Two visiting researchers work with Jeremy Kopp (right), Germans from Russia Heritage Collection outreach and operations coordinator.
Two researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently visited The NDSU Libraries’ Germans from Russia Heritage Collection to review the Father William C. Sherman Photograph Collection.
Anna Andrzejewski, Bradshaw Knight Professor of Environmental Humanities and director of the Center for Culture, History and the Environment, along with art history doctoral student Travis Olson, came to NDSU June 8 to research homestead photos from Dunn, Hettinger and Stark Counties in southwest North Dakota.
“We have wanted to visit this collection since March 2020 – a visit delayed by the pandemic. However, it was worth the wait,” Andrzejewski said. “This collection of photographs and related material documents buildings that have been demolished or fallen into complete ruin. We now have a much better picture of what Germans from Russia homesteads looked like than we did before.”
According to Michael Miller, director of the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, the Sherman collection includes thousands of important historical images.
“Sherman’s photographs of central and western North Dakota provides one of the most comprehensive collections of homestead images worldwide. The collection includes 13,000 black and white photos, negatives and color slides,” Miller said. “He focused primarily on these ethnic groups: Bohemian-Germans, German-Russians, Hungarian Germans and Ukrainians. The Germans from Russia Heritage Collection will develop a traveling and virtual exhibit to premiere in fall 2022.”
Following their visit to the NDSU campus, the researchers’ schedule calls for a trip to Bismarck to conduct work at the State Historical Society of North Dakota, a stop in Dickinson and travel to the three counties for oral interviews, documentation and photos.
Andrzejewski teaches courses in the history of American art and material culture, with a focus on the study of vernacular (common) architecture. She has written the book, “Building Power: Architecture and the Ideology of Surveillance in Victorian America,” and she has completed a second book focused on the post-World War II building industry. Olson is writing his doctoral dissertation on rock buildings of immigrant groups in southwestern North Dakota.
The Germans from Russia Heritage Collection was established in 1978. The collection houses numerous books, manuscript collections, photographs, oral histories and other historical material about Germans from Russia culture and ancestry.
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