Bringing Books to a "Book-Hungry Land": Print Culture on the Dakota Prairie

The dearth of reading material was a recurring lament in the writings and memoirs of Dakota settlers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. "I was born with a desire to read, ... and I have never gotten over it," declared Henry Theodore Washburn, recalling his Minnesota boyhood and homesteading years in Dakota Territory, "but there was no way in those days to gratify that desire to any great extent."¹ This lack was indeed of consequence. In the pre-electronic era, print was a primary means of obtaining information, insight, and pleasure. High rates of literacy, sharp increases in book production, and falling costs all contributed to the pervasiveness of the printed word. Whether it promoted particular values or challenged them, reading played a vital role in shaping how individuals assigned meaning to their lives.²

Governing what and how much was read were geographical location, environment, economic conditions, educational levels, and amount of leisure time. For many early South Dakota settlers, reading was certainly not a prime activity or even a real option. Those who did actively involve themselves in the culture of print were variously motivated. From ordinary rural dwellers, to the educated elite, to book publishers and sellers, each had an agenda—whether to strive for cultural improvement, spread "right ideals," make a quick profit, or simply eke out a living. In any case, getting books to remote regions required initiative and perseverance. A historical examination of South Dakota's print culture, focusing on the experiences of those who supplied reading material and those who received it, can afford a valuable glimpse into the cultural aspirations and attitudes of a rural population in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America.

"There were but few books in any home in our community, in my early childhood," wrote Mabel Kingsley Richardson of her upbringing in southeastern Dakota in the 1880s. "I am proud to be country born, and in South Dakota. If I had my choice over, I'd choose to be born on the same hill, in the same house, by the same river, ... but I would like more books." Among the family's small stock of printed materials were a Webster's dictionary, a brown leather Bible, almanacs, seed catalogues, and advertising material from which the children resourcefully clipped illustrations for homemade picture books. Richardson's keenest memories were of a lavishly illustrated gift book carefully stowed in her mother's trunk. Bound in "soft tan leather, with heavy gold tooling and gilt edges," the book was "filled with beautiful pictures in soft tints of dainty ladies in fluffy dresses and poke bonnets" accompanied by "grown up" poems and stories. When she learned that her father had presented this book to her mother the Christmas before they were married, Richardson decided that "it was reason enough for marrying any man."³ The allure of the appearance and aura of books went beyond the enchanted reaction of a child. Indeed, for cultural aspirants in Victorian America, a reverence for books as objects and status symbols was a common response, something book publishers were quick to grasp and exploit.⁴

The Richardson family's few books were typical of the sparse holdings in many South Dakota homes. A survey of books owned by late nineteenth-century Hand County residents, for example, reveals that most of these households had a Bible, a schoolbook or two, and little else.⁵ Specific references to the books of South Dakotans in this era are unfortunately scanty. Although many left written records of their pioneer experiences, Richardson's account is exceptional in that she provided a detailed description of her family's book holdings.

The voices chronicling life in South Dakota's territorial period and early years of statehood were mainly those of Euro-Americans whose settlement, at first confined to the southeast corner of the territory, spread progressively westward as the railroads advanced and millions of...