Colby Aderhold, Photo Archives Intern

I am a senior at the University of Mary studying history, philosophy, and classics. This summer I had the privilege of working as an intern at the State Archives. My project was to inventory and organize the Reverend Harold W. Case Photograph Collection at the container level. In total, I inventoried and organized 215 boxes and 17,312 individual items. The collection contains a variety of photographs, including safety negatives, nitrate negatives, tintypes, slides, film, glass, and prints of various sizes. Each item requires different conditions for storage. A part of my job was to make sure these individual requirements were met for each photograph. Negatives were paper sleeved and placed on a shelf; tintypes were put in paper sleeves and given their own boxes. Glass was assessed for damages and scanned, then stored in special boxes on the lowest shelf to avoid accidental shattering. Slides, prints, and film were placed in paper sleeves, and every item, irrespective of type, was given a unique item number.

Throughout the project I was amazed by the Rev. Case’s skill as a photographer! Case, a New Yorker who arrived in Elbowoods in 1922 to serve the Fort Berthold Mission, would work there until much of the area was flooded by the construction of the Garrison Dam. His pictures really captured life around the mission and serve as a time machine for the interested researcher. Below is my personal favorite, which shows a massive crowd gathered to witness the 1934 dedication of the Four Bears Bridge. The image makes the viewer feel as though they are a part of the gathering.

SHSND SA 00041-05211

This internship has taught me the value of organization and the proper methods of archival research. Mistakes were sometimes my greatest teacher. If I left my desk untidy or my cart full of photographs it would result in more difficult and slow work the next day. If I procrastinated due to the difficulty of a specific task, it would only make this already challenging task even harder. I quickly learned to clean up every day before I left the office and to never leave a task halfway done promising to complete it another day. These lessons have spilled over into my daily life and have also resulted in a cleaner house and reduced stress.

Finally, I learned how to properly research sources while working within an archive. Though many aspiring historians must learn how to use an archive from the reading room, I have had the good fortune of learning the inner workings of the State Archives from behind the scenes. This has been a great advantage this summer as I have been doing archival research in the Huntington Library’s collection for my undergraduate dissertation project. Moreover, this skill will prove invaluable as I move forward in my career.

In conclusion, this has been a very successful summer internship, and I cannot wait to return to the State Archives in the capacity of a work-study student.

Connor Grenier, Local Government Archives Intern

Though my internship started in May my hiring process began in March. Graduation was rapidly approaching, and I needed to find a position that could offer me work experience related to my career goals. Back in March, this internship seemed like a promising place to start. Now that the internship is complete, I have gained valuable experience that has better informed what my interests are and where my goals are aligned for the future.

My main project at the State Historical Society was running an inventory survey for the material in the local government archives. My tasks gave me insight into archival work. It was interesting to discover the materials that an archive contains and how these are preserved and processed. The work here is never finished. I find this last point to be the most hopeful as I seek to pursue similar work. While I spent most of my time on the inventory project, I also had the opportunity to engage in other archival duties, such as digitizing audio and video material.

A collection audit form used during an inventory survey of local government archives materials.

This internship has also shown me the other career routes the state offers. Whether it was painting picnic pavilions at a state historic site, touring another department at the ND Heritage Center & State Museum, or networking with my fellow state interns, I was exposed to the different opportunities and options that this field has to offer. I gained a lot of experience from my tasks, but I learned the most from my colleagues here. Getting to know the work of the people around me was very interesting and eye-opening. I got a better sense of what this work requires and the many avenues people could take within the field. I would also like to note that the work environment at the agency is very fun and kind. Everyone here is willing to teach you something you do not know and is not afraid to have a laugh. Overall, I had a positive time in this position, and I hope that the work that I did reflects that.

Here at the State Historical Society, we want to be sure your personal family collections are kept safe for future generations. With that in mind, we’ve prepared some guidance on caring for your collections in the event of potential flood events and water damage. We will look at preventative care tips and suggestions to follow or keep in mind as you work to protect and preserve your family treasures and history before a disaster strikes.

General advice for storing personal collections

Storage of your items should be in a space that has a stable and consistent temperature. The best storage space for home collections is a cool, clean, and relatively dry area with no direct light. We do not recommend storing items in attics or in most basements as these spaces can be humid, and the temperature may fluctuate drastically due to seasonal weather changes.

