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Contact Information:

Department of American Indian Studies
414 E. Clark St. Dakota Hall 12
Vermillion, SD 57069
phone: 605.677.5209
fax: 605.677.6525
Margaret.Quintal@usd.edu

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Last Modified: 02/26/08

 South Dakota Oral History Center

The Institute of American Indian Studies administers one of the largest oral history collections of its kind in the United States.

The South Dakota Oral History Center's archives contain over 5,400 recorded interviews. The Center is a combination of two distinct collections: the American Indian Research Project and the South Dakota Oral History Project.

The South Dakota Oral History Center (SDOHC) is devoted to documenting the history of the Northern Plains region and the care of previously collected interviews. All interviews are treated in a respected manner that honors the wishes of both the interviewee and their communities. Through the continued collection of regional oral histories, the SDOHC will enrich the understanding of events, thoughts and cultural practices from the region's past and ever-changing present. The SDOHC understands that with the gift of an interview comes great responsibility, including the preservation, conservation and access to those interviews for future generations. The SDOHC is devoted to protecting and maintaining the integrity of words from the past for the people of South Dakota, the Northern Plains region and the world.

Oral History Collections

• As one of the six original university oral history projects funded by the Doris Duke Foundation, each project's primary goal was to collect the history of American Indian people from their perspective.
• The American Indian Research Project (AIRP) contains over 2,200 taped interviews, 70 percent of which were gathered in the field between 1967 and 1973.
• In 1970, the South Dakota State Legislature allocated funds to establish the South Dakota Oral History Project (SDOHP). For the SDOHP, interviews were recorded in every county in South Dakota, specifically with South Dakotans who recalled events before and around 1900. Currently this collection contains 3,178 interviews.

The combined AIRP and SDOHP collections illustrate a holistic view of the Indian and non-Indian history of South Dakota and the Northern Plains region, specifically from the 1860s to the present. The AIRP contains the interviews of the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota languages, music, lifeways and spirituality, along with traditional and contemporary social, political, and economical philosophies.

Oral History Access

Accessibility to Transcripts and Tapes of the SDOHC
Contact Information for on-site research
Sample of Grandpa Joe Rockboy Interview
Search Terms provides keywords to aid in research for American Indian topics