North Dakota Extension Homemakers Council. Oral History Project.
Memories of North Dakota homemakers photographs, 1880s-1980s (Photo 2079)
137 photographic prints
37 color slides
63 strips of 35mm negatives
History
The North Dakota Extension Homemakers Council’s “Memories of North Dakota Homemakers” Oral History Project, modeled after the National Extension Homemakers Oral History Project, was begun in 1985. This oral history project was undertaken to preserve the memories of North Dakota homemakers. The project focused on homemakers in an effort to provide primary documentation of the changing role of North Dakota homemakers since the turn of the twentieth century. The project was sanctioned by the North Dakota Centennial Commission and funded by the North Dakota Humanities Council in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Arlene Sagness served as project director and editor of the three books that were created. In 1985 volunteers from all over North Dakota were trained to conduct interviews. The interviews were done from November of 1985 through April 1986 and conducted with older North Dakota homemakers. By June of 1988 the transcripts of those taped interviews had been edited into the first of three books create by the project: Sods, Logs and Tarpaper. Clothes Lines, Party Lines, and Hem Lines was published in 1989 and Courtin,’ Cookin’ and Castor Oil was published in 1990.
Scope and Content
As part of the oral history project photographic images were also assembled for inclusion in the final publications. The images in this photograph collection were originally interspersed in the paper records that have been processed as Manuscript 262. Some, but not all, of these images were used in the three books. The collection is a mix of primarily copy prints, original photographs, and color slides. Unfortunately there is very little identifying documentation with the images, and it is assumed most of them were taken in North Dakota . Some of the slides have identifying information and are entirely copies of older images.
The images as found in the paper records were not organized in any systematic manner, thus, when processed by the archives staff, a topical arrangement was used. These topical files are arranged in a strictly alphabetical sequence. The slides constitute the final file and have been sub-divided by the topical terms used for the prints.
As would be expected the majority of the images Topical Series have a rural theme, particularly farming scenes and rural women. Most are the work of amateur photographers and thus the quality is uneven.
The Buildings file (16 images) includes images of sod houses and farm houses, usually with people standing in front. There is an image of men shingling a barn under construction, and several of the “cook car” used during threshing. One shows a tarpaper shack with the sign “Raleigh-Herald, real estate loans.”
The Churches file (4 images) contains three images of groups outside a church. One is labeled “Childrens Day (Niobe), June 9th, 1918.”
The Clothing and Dress file (5 images) includes a group of four women wearing elaborate hats, four women outside with mannequins used in sewing clothes, several women’s undergarments on a clothesline (one with “Pillsbury’s Best XXX” imprinted), and a cartoon postcard.
The Clubs file (2 images) shows what is believed to be women making mattresses from surplus wool in the 1930s, likely members of a homemakers club.
The Disasters file (5 images) has snapshots taken after snow storms and damage after a tornado.
The Entertainment file (4 images) contains a snapshot of children on a homemade teeter-totter, on a horse, in garden with log cabin outhouse, and two women seated outside eating.
The Farm Life file (14 images) has images of women with various farm animals, feeding chickens and other livestock, milking cows and picking eggs.
The Funeral Rites and Ceremonies file (2 images) includes an image of an open casket, likely of a young child, and of an older woman laid out on a table with several flowers on the cover sheet.
The Furniture and Appliances file (12 images) are more recent views of old furniture and house appliances. They appear to have been taken in a museum setting.
The Harvesting file (10 images) contains primarily threshing and binding scenes. There is two related to haying, including one that shows hay being hoisted into a barn using slings.
The Hospitals file (1 image) contains an original, mounted image of a doctor and three nurses around a patient being operated upon. On back is written “Aunt Ella, nurse, Dr. Paulson, Aunt Eva.”
The Housework images (9 images) show women at work in a variety of contexts. Included is an image of a woman and young child on chair by a cook stove, a woman darning a young child’s pants with it still being worn by the child, two babies in a tub outside, and a woman pumping water.
The Hunting file (5 images) show men with the game they have caught and one of a young girl holding a string of fish caught.
The Music file (6 images) includes a man playing the violin, woman at a piano, several musical groups, and two of a woman holding a guitar with oxen.
The People—Large Groups file (4 images) contains images of men by barn, group by log house, outside social scene, and children by automobiles.
The People—Portraits and Snapshots file (18 images) includes family groups, children, women with children, three of young women in Norwegian folk dress, and several portraits of older women from the 1980s.
The Plowing file (3 images) images show one being pulled by four oxen and another by two horses.
The Telephones file (2 images) shows an old wall-mounted telephone and another, from a printed source, of a woman at a switchboard.
The Transportation file (8 images) images primarily show people seated in automobiles or buggies and wagons pulled by horses. An original photographic postcard shows four women in wagon being pulled by two oxen. Printed on front is “A McKenzie Co., N.D. homesteaders auto at Schafer.” Another postcard is of the S.S. Kristianiafjord ship.
The Winter file (4 images) images all show people in a wagon on runners being pulled by horses in the winter.
The Wedding file (1 image) contains an image of a wedding couple, taken by a professional photographer. No identifying information given.
The Slides Series file (37 images) are all copies of other images similar in nature to the prints in the collection. Some do have identifying information written on the cardboard mount. None appear to duplicate any of the prints in the collection.
The Negatives Series consists of 35mm negatives (63 strips, usually each having 6 images) have been processed into the Institute’s negative collection. For only a few are there prints in the collection. For those with prints the negative number has been placed on the back of the print. The negatives were scanned and contact print sheets made for all the negatives. The scans allow researchers to view the entire negative collection for appropriate images. As with the prints, the images are of farm life and women, as well as some portraiture. It appears the copy work was done by an amateur and thus the quality varies.
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Photography 