You should avoid placing items near heaters, radiators, chimneys, vents, electrical sources, and open windows. Take note whether your chosen storage area is at risk of water damage, such as being near plumbing pipes, sprinklers, open windows, vents, or sinks.

1) Housing your personal collection

VHS tapes should be stored upright in cases to prevent damage.

Housing options (basically the containers your collection is placed in) will vary depending on the items. The main consideration is whether these guard against insects and pests, block bright or direct light, and help keep objects clean and free of dust, which can scratch delicate surfaces like those of photographs.

We know people often default to basic plastic bins for storage, but plastic is not a good storage option because it will leach plasticizers that can affect the material within. We recommend acid-free boxes instead. That said, plastic is still better than nothing.

2) Buffered versus unbuffered?

When looking for housing materials online, you may come across both buffered and unbuffered options. If something has been buffered, calcium carbonate (better known as chalk) has been added to the cellulose material and acts as a buffering agent raising the pH level of the paper to be more alkaline. If the item being housed is paper or made of cellulose (like film, photographs, and cotton products) go for the buffered option. But for items that come from animals (e.g., leather, silk, wool, feathers, horsehair, and pearls) use unbuffered. This rule applies to file folders, tissue paper you wrap around objects, and boxes.

3) Considerations for general materials

Audiovisual and magnetic media: The ideal orientation for CDs, DVDs, audio, and video cassettes is to be stored upright like books, as stacking can cause stress and warping. The original containers work well for storage if they are clean and made of inert plastic. Video and audio cassettes should be wound to the beginning or the end, so that content on the tape is not exposed.

Photographs in the State Archives collections are sleeved due to high use by researchers and staff.

Flat/oversize items: For flat paper materials, a file folder is our go-to method, unless it is very weak, has tears, or is heavily creased. In that case, we would place the item in a polyester sleeve. The file folders can be stored flat or upright in a box. Speaking of tears, please do not use regular Scotch tape to fix them! There is special tape and other repair methods if you feel the items need conservation. We also recommend the removal of rubber bands, metal paper clips, and metal fasteners. If the item is oversize/poster size, then storing it may require a bit more creativity, but keep it flat with little to no pressure on top. If you must roll the item, do not roll it too tight, and remember to periodically unroll and roll it in the opposite direction.

Photographs: A common question is whether photos should always be sleeved? If you have many photographs and feel that putting them in sleeves is necessary, then we would recommend at least 3-millimeter-thick polyester, as it is the most chemically inert of the plastics used for archival storage products. But you only really need to sleeve photographs that are handled a lot, show signs of weakness or deterioration, or are of utmost importance to you. Otherwise, leaving photographs loose should not be an issue. Just store them flat or upright with some space in the box since you do not want to exert pressure on the photographs by shoving them tightly into the container.

Textiles, taxidermy, and natural materials: Textiles should be kept on padded hangers or placed flat in watertight buffered or unbuffered boxes (depending on the textile material). They should be stored away from leaky areas and sunlight, which can cause fading. Taxidermy should also be placed away from leaky areas and sunlight but on a high shelf. It’s important to use extreme caution when handling older taxidermy due to the risk of exposure to arsenic. Use coated watertight metal cases when storing wood, rocks, minerals, ceramic, and glass. Uncoated metal objects should be in a dry environment to reduce the risk of oxidation (rust).

Textile artifacts, like this circa 1880s blouse, should be stored in an acid-free box with tissue paper to support the garment. SHSND 1972.00169

While this certainly doesn’t cover every material type and situation you may encounter when caring for and housing your family’s historical items, it is a good place to start. If you have questions we haven’t addressed, our staff are happy to help. For questions related to paper, books, and photographs contact the State Archives at 701.328.2091 or archives@nd.gov. For artifact-related questions, contact our museum staff at history@nd.gov.

*This blog was co-authored with Local Government Archivist Megan Steele and two former museum interns, Zoe Harden and Emily Bruun.

