The WPA Guide to South Dakota

Book excerpt: In the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, the federal government put thousands of unemployed writers to work in the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Out of their efforts came the American Guide series, the first comprehensive guidebooks to the people, resources, and traditions of each state in the union. The WPA Guide to South Dakota is a candid, detailed, and lively introduction to the state and its people. Much has changed since the book's first publication in 1938, when the authors noted, "South Dakota has been, and still is, a pioneer state." But the book vividly recaptures the era when no driver's licenses were required, when liquor could not be sold on election days until after 5:00 PM, when Pierre's recreational groups included polo riders and skeet shooters, when the Morrell packing plant at Sioux Falls offered free tours on weekdays. This unique guide has much more than nostalgia to offer today's readers. Twenty-eight auto tours and nine city tours tell the stories of the state's people and places and offer a fascinating alternative to freeway travel. Essays on major themes such as native peoples, history, architecture, transportation, and recreation provide an authentic self-portrait of 1930s South Dakota in humorous, loving, and literary prose. A new introduction by historian John E. Miller shares the story behind the American Guide series and celebrates those distinctly South Dakotan qualities preserved in this decades-old volume-qualities that hold true today. This time-traveler's guide to South Dakota is an evocative reminder of the state's history and a challenge to contemporary readers who seek to find how that past lives on in the present day. Book jacket.