History Of North Dakota

The area's extreme remoteness, great size, and sparse population have shaped the North Dakota character from the beginning of settlement a century ago. Theirs was not an easy land to master; and of those who tried, it demanded strength, endurance, and few illusions, but it had rewards. Today, as world shortages of food and fuel raise new possibilities--and new problems--North Dakotans face the future with the cautious optimism they learned long ago in sod houses and cold winters on the far northern edge of their country.

Robert Hopkins was a man caught between two worlds. As a member of the Dakota Nation, he was unfairly imprisoned, accused of taking up arms against U.S. soldiers when war broke out with the Dakota in 1862. However, as a Christian convert who was also a preacher, Hopkins's allegiance was often questioned by many of his fellow Dakota as well. Without a doubt, being a convert--and a favorite of the missionaries--had its privileges. Hopkins learned to read and write in an anglicized form of Dakota, and when facing legal allegations, he and several high-ranking missionaries wrote impassioned letters in his defense. Ultimately, he was among the 300-some Dakota spared from hanging by President Lincoln, imprisoned instead at Camp Kearney in Davenport, Iowa, for several years. His wife, Sarah, and their children, meanwhile, were forced onto the barren Crow Creek reservation in Dakota Territory with the rest of the Dakota women, children, and elderly. In both places, the Dakota were treated as novelties, displayed for curious residents like zoo animals. Historian Linda Clemmons examines the surviving letters from Robert and Sarah; other Dakota language sources; and letters from missionaries, newspaper accounts, and federal documents. She blends both the personal and the historical to complicate our understanding of the development of the Midwest, while also serving as a testament to the resilience of the Dakota and other indigenous peoples who have lived in this region from time immemorial.

For many people outside the state, North Dakota conjures visions of a remote, sparse, and seemingly inhospitable landscape, replete with ghost towns, scattered farmsteads, and settings reminiscent of the movie Fargo. Yet beyond this facile image lies a spectacular array of high-style, vernacular, ethnic, and modern buildings, a pragmatic architecture that reflects the setting and settlers of the Great Plains. A distinct "prairie mosaic" of houses, homesteads, and rural churches draws on the cultures of Germans from Russia, Norwegians, and Icelanders, and varied Native American groups such as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. North Dakota's architectural heritage is complemented by more contemporary work dating from Progressive-era boom times and the New Deal to the present. This volume, with more than 400 entries illustrated by 250 photographs and 17 maps, provides the first comprehensive overview of the state, from Pembina and Walhalla to the Badlands. This richly diverse legacy includes earthlodges and Eastern Orthodox churches, powwow grounds and campmeeting grounds, and varied settings from the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site to the International Peace Garden. The cast of characters is equally compelling, among them Sakakawea, Lewis and Clark, the Marquis de Mores, Theodore Roosevelt, Lawrence Welk, Peggy Lee, and regional and international architects working in a range of styles and traditions, from Marcel Breuer to Surrounded-by-Enemy. A volume in the Buildings of the United States series of the Society of Architectural Historians