Genealogy research is a significant part of what visitors to the State Archives do when they come to the reading room. Past censuses are a great tool for searching for your ancestors and are accessible online via the Ancestry genealogical site, though we do have schedules microfilmed and some physical census sheets in our holdings, too.

One census of note is the 1885 Dakota Territory census. It is important because the 1890 federal census was largely destroyed in a fire at the U.S. Department of Commerce building on January 10, 1921. This incident impacted genealogical research in a massive way, as people attempting to trace their ancestors now faced a 20-year gap between the 1880 and 1900 censuses. This can be problematic for people researching their North Dakota ancestors, as many newcomers to the state would have been enumerated in the 1890 census. The 1885 territorial census provides a nice fill-in but lacks the level of detail of a federal census. 

One interesting aspect of the 1885 census is the schedules for enumerating Civil War veterans. As with other states in the Midwest and Great Plains, the prospect of available land, especially via the Homestead Act, enticed the settlement of North Dakota. While many of these pioneer settlers were immigrants, Civil War veterans were another important group comprising the leading names in many early North Dakota communities. Having fought in our nation’s bloodiest war, many headed west from the states where they had joined the service and lived during the war years. While the forces that pushed or pulled them west vary, these veterans came to their new homes, became pillars in their communities, and are an important demographic in the region’s early population.

Tucked behind the general population schedules for each enumeration district in a county are Special Schedule No. 6-Soldiers sheets, which contain a “list of ex-soldiers of the volunteer and regular army of the United States.”

In the image below, some good information is provided to help a person start researching these veterans’ service in the Civil War. Details include the unit served in; when they joined; their nationality or birth state; how many years they enlisted for; when they left the service; what ranks they entered and left at; from where and when they came to Dakota Territory; whether they were wounded and had a pension; and how many engagements (battles) they fought in. There is also space for remarks. These are wonderful details that can lead researchers down many exciting trails.

SHSND 30111, Dakota Territory Census Schedules 1885

As the image demonstrates, these veterans came from different places, though many were from nearby states, such as Minnesota and Wisconsin.

In Richland County’s Enumeration District 23, there are remarks for some of the veterans, including on the back of the sheet. One interesting note is that James Victory, a veteran of Company C, 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment, is listed as having participated in 100 engagements during his service. Given the storied history of that regiment and that he served throughout the war, it is not impossible that he participated in 100 battles over four years. Victory, according to the remarks on the back, also served in the regular army before and after the war. He lost the use of both his legs as well.

SHSND 30111, Dakota Territory Census Schedules 1885

Another schedule stood out among the sheets for Enumeration District 23. There was a Confederate veteran residing in Richland County. E.R. Davenport came to Richland County from Minnesota in February 1884. He served in the 22nd Virginia Infantry during the war. According to Ancestry, he served in Company H, enlisting in September 1862. He was captured at Cold Harbor, Virginia, in June 1864, and spent time in Union prisons at Point Lookout, Maryland, and Elmira, New York, before being exchanged and paroled in April 1865. He was listed as a casualty in early May 1865 at Richmond, though the war had ended by this time.

SHSND 30111, Dakota Territory Census Schedules 1885

These veteran schedules are a great resource for learning more about a specific group of early North Dakota settlers and researching their service in the United States’ bloodiest war. They provide important details for genealogy researchers searching for a Civil War ancestor and a glimpse into the pillars of the community in the region’s early days.

The schedules are accessible at Ancestry.com, where they have been digitized, and also in hard copy format at the State Archives reading room. If your family has been in North Dakota since territorial days, don’t overlook the 1885 territorial census as a resource as clues may abound to your family’s story.

If you’ve visited our website, history.nd.gov, lately, you’ve probably noticed it looks outdated and isn’t mobile friendly. Soon (within the next year or so) we will have a new website! Why so long you ask? There’s a lot that goes into redesigning a website of that size.

The homepage of our current website.

The first thing I looked at was how many pages are on our current website and how we could reduce that number. Some pages had old versions that were still on the website with no way to get to them other than using the search feature. I spent many hours going through all the pages on the website and getting rid of old and duplicate ones. This will make transferring necessary pages to the new website much easier and quicker.

