According to Herbert Schell’s book Clay County: Chapters Out of the Past, Chapter 15, and review of CoyoteYearbooks from the early 20th century, University of South Dakota (USD) men’s athletics boasted early on Base Ball, Track and Football teams. Little was mentioned regarding athletics among women students. Basketball at the University of South Dakota would develop helped by the construction of the Armory and Gymnasium in 1905. Not only did basketball become a colligate sport, but high schools also adopted the sport.
A striking photograph in the 1903 Coyote Yearbook pictures members of the 1902 Women’s Basket Ball (as the sport was called then) team. In the 1904 Coyote another photograph of the women’s Basket Ball team appears. In the 1908 and 1913 Coyotes, no mention is made of this women’s sport, but pictures show that women took “Physical Culture”.
Photograph from the 1903 CoyoteYearbook of the 1902 women’s basketball team.
Images from the 1910 CoyoteYearbook. Drawings at the top demonstrate that type of outfits men and women wore playing basketball. The bottom photographs show scenes of the inside of the Armory building where basketball was played.
A photograph of the Armory and Gymnasium from the 1910 Coyote.
To accommodate the larger student population and athletics, in 1929 a new Armory building was constructed which was used for basketball games until the DakotaDome was built in 1979. Finally, as USD moved into Division 1 status, the Sanford Coyote Sports Center was constructed in 2016 which allowed basketball and volleyball teams to have their own facilities.
Although there is evidence at the University of South Dakota that women played basketball in physical education classes, clubs and some intramurals but, it was not until the 1971-1972 season that USD Athletics included an intercollegiate Women’s Basketball team (https://goyotes.com/news/2020/10/2/fifty-years-of-coyote-womens-basketball). In the intervening years, the Women’s Basketball team gained a national reputation. In the 2019-20 season, the Women’s Basketball team was nationally ranked and became the undefeated Summit champions in 2021 and 2022. Thus, it took over 60 years for the USD women’s basketball team to exist. It became one of the premier athletic teams at the University of South Dakota.
While working on the University of South Dakota (USD) Photograph Collection: Historical Series, I noted an image of a house labelled Home Management House. With some research, I discovered that the Home Management House was used as part of the Home Economics curriculum from 1957 through the spring semester of 1966 for senior level students. According to the course catalogue description, students taking the Home Management House course lived in the house for six weeks and dealt with “problems that arise in a home”.
As part of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Home Economics was started at USD in 1913. In the 1930s attempts to eliminate it were thwarted. However, in 1966 Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Elbert Harrington phased out the Departments of Home Economics and Applied Sciences, seeing them as vocational programs with possible duplications of programs at other schools of higher learning in South Dakota*.
Although USD Archives Home Economic files described in detail that with the dissolution of these two programs, furniture and other items were dispersed to several departments within the University, what happened to the Home Management House was not noted. The picture of the building in this blog was taken in January 1966 at the time the Home Economics Department was in its last semester.
Additional research indicates that the house currently exists as a single-family dwelling located 409 North Plum Street, not far from the USD campus. Few people remember that the structure was part of the Home Economics program of study at USD that lasted for over 50 years.
*Cedric Cummings, Robert C. Hildebrand, and Stephan R. Ward. The College of Arts and Sciences 1882-1982, A History. College of Arts and Sciences, 1982, University of South Dakota.
Photograph of the Home Management House taken in 1966. USD Photograph Collection: Historical Series
As part of my work in Archives and Special Collections, I reviewed negatives and photographs from the mid-1950’s to mid-1960’s. Many images illustrated athletic events predominately football and basketball, although there were a few images of Dolphins, the women’s synchronized swimming team. Several images were associated with Dakota Day (D-Day) events including parades down Main Street consisting of elaborate floats constructed by fraternities and sororities as well as other student organizations. Important dignitaries rode in cars and beckoned to enthusiastic spectators. Other D-Day images were of the football games and Miss Dakota Day royalty. Intriguingly, among the negatives and photographs I reviewed was an image of a Chesterfield cigarette salesman catering to students through a suggestive poster and the salesman giving out free cigarettes to students. Although undated, the image was probably from the late 1950s to early 1960s.
