked out from our Meyer Television (KFYR-TV) news collection about blue law legislation, as well as the wrap-up report from the final day of the 1989 session. Enjoy!

Our current The Horse in North Dakota exhibit at the State Museum features one of my favorite artifacts in the museum collections, a display horse (SHSND 1972.1635). Visitors to the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site (Chateau), located in the town of Medora, in the 1940s through the mid-1980s might remember a dappled grey horse sporting one of Medora’s (the Marquis de Mores’ wife) side saddles (SHSND 1972.715). Over the years this display horse gained the nickname “Medora’s Horse,” and many stories about its origins have been told.

The display horse SHSND1972.1635 in the hunting or trophy room at the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site 1971. Photo by Norman Paulson

Medora, an experienced equestrian, and her husband built the Chateau in 1883 as their summer home for a few years. One popular myth claimed that this horse was a real horse once owned by Medora and it had been stuffed after its death. In addition to being wrong, the story never explained why Medora would want one of her horses stuffed. The real story about the horse and how the State Historical Society acquired it is just as interesting, though less macabre.

Medora’s horse is actually a display horse. Much like a mannequin in a department store, this horse was used to display saddles and harnesses. It represents a gelding, standing 15.2 hands (62”) high. It is made of painted gesso over a canvas “hide” stretched over a wood and metal frame, with a real horse tail attached to a wood dowel and a real horse hair mane. It has glass eyes and cast iron ears. Each wooden hoof has a real horse shoe attached. The whole thing is mounted on a wooden platform on wheels. The lower jaw, ears, and tail of the horse are removable to make “dressing” it easier.

The horse was on display at the Chateau from the early 1940s until the mid-1980s when it was moved to the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck in preparation for renovations to the house. We knew very little about this horse or where it came from. A chance reading of the newsletter of the Maryland Historical Society in late 2000 gave us our first clue. The newsletter had an article in their “Recent Acquisitions” section about Frosty Morn, a model horse they had just received. Frosty Morn was a duplicate of our horse. I learned that display horses like this one were made in the late 1880s to 1890s by the Toledo Display Horse Company in Toledo, Ohio. We now knew who made our horse and when.

The next part of the story came when I told the Chateau supervisor at the time, Diane Rogness, about my find. She sent me a copy of an article written by Harry Roberts in January 1978. Roberts was the first Chateau de Mores State Historic Site caretaker from 1941-1966. Roberts wrote about how he bought the model from a woman who lived on the south side of Dickinson. Roberts bought it for $10, though she claimed she had “$150.00 tied up in it, but it was of no use to her…” He loaded the display horse on a flatbed trailer to take it to Medora. We can only imagine the odd looks he must have received from passing motorists by hauling what looked like a real horse on a flatbed trailer. Roberts also tells of meeting with a friend, Joe Fritz, who was the chief of Police in Belfield at the time. Roberts writes, “I said to Joe that I had a horse in my trailer, and I was going into Billings County with it, maybe I should have a ‘Brand Inspection.’ As quick as Joe saw the model, ‘Why that is the horse that used to be in the Zimmerman’s Harness Shop!’” This gave us another clue to pursue. While the woman in this story was unnamed, she was possibly Minerva Zimmerman, widow of William J. Zimmerman, the owner of Zimmerman’s Harness Shop.

State Archives was the next place to look. There we found information about M.T and William J. Zimmerman, the father and son who opened M.T. Zimmerman Harness Shop in Dickinson, about 30 miles from the town of Medora, around 1898. The business continued to operate until William’s 'death in 1928. Advertisements like the one below indicate that they also sold a variety of goods including Navajo rugs and pocket knives. A display horse like this one would have been an excellent mannequin for showing off the saddles and harnesses Zimmerman made and sold.

Dickinson City, Stark and Dunn Counties, North Dakota, Directory, 1914-1915, Vol. 3, (Norfolk, NE: Keiter Directory Co., 1915), p. 118. State Archives 917.84/D560

We now have a richer story around this display horse than the rumor that it was just a stuffed horse. We know where it was manufactured, who manufactured it, and when. We know who brought it to North Dakota and why. We know how and when it got to the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site, and the names of the people and businesses involved.

While the display horse has been a fun and interesting part of collections tours since the mid-1980s, we were waiting for the right exhibit to bring it out and show it off. Our current exhibit, The Horse in North Dakota, is a perfect way for you to see an item that is part of the Chateau legend, an integral part of the history of the West, and a symbol of the importance of the horse to the people of North Dakota.

Some of you may be noticing that the “Dakota the Dinomummy” exhibit at the State Museum looks a little . . . different. Don’t worry! Nothing is wrong, we are just in the initial phase of producing a new exhibit for everyone to enjoy. Since Dakota is quite the rarity (one of about six hadrosaur mummies in the world), and because it’s large and difficult to understand what the fossil contains, we decided it was time for a makeover.

Over the next number of months, parts of the current display will be removed for continued preparation and study. The first pieces to go are the arm, one foot, the tip of the tail, and the tail itself. What we call the “body block” will remain on exhibit for a while yet. The pieces that have been removed still have matrix (the unprepared rock) attached, which needs to be carefully chiseled off. The dinomummy as it sits now has had five years of preparation completed. Five . . . years . . . of people sitting around the blocks with pneumatic chisels and magnifying lenses, carefully removing the matrix grain by grain. After five years, there’s still a lot of work that can be done!

When a large fossil is removed from the ground, we have to flip it over to cover the bottom-side of the plaster “jacket.” To avoid damage to the fossil, this usually means that the bottom-side of the fossil is opened and prepared first. This works well, because the bottom of the fossil has had less exposure to destructive elements (wind, rain, snow, cows, etc.). So if only one side of the fossil will be prepared, in this case due to the size, weight, and fragile nature of the specimen — then the bottom is the way to go. The tail will be prepared this way.

Skin found near the elbow of the dinomummy, with small scales and wrinkles to accommodate movement.

Other portions, such as the arm, are small and stable enough to prepare in-the-round. As you can see in the photos, the scales are vastly different depending on where you look. Toward the elbow, where the skin would stretch and move, the scales are very small, with wrinkles to accommodate movement — much like your elbows (sans scales, of course). The larger scales are found on the back of the arm and are relatively smooth. This would represent the mid-forearm on people, between the wrist and the elbow — an area with no movement.

Skin found mid-forearm on the dinomummy, with fingernail-sized scales. This is an area between joints, without movement.

If you would like to follow along with the continued preparation of the tail, foot, and arm, we will have periodic updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (@NDGSPaleo, @ndmuseum). We have to remove as much matrix as soon as possible so we can have the tail 3D scanned. Our goal is to have a 3D-printed, touchable tail for visitors to interact with. The real thing will still be behind glass, but this way the public can truly pet a dinosaur.