Linda Slaughter, Historian
On February 15th, 1874, 1,200 people lived in Bismarck, Dakota Territory. There were 300 buildings in the town that one year earlier had comprised only a few Army tents and a few log cabins. Bismarck’s economy was growing rapidly. (See Image 5) Businesses included
Image 5: Linda Slaughter described Bismarck as a growing city with a vigorous business district. This photograph shows downtown Bismarck in 1874. The city had dirt streets and wood framed buildings. Many of the businesses were saloons. SHSND A1400.
6 Hotels, 18 Saloons, 2 Shoe Stores, 1 Hardware Store, 1 Tin Shop, 1 Jewelry Store, 3 Billiard Halls, 2 Blacksmith Shops, 1 Bowling Alley, 3 Livery Stables, 3 Meat Markets, 1 Drug Store, 2 Bakeries, 2 News Stands, 3 Barber Shops, 1 Bath, 1 Confectionery, 2 Liquor Stores, 1 Brewery, 1 Bookstore, 1 Gunshop, 5 General Stores, 3 Restaurants, 3 Carpenter Shops, 4 Warehouses, 2 Churches, 1 Telegraph Office, 1 Newspaper, Book and Job Office, and one Parsonage.
SourceThis description was taken from Linda Slaughter, The New Northwest. Though Linda Slaughter wrote a rather fanciful “history” of the region, this document gives us a very good early view of the town long before it became the state capital. Read the entire pamphlet at http://archive.org/details/101221443.nlm.nih.gov
Linda Slaughter, http://archive.org/details/freedmenofsout00slau
This snapshot of Bismarck’s first year is part of the historical record. The author of this paragraph, Linda Slaughter, wrote this description of her little city for a pamphlet called The New Northwest that was designed to draw newcomers to Burleigh County. Slaughter, an experienced writer and historian, brought a historian’s way of thinking to all of her writing. (See Image 6)
Image 6: This photo of Linda Slaughter was taken around 1879 when she was about 45 years old. She became a resident of Bismarck while it was still an Army camp (Camp Hancock.) She stayed in North Dakota for the rest of her life. She organized the first historical society in northern Dakota Territory. SHSND A5419.
In addition, Linda Slaughter knew that she lived in historic times. Her husband was a veteran of the Union Army in the Civil War and had served at Fort Rice and Camp Hancock. The Slaughters participated in the founding of a new town (Bismarck) in Dakota Territory. The Slaughters believed that Dakota presented excellent opportunities for themselves and their three daughters. They also knew that they were participating in the important historical process of white settlement on the northern Great Plains.
Linda Slaughter continued to act as an historian of the region. She organized the Ladies’ Historical Society of Bismarck. At statehood in 1889, the group added “and North Dakota” to their title. Slaughter made personal visits to encourage women to become members of the Historical Society. Gladys Pearce, an early settler, remembered Linda Slaughter as the “literary type” and thought that she had nothing in common with Slaughter. Mrs. Slaughter, however, persuaded Mrs. Pearce that “the history of Bismarck and of this state in fact would depend upon those people who had lived it.”
The Ladies’ Historical Society gathered documents and preserved them. There was no archive or museum, so Mrs. Slaughter kept important papers at her home. She later wrote: “I had kept not alone the military orders . . . , but a file of orders of equal interest from a historical point of view.”
When the Ladies’ Historical Society of Bismarck and North Dakota merged in 1895 with the brand new State Historical Society of North Dakota, Slaughter wrote a brief history of her organization. She concluded that
The Ladies of the Historical Society of Bismarck and North Dakota have done their work. The North Dakota Historical Society takes up the work where they have laid it down. That the work will be well done, I have not a doubt.
Why is this important? Whenever people keep records of their present activities, they are providing the people of the future with the information they need to understand their past. Linda Slaughter was aware of both views of history, from the present looking forward and from the future looking back.
Slaughter identified military history (“military orders”) as important. She collected military records and wrote the military history of Dakota Territory. However, her other records, such as the list of businesses in Bismarck provide an “accidental” history or record of the early stages of a frontier town. Both resources are important to modern historians.
The State Historical Society of North Dakota
In 1894, Clement Lounsberry suggested organizing the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Lounsberry had come to Dakota Territory in 1873 with the intention of starting a newspaper. In July, 1873, he published the first edition of the Bismarck Tribune. Lounsberry lived in North Dakota throughout much of the history of the young state, and understood the importance of preserving its history.
Document 3: In 1895, the legislature passed a law to provide a governing board for the State Historical Society of North Dakota and a space for its museum. Laws of North Dakota, 1895.
Image 7: This photograph, taken in 1911, shows the stuffed ox and oxcart exhibit that Effie Clinkenbeard saw when she visited the State Historical Society museum in the old capitol building. SHSND 0200-5X7-1010.
One of Lounsberry’s allies in this process was Linda Slaughter of Bismarck. She had organized the Ladies’ Historical Society of Bismarck many years before. With several other friends and supporters, Lounsberry and Slaughter put together an organization that had little to do other than talk about what they might do.
In 1895, the State Historical Society asked the legislature to pass a bill creating a historical commission. (See Document 3) This law allowed these pioneers of North Dakota history to put together a small museum and archives in the basement of the state capitol building. (See Image 7) This was not an ideal location for records and objects, but it was a start.
The State Historical Society used Lounsberry’s new publication, The Record, as its journal. In the first edition, Linda Slaughter presented her theory of history as an introduction to the State Historical Society. She wrote:
The experience of our ancestors is a topic of universal interest. The belief of our fathers is the groundwork of our faith. Our sense of justice perceives that the forerunners in the world’s work - those who have leveled obstacles and laid the foundation of worthy enterprises - are deserving of honor equally with those who in more auspicious times have reared the spire and painted the interior of the dome.
Slaughter was saying that North Dakota was not a great civilization such as ancient Rome, but that such an ordinary place had an important history, too. With this theoretical foundation, the young State Historical Society of North Dakota began to preserve the history of all the people who lived in North Dakota in order to allow future residents to understand the past.
Why is this important? Every culture has a means of preserving and passing on its historical knowledge. For the Lakotas in the 19th century, Winter Counts were the records of the past. For the pioneer generation of white settlers in North Dakota, the State Historical Society preserved the records and objects that defined the story of settlement and growth of the new state, including the histories of the American Indian tribes of the region.
Preserving history is about more than holding on to old stuff. It is about finding our cultural and personal roots in the past. We can draw on the inspiration of our ancestors’ lives. We can find answers to modern problems in the solutions people applied to their own problems in the past. We are never far from our past. Although technologies, economies, and lifestyles change, human nature and human relationships follow a continuous chain. Historians believe that we are all strengthened by the people who came before us.