October is Archives Month, an occasion to recognize the efforts to assess, collect, organize, preserve, and provide access to information of lasting value. The North Dakota State Archives is part of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Read more about Archives Month in our special series, Dakota Datebook: Archives Month.
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In 1916, Librarian Georgia Carpenter produced a report on the types of manuscript, newspaper, periodical, and book materials acquired for the library collections of the State Historical Society. Carpenter also reported on reference requests and visits to the society’s library. She noted that in the past year, several visitors of national reputation had visited the library, including Miss Frances Densmore, known for documenting the music of indigenous peoples. She and Orin G. Libby had recorded Arikara, Hidatsa, and Mandan songs on wax cylinders.
Frances Densmore studied music at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio in the 1880s, as well as at Harvard. Over the years, she also studied under composers Carl Baerman, John Knowles Paine, and Leopold Godowsky. In 1907, she began to record Indian music for the Smithsonian Institution’s Bureau of American Ethnology. She worked there for the next 50 years, transcribing recordings and working with interpreters to learn the cultural context and meaning of what she had captured.
Orin G. Libby was the Secretary of the State Historical Society. He reported that in 1912, Densmore had come to North Dakota and “recorded and transcribed a considerable number of old Mandan songs.” Next came Hidatsa songs, plus twenty-three records of typical Mandan words and recordings of an ancient Mandan legend. The cylinder recordings were deposited in the Historical Society’s vault at the state Capitol.
Likely, Carpenter's report of Densmore’s visit to the State Historical Society in Bismarck coincided with a trip Densmore took to Fort Yates in early October of 1915 to compile similar work.
In 2017, electronic records archivist Lindsay Meidinger accompanied some of the precious wax cylinders to Boston, where they were carefully digitized and cared for, then returned to the North Dakota State Archives. No longer stored in the Capitol vault, they are kept in a temperature-controlled space at the North Dakota Heritage Center, with the audio they contained available for listening on more modern technology.
Dakota Datebook by Sarah Walker
Sources:
- SHSND State Series 30213, folder 13, Historical Society. Secretary’s files
- https://www.history.nd.gov/archives/manuscripts/inventory/10335.html
- Collections of the State Historical Society, V4, p30
- Sioux County Pioneer, October 8, 1915, p4
- https://www.ndstudies.gov/gr8/content/unit-iii-waves-development-1861-1920/lesson-3-building-communities/topic-7-telling-our-story/section-8-frances-densmore
- Interview with Lindsay Meidinger, Sept 2
