Germans From Russia Just another NDSU Library weblog

Prairie Earth, Prairie Homes is a field school that celebrates, investigates, and encourages the preservation of buildings built of earth on the northern plains. Too often considered a temporary expedient of pioneer times, earth buildings are, we argue, an environmental response and a cultural signature of the people of the plains, fixtures in the prairie way of life. As we come to understand them, we are better able to preserve the buildings themselves and the life ways that invest them. Restoring and preserving earth buildings in a region of continental climate offers challenges both technical and logistical, but those challenges can be met. In this field school, offered by North Dakota State University, we learn how.

Experiential learning is at the heart of Prairie Earth, Prairie Homes. Participants in the field school take part in the restoration of an amazing and significant historic property – the Hutmacher Farmstead, in Dunn County, North Dakota. The Hutmacher house and outbuilding walls are constructed of sandstone mortared with clay, both quarried on the farm. The roof uses ridgepoles and rafters locally cut and covered with successive layers of brush (chokecherry, plum), flax straw, clay, and aggregate. The house was built by the children of German-Russian immigrants and was occupied into the 1970s.

In order to broaden the learning experience, participants also will tour and study examples of the earth building traditions of the various cultures to occupy the West River country of the northern plains:

• Mandan & Hidatsa earth lodges
• Sod houses of Anglo-Americans
• Earth houses of the Germans from Russia

Depending on the enrollment option chosen, students will engage in preparatory readings and study prior to the field experience, write curricular materials adapted from the content of the course, or pursue independent research projects springing from it.

Instructors of the field school are Tom Isern (Professor of History & University Distinguished Professor at NDSU, founding director of the Center for Heritage Renewal (www.ndsu.edu/heritage) and Suzzanne Kelley (historian & editor, PhD candidate at NDSU, president of Preservation North Dakota). Tom is instructor of record for regular undergraduate or graduate credit; Suzzanne (an experienced public-school teacher) is instructor of record for the teacher workshops and coordinator of learning vacation experiences; and they share overall responsibility for organization and management of the field school.

Who will benefit from the field school?

• Degree-seeking undergraduate and graduate students seeking a rich, hands-on learning experience preservation
• Professionals desiring professional development in earth building restoration and interpretation
• Teachers looking for an active option in continuing education with direct curricular applicability
• Vacationers looking for a learning experience at compelling sites in an unforgettable landscape to 6 hours of credit, undergraduate or graduate

Course Bibliography & Online Resources at:
http://www.ndsu.edu/grhc/instruct/isern/earth

Tom Isern

Note:
Additional information regarding the Hutmacher Farmsite is at this GRHC webpage:
http//library.ndsu.edu/grhc/history_culture/arch/index.html.

I have always had a passion for storytelling. And as a student of history, I have daily opportunities to hear stories, tell stories, and give voice to those historical figures that no longer have breath to tell their own tales.

During this spring semester of 2009, I have begun work on telling the story of a North Dakota family. Since January of this year I have been processing the Baumgartner Family Collection, an enormous collection of photographs, documents, and various other artifacts.

This is a unique experience for a history student, to independently manage the processing of such a large archival collection. It is also an exciting opportunity for me personally, to help to preserve the history of a family closely tied to the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection.

I have sifted through hundreds of photographs, unfolded dozens of baptismal certificates, and dusted several framed portraits, and through this process have learned about the Baumgartner family.

The collection mainly focuses on Philippine (Baumgartner) Berglund. Over twenty binders of photographs trace Philippine through her high school years, college education, her career as a teacher, and her marriage to Gus Berglund. In the collection, one can see the record of nearly every course she studied in high school, a sample of her wedding lace, and the nameplate that sat on her husband’s desk. The entire collection is comprised of personal belongings and candid family portraits, giving the viewer an intimate glimpse at Philippine (Baumgartner) Berglund’s family.

While piecing together the Baumgartner family’s story has been a puzzle at times, it has been amazing how clearly the family’s voices tell their tale through photographs and letters. So, while no longer around to share her story, Philippine (Baumgartner) Berglund lovingly preserved her history in scrapbooks, saved letters, and documents tucked into photo album pages, and with my help, and the help of the GRHC, we will continue to preserve and share Philippine (Baumgartner) Berglund’s story.

This is the goal of the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, to preserve and promote the German Russian history, heritage, and culture, especially in North Dakota. And this is my goal as a young historian, to learn, preserve, and share the stories of those who can no longer tell their own.

Working on the Baumgartner Collection has been an amazing opportunity, and I am certain that the experience I have gained at the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection will be beneficial as I enter the professional history field. And who would have thought that I could someday turn my love for storytelling into a career!

Ann Erling
GRHC Archival Assistant

Ann Erling looking through photographs from the Baumgartner Collection.