Visit this room on the second floor where nine interpretive panels tell the history of Augustana Academy. The academy functioned from 1860-1971 and moved west with the college until being permanently established in Canton, South Dakota. Famous graduates include Ole E. Rölvaag 1909, former South Dakota Governors Archie M. Gubbrud ‘29 and Sigurd Anderson ‘25, as well as Mary (Harum) Hart ‘72. Additional academy material is preserved in the CWS archives.
The Augustana Academy Research Room
Voices of the Northern Plains
Through the dramatic museum exhibit "Voices of the Northern Plains," visitors travel across 300 years of life in the Northern Plains (1700-2000) — from the Oneota village at Blood Run and the Lewis & Clark Expedition’s encounter with the Sioux to resistance by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse during the Plains Indian Wars. From the arrival of early missionaries who recorded their adventures in letters and the coming of homesteaders to the imaginative re-creation of the frontier era in the novels of the plains. From the persistence of indigenous culture in the art forms of quillwork, beadwork and parfleche to the enduring immigrant values in the folk art of Germans-from-Russia basket weaving, English woodcarving and Norwegian quilting, embroidery, rosemaling and marquetry.
- Watch Executive Director Harry F. Thompson's guided tour of "Voices of the Northern Plains" for C-SPAN's American History TV, below.