FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 6, 2010

CONTACT: Jeff Mammenga, Media Coordinator, (605) 773-6000, Jeff.Mammenga@state.sd.us

Western Historian McLaird Guest at August History Book Club

PIERRE, S.D. – An author who focuses on the Black Hills and the American West will shed light at the August meeting of the History and Heritage Book Club on a book about one man’s experiences in the West.

James D. McLaird will lead the discussion of Hard Knocks: A life Story of the Vanishing West when the book club meets at 7 p.m. CDT on Tuesday, Aug. 10, at the Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre.

McLaird is professor emeritus of history at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell. He is author of Calamity Jane: The Woman and the Legend and Wild Bill Hickok & Calamity Jane: Deadwood Legends. He has also written several articles about Western history and myth-making, focusing especially on South Dakota and the Black Hills. McLaird wrote the introduction to Hard Knocks, which was published by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press.

“Dr. McLaird has extensive knowledge about Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok and Deadwood during gold rush days. We’re pleased he can tell us about another figure in Deadwood’s history, Harry ‘Sam’ Young,” said Patricia Miller, president of the South Dakota Heritage Fund.

The History and Heritage Book Club is sponsored by the SDSHS Press and the South Dakota Heritage Fund.

Hard Knocks by Harry “Sam” Young is Young’s account of his running away from home in 1863 at age 14 to experience the adventures he had read about in dime-store novels. He traveled through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Dakota Territory, Utah, California, Oregon and Alaska. He experienced gold rushes, railroad booms, homesteading and cowboy life. Along the way, he met some of the people who have become legends in the West.

In 1875, Young and Calamity Jane rode the lead wagon into the Black Hills of Dakota Territory on the Jenney Expedition. Young was the bartender at Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood when Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back of the head during a game of cards. Young’s recollections portray the workingman’s frontier.

Hard Knocks was originally published in 1915. It was republished in 2005 by the SDSHS Press.

Hard Knocks is available in the Heritage Stores at the Cultural Heritage Center and the State Capitol. Book club members receive a 10 percent discount, and SDSHS members receive an additional 15 percent discount when they buy the book at the Heritage Store.

For more information about the History and Heritage Book Club, contact Dorinda Daniel at (605) 773-6006.

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The South Dakota Heritage Fund is a private charitable nonprofit that seeks funding to assist the South Dakota State Historical Society in programming and projects to preserve South Dakota’s history and heritage for future generations.

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.