What I found most interesting among the images I evaluated were the changes in buildings on campus during this time period. As a background several structures were built in the late 1900’s to early 20th century including East Hall (1887), the second Old Main (1893-94), the Old Armory which became the Women’s Gymnasium (1903), Science Hall (1902), Dakota Hall (1919), the Andrew Carnegie Library (1910), the School of Law Building (1908), the Chemistry Building (1915), the Observatory (1917), Power plant and water tower (1910), and the Engineering building (1918). In honor of the Inman family, Mrs. Adele Inman contributed the land and substantial funds to construct the Inman stadium in 1918. West Hall, first a women’s dormitory and then a men’s dormitory was constructed in 1885 and burned down in 1905. Dakota Hall and East Hall served as dormitories until the 1950s and early sixties.
In the 1920s several buildings were completed that still stand today with several additions and renovations over the years. The Administration Building (now Slagle Hall), the New Armory (now the Neuharth Media Center), and the first Student Union were built as the student body, faculty members and administration of the University and athletics increased following World War I.
A second building boom on campus occurred following World War II as increased enrollment necessitated more dormitory space and expansion of specialty schools. According to Cedric Cummins’ book: The University of South Dakota 1862-1966, enrollment in 1943-1944 was 461 students and by 1950 it was almost 1800. In 1965 student enrollment was almost 4,000 students.
Danforth Chapel, a unique building constructed in 1954, was used and continues to be used by many people of different denominations for prayers and meditation and as a site for special events. Increased housing requirements were met with construction of Julian Hall (1950), Noteboom Hall (1953), Julian Hall Addition (1958), Brookman and Norton Halls (1963), Cypress (1958) and Redwood Courts (1960), and Grace Burges Hall (1960). Cypress and Redwood Courts, which served married students, no longer exist. In the fall of 2022 residence halls Julian Hall, Julian Hall Addition, and Brookman Hall were razed.
Although the School of Medicine started in 1907, it was not until 1953 that it received its own building. The Andrew E. Lee Memorial Medical and Science building initially housed both medicine and biology. It would be expanded twice in the next ten years. In 2005-7 a new medical school was built on the same footprint as the old building. Although the Medical School became the USD Sanford School of Medicine, the building retained its original name.
To replace Science Hall built in 1902, no longer used in 1958, and razed in 1961, a new Science Building was constructed in 1962 on the west side of campus. At their 40th class reunion the class of 1930 placed a bronze plaque attached to a boulder to denote where the old Science building stood. It is the only commemoration of past buildings on campus. The new Science building would be called Akeley-Lawrence Science Center in honor of a distinguished professor (Lewis Akeley) and alum (Ernest Lawrence) who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939. Both were profoundly involved in the development of KUSD radio. To accommodate the medium of television KUSD TV developed and would occupy a building north of Old Main for several years.
An increased need to provide students with a background in business necessitated construction of a new building located adjacent to Cherry Street to house the School of Business in 1957. Likewise, a new School of Education was constructed directly south of the School of Business in 1963. Finally, a major change to facilitate student activities occurred in 1965 with the erection of the Coyote Student Union replacing the role of old Student Union built forty years earlier.
Thus, the period of the 1950s to the mid-1960s constituted a building boom on the University of South Dakota campus driven not only because of increased student enrollment, but the development of new programs. As a side note, cigarettes were freely advertised and available on campus until the 1980s. It wasn’t until 2013 that USD became a smoke free campus.
A Chesterfield salesman and helper giving out cigarettes to students. Note the poster. The University of South Dakota Photograph Collection, Historic Series, Archives and Special Collections, I. D. Weeks Library.
A University of South Dakota campus map showing buildings on campus as well as fraternity and sororities houses. Although the library is designated to be finished in 1965, it would not be used until 1967. University of South Dakota Bulletin Series LXIV (no. 7) March 1, 1964.
Her photograph collection “chronicles life in Veblen, South Dakota and includes photographs taken by Vivian Steen as well as others. ” They date from circa 1900 to 1930s.
The photographs range “from scenes of the downtown, scenes of store interiors, storekeepers, harvesters, ranch work, farm animals, road trips in both horse drawn vehicles and motor vehicles, the Missoula Stampede, a flood, the building of a dam, winter farm scenes, games with the Veblen Railmen (city baseball team), young men boarding the train in WWI uniforms, WWI tent camps, logging camps, river boat transporting an early gasoline car, and men at the University of Minnesota to intimate family photographs.”
The Vivian Lucille Steen Anderson photograph collection is in the Archives and Special Collections at the University of South Dakota.
Image from the collection and information from the finding aid.
The views and opinions expressed in these pages are strictly those of the Archives and Special Collections staff. The University of South Dakota disclaims all liability for any data, information or opinions contained in this blog.
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