The next item I looked at was website navigation. Our current site doesn’t have the most user-friendly navigation, and we want to make sure visitors can quickly and easily find information. I started looking at other state historical societies’ websites to see how their navigation is set up and how they’re grouping different sections. Our new site will reflect a mix of different societies’ navigation features that we think will work well for us.

After those two steps came the design. Because we have so many other websites, we wanted to keep a design that’s different enough to stand alone but also similar enough to look like it’s part of our family of websites. We accomplished this by using the dark and light copper from history.nd.gov, statemuseum.nd.gov, and blog.statemuseum.nd.gov in different ways but still in the header and footer. The homepage will feature a large, beautiful image of one of our state museums or historic sites that will change with each page refresh.

The next step is coding the website, which I’m currently in the process of doing. Our new website is being built in Drupal, a content management system. This will allow us to edit content from anywhere with an internet connection by simply logging into the website as an administrator.

Once the coding is finished, it will be time to transfer content from the old site to the new site. We will be updating some of the text and many of the images to keep with the fresh look and feel of the new website.

Throughout the last two steps, there will be a lot of testing on my part to make sure everything is functioning properly on the website’s desktop, tablet, and mobile versions as we add more pages and content.

I would love to show you the look of the new website, but then there wouldn’t be a big reveal once it’s ready, so for now I’ll leave you with this little sneak peek. Enjoy, and stay tuned for the launch of the new website!

As an intern at the State Historical Society of North Dakota’s Audience Engagement & Museum Department, I have spent the past several months inventorying items stored in the collections that lack documented history. Since these objects don’t have a written history, I can only imagine the life each must have lived before entering the ND Heritage Center & State Museum’s walls.

However, much can be learned from the objects themselves. Since these don’t have a written history, I find myself paying closer attention to minute details. Each object becomes a little mystery, a puzzle for me to solve. Below are a few objects that have piqued my interest.

1. Pillow shams

PEB-00992, 00993

These pillow shams intrigued me because of the amount of effort that must have gone into creating them. On each is depicted a woman with text reading respectively, “Good morning,” or “Good night.” On the morning sham, the woman stands outside with plants at her feet, vines encircling her, as a bird flies nearby. The night sham shows the woman holding a candle and the hem of her dress in one hand and waving a handkerchief through the air with the other. Why? It is hard to know without documented history of the object and information about the maker.

As someone who has had the same unfinished COVID-19-sparked embroidery project sitting in a box untouched since July 2020, I can only dream of having the patience and persistence to complete such a project. The embroidered borders are what really show the extent of effort required. What a tedious task! Kudos to the creator!

2. Ice cream scoop holder

PEB-00742

Initially this object looked just like a regular goblet for drinking, but upon closer inspection I noticed that there was a clear hole straight through it to the base. As opposed to a drinking goblet, this item turned out to be specifically designed to hold paper cups full of ice cream. In the early 1900s, added pressure and restrictions were put on soda and ice cream parlors to ensure that their establishments were hygienic and thoroughly sanitizing their glasses. Cup holders such as this one were created and marketed to the shops in order to provide an easier and cheaper method of sanitization. The hole in the center holds a disposable paper cup, making cleanup easier. These metal cup holders were also advertised as being a cheaper option than glasses.

3. Shoehorn

PEB-00829

Sometimes I look at an object and suddenly realize that a question about the universe I had never thought to ask has just been answered for me. That is what I felt as I gazed at this shoehorn, broken but retaining a clear and familiar shape even without its end. The object’s name suddenly made much more sense.

“Huh … shoe … horn. So that is where that name comes from.”

Shoehorns are tools that make it easier to get your heel down into a tight shoe. While they have faded in popularity over time, they remain an important accessibility tool for many people. Modern shoehorns are often made of durable plastic. However, the original material they were made from, animal horn, can be seen in the example above and likely gave the tool its name.

4. Asbestos iron

PEB-01087

When I looked at this sad iron, the word “asbestos” across the top caught my attention. I immediately did some research and learned that asbestos was once commonly used to line and insulate sad iron covers in order to allow the iron to hold heat longer and to prevent the user from being burned. Though this handy innovation may not have any documentation telling its specific history, the item itself reveals a dark story in light of what we now know about the health impacts of asbestos exposure.

It's interesting what a single object can tell you if you take the time to listen and pay attention to the little details that make even everyday items useful and unique.

Some of the rocks and petrified wood in my inventory.

Outside in the natural environment, you will often see rocks on the ground or sticking through the surface. Rocks and the things found inside them, such as fossils, are important to the world and to scientific communities because they contain a record of the Earth’s history and the life that populated it. Through rocks and fossils, we can read how the Earth and its environment changed, how the continents moved, and how life has developed over time. We can even examine natural disasters. For this reason, many museums house rocks to safeguard them and the information they hold. One of the most important parts of preserving that information is the process of a detailed inventory.

Rocks and fossils form in a variety of ways, as demonstrated by these specimens of concretions, petrified wood, and other fossils.

To perform a detailed inventory, I first removed the rocks from the collection so they could be examined more carefully and described in greater detail. I then opened their database records and went through each field to update and correct any information that was missing or incorrect. Next, I examined the rocks and fossils to ensure there was nothing severely wrong with them; a few were shedding dirt or splinters since these had not been coated to keep loose pieces on the specimens. Once the records were mostly complete, I photographed the rocks so that their records would show what they looked like, making them easier to find in the future. 

One of the most important things to know about a rock specimen is where it came from (i.e., site, latitude/longitude, and formation). This allows us to identify its age and specific type. Having this data also provides more researchable information about what geological and environmental processes were occurring on Earth at the time of the rock’s formation. I checked the donation files for site information before doing extensive online research to complete the collection site and paleontology or geology fields in the database.

Depending on their use, rock and fossil specimens are defined as either artificial (think arrowheads, building materials, and statues) or natural (unmodified by humans).

The diversity of rocks and fossils found in North Dakota is truly amazing, and I got to experience that firsthand during my inventory of the rocks held by the State Historical Society. I found sandstone, granite, mudstone, limestone, petrified wood, plant and animal fossils, and fossils that were a combination of plant and trace fossils. 

Quartz syenite riprap from Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park in Mandan. Riprap are large rocks used to protect structures at shorelines from weathering and erosion.

Leaf fossil in a sandstone collected in North Dakota from a rock formation in the Fort Union Group, which formed during the Paleocene epoch (66 to 56 million years ago).

Clam fossil with mineral formation inside the cavity found at Long Butte, North Dakota, in the Sentinel Butte Formation. This specimen is from the Thanetian Age in the Paleocene epoch (59 to 56 million years ago), a time when North Dakota was covered by the ocean.

Looking for information on this scapula from a mammoth or mastodon turned out to be quite the scavenger hunt. The reference number on it was incorrect (the number actually belonged to a serving ladle), and we searched for days through the digital and physical records to find any trace of the object in the museum’s recorded history.

I have a geology background, which made this inventory especially exciting for me. One of the most interesting and coolest fossils I found in my inventory was a mudstone with opalized ammonites embedded inside. This occurs when silica spheres in the rock are slowly moved through the cracks of the shell replacing the organic material. These leave behind opal giving the fossils an iridescent quality not evident in most other minerals. 

Opalized ammonite fossils inside gray mudstone.

Another fascinating fossil was the North Dakota state fossil, Teredo petrified wood, which results when a tree is living in an aquatic or semi-aquatic environment and becomes infested with Teredo worms. As the landscape changes and the tree dies, the wood petrifies, and the worm tunnels are evacuated. While petrification is occurring, minerals become trapped in the tunnels and leave behind permineralized trace fossils where the worms burrowed. 

Permineralization occurs when tiny mineral pieces seep through the cracks and fill all the holes and crevices within the fossil, surrounding rather than replacing the organic material. Trace fossils are the tracks, trails, and tunnels left behind by organisms. When a tunnel gets filled with minerals from the surrounding rock, it becomes a permineralized trace fossil.

Teredo petrified wood is North Dakota’s state fossil.

An inventory can reveal the wonders of the objects that are in the museum collection. Even more fascinating is an inventory about rocks and fossils since it gives you the chance to read the history of the region and the planet. The rocks tell us that North Dakota used to be a marine environment before the water retreated and became a swamp that eventually dried out and transformed into the grassland of today. Rocks and fossils need to be preserved so we can continue to study our world’s rich history.