abundant source of honey; and with this natural incentive to its
development, beekeeping has increased rapidly throughout the State.
Although it can be successfully conducted in almost every part of the
State, the most extensive areas are along the Missouri and in the Red
River Valley. The sweet clover bloom is the chief source of honey, and
yields abundantly in July and August. The number of bee colonies in the
State increased from 32,000 in 1929 to 35,000 in 1932.
All of North Dakota was affected by the prolonged drought in the Great
Plains States which began in 1929 and, except for one year, continued
through 1936. High winds, intensive cultivation, and low rainfall
combined to create the most destructive period of soil erosion known
to the State since its earliest settlement. This combination of
conditions brought production in all farm products far below normal
levels. Even the Red River Valley, though it fared much better than the
western part of the State, had subnormal rainfall and was subjected
to frequent dust storms. To counteract the menace of drought to the
prosperity of a primarily agricultural region, both State and Federal
agencies began promotion of conservation in three forms: water, soil,
and vegetation. Through the combined efforts of private groups and
governmental agencies, ponds, marshes, lakes, and streams are being
restored. Some irrigation projects, both private and public, have
proved fairly successful in the western counties. The contemplated
Missouri River diversion projects, with the Grand, Knife, and Heart
sub-projects, would lead to reclamation of a large area of North
Dakota. Planting hedges and forests to hold moisture in the soil and to
prevent increased erosion constitutes the soil conservation program. To
conserve vegetation, a program of dry-farming is recommended, including
summer fallowing and the planting of drought-resistant crops.
Various agencies are cooperating in a program to educate farmers in
these conservation plans. Extension workers, including county agents
and their assistants, are employed by the United States Department
of Agriculture to assist farmers. The agricultural college at
Fargo, the Northern Great Plains Field Station at Mandan, the State
School of Forestry at Bottineau, and experimental stations and farms
are constantly conducting soil conservation and moisture control
experiments designed to raise North Dakota agriculture to an even
higher rank.
FARM LIFE
The fact that eastern and central North Dakota has been settled 25
or 30 years longer than the western part of the State is evident
in the appearance of the farms. The average eastern farm home has
well-painted and modernized buildings, surrounded by a neat lawn and
grove. Electricity is in use on many farms, being supplied from either
an individually owned plant or a nearby power line. Telephones, radios,
and cars are generally considered necessities. Since the farms are
small and close together, and small towns are within a few miles of
one another, social contacts are easily maintained. Activities center
in the towns, where farm women are members of clubs, lodges, and
church societies, and the men of fraternal and civic organizations.
Consolidated schools have supplanted many of the one-room buildings,
and parent-teacher groups have a prominent social position. Libraries
are found in many towns, and are patronized by rural as well as city
dwellers.
The farms in central North Dakota are as a rule not as modern as those
in the east, but on the whole are well kept. A somewhat different
picture, however, is presented by the western farms and ranches. The
semiarid climate makes it difficult for even the most ambitious farmer
to improve his place with trees, shrubs, grass, and flowers. Moreover,
since there were no tree claims in this part of the State, early
settlers did not have the incentive to plant groves. Periods of drought
have been felt more severely here, and have prevented many farmers
from making modern improvements on their buildings. On some farms, the
shacks erected to establish residence under the homestead act are still
in use. There is, however, one modern convenience found more frequently
in western rural homes than in those of the east--the furnace. The
chief reason for this is the vast and accessible supply of lignite, a
fuel which does not burn readily in stoves.
Since farms in western North Dakota are large, homesteads are
necessarily far apart and social contacts cannot be made easily. The
majority of homes do not have telephones, because the market is limited
to a few patrons and the cost is therefore prohibitive. The longer
distances to towns result in lack of interest in urban recreational,
social, and church functions.
The one-room school predominates in western North Dakota. Libraries
are few, and most of the people fail to take advantage of loaning
facilities offered by State libraries.
Farm families in all parts of the State participate in various seasonal
activities. During the spring and summer months, school, church,
club, and old settlers picnics are scheduled frequently. When harvest
season arrives the farmer is exceptionally busy, but always has time
to welcome the visitors from town, who come out to watch the threshers
and often stay for a cook-car dinner. Later in the fall, especially in
the eastern counties, young people participate in strawstack parties.
Dances and card parties are held in community halls and barn lofts
during the winter.
Winter activities are limited by heavy snowfalls, which often keep
communities and farms snow-bound for days. Main-traveled highways
are kept open except in unusually bad weather, but side roads are
often drifted over for weeks at a time. Then the radio becomes the
chief source of entertainment in the farm home; radio reception on
the open prairie is exceptionally good. In winter the western farmers
have an advