South Dakota Oral History Center
OfficeThe South Dakota Oral History Center collects and preserves voices of the people of the Northern Plains through a collection of more than 5500 interviews.
Contact Us
South Dakota Oral History Center
I.D. Weeks Library, Room 322
414 E. Clark St.
Vermillion SD 57069
414 E. Clark St.
Vermillion SD 57069
Office Hours
Monday - Friday
9 - 5 p.m.
Preserving the voices of the Northern Plains
The USD Oral History Center is home to a collection of more than 5500 interviews preserving indigenous memories and experiences from the 1890s to the present. Digitized, catalogued and available to researchers and historians, it's a vital and valuable record of the historical, social and cultural legacy of the state.The Collections
The South Dakota Oral History Center currently houses six unique collections containing nearly 6000 recordings and growing.
Originally funded by a grant from the Doris Duke Foundation in 1967, this impressive collection contains approximately 2400 recordings pertaining solely to Native Americans of the Northern Plains. The majority of the oral history recordings found in the AIRP were gathered in this early period though the work of Joseph Harper Cash and Herbert Hoover, Ph.D., both professors at the University of South Dakota. The gathering of recordings for the AIRP was not discontinued at the end of the grant, but continues to this day, ensuring the continued growth of this important collection.
With more than 3200 recordings, this large collection covers a wide range of topics. The project's original charge was to interview people from every county in South Dakota, which led to over 2,450 taped interviews collected between 1970 and 1977.
This is the Oral Diary of Father Stanislaus Maudlin, as well as many other recordings he made at Blue Cloud Abbey, a Catholic mission near Martin, South Dakota.
An independently collected group of recordings that was generously donated to the South Dakota Oral History Center, it contains nearly 300 recordings collected between the late 1950s and early 1980s.
Dating back to the early 1950s, this independently collected body of nearly 300 recordings contains a large amount of Native American music.
The most recent addition to the center, this collection contains recordings detailing the lives and experiences of people in the Northern Plains and was made possible thanks to the generous funds provided by Carina Lindley.
Faculty & Staff
Samuel Herley
Assistant Librarian