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Homesteading topic of next History & Heritage Book Club meeting
PIERRE, S.D. -- Members of the History and Heritage Book Club will learn about the challenges of homesteading in South Dakota at their June meeting.
The Jumping-Off Place by Marian Hurd McNeely will be discussed when the book club meets on Tuesday, June 2, at 7 p.m. at the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre. The book club is sponsored by the South Dakota Heritage Fund, the non-profit partner of the South Dakota State Historical Society.
To enhance book club members’ knowledge about homesteading, two staff members of the State Historical Society-Archives will share information about homesteading. Carol Jennings will bring items from her great-grandfather’s homesteading experiences in the 1880s. Ken Stewart will talk about homesteading at the turn of the century. A PowerPoint presentation is being planned that will feature homesteading photos from the archives collection.
In The Jumping-Off Place, four orphaned children follow through with their uncle’s plans to claim a homestead in TrippCounty at the beginning of the 1900s. The jumping-off place is more than a place where the railroad track ends; it is where a person steps off onto the prairie and takes responsibility for his or her own survival.
The Jumping-Off Place was first published in 1929 and was reprinted by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press in 2008. The book was named as a runner-up for the Newbery Award in 1930. The Newbery Award is the highest children’s book award in the United States.
The Jumping-Off Place is based on McNeely’s experiences as a homesteader in TrippCounty from 1910 to 1912. Although readers may think that McNeely was imitating Laura Ingalls Wilder in writing a book for young people about her experiences homesteading, The Jumping-Off Place was published three years before Wilder wrote her first Little House book. The time period that McNeely wrote about was nearly 30 years after the Ingalls family homesteaded in De Smet.
Book club members will participate in the One Book South Dakota reading program in July by discussing Dan O’Brien’s memoir Buffalo for the Broken Heart. The discussion is scheduled for Tuesday, July 14, at 7 p.m. at the CulturalHeritageCenter.
When a neighbor invited O’Brien to lend a hand at the annual buffalo roundup, O’Brien was inspired to convert his own ranch, the Broken Heart, to buffalo. The book is an account of the buffaloes’ first season on the ranch and a lesson in wildlife ecology. Local sponsors of One Book South Dakota are the South Dakota Humanities Council, American State Bank, Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, The South Dakota Heritage Fund, Prairie Pages Bookseller and Rawlins Municipal Library.
In August, David A. Wolff will join the discussion of the book he authored, Seth Bullock: Black Hills Lawman. Wolff is associate professor of history at Black HillsStateUniversity in Spearfish. In the book, Wolff shows how Bullock was much more than a frontier law enforcer. Bullock founded Belle Fourche, successfully managed the Black Hills Forest Reserve, started a hardware store, developed a ranch, ran a mining company, volunteered for the Spanish-American war and befriended a president. The discussion will begin Tuesday, Aug. 11, at 7 p.m. at the CulturalHeritageCenter.
Everyone is welcome to attend the History and Heritage Book Club. The books featured are available at the Heritage Store at both the CulturalHeritageCenter and the Capitol, as well as other locations. Book club members receive a 10 percent discount and SDSHS members receive an additional 5 percent discount when they purchase book club selections at either Heritage Store.
A reader’s guide to The Jumping-Off Place is available at both Heritage Stores and at the SDSHS Press’ Web site, www.sdshspress.com.
For more information about the book club, contact Dorinda Daniel at (605) 773-6006 or stop by the CulturalHeritageCenter.
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The South Dakota State Historical Society is a division of the Department of Tourism and State Development and strives to help the state meet the goals of the 2010 Initiative by enhancing history as a tool for economic development and cultural tourism. The society is headquartered at the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre. The center houses the society’s world-class museum, the archives, and the historic preservation, publishing and administrative/development offices. Call (605) 773-3458 or visit www.sdhistory.org for more information. The society also has an archaeology office in Rapid City; call (605) 394-1936 for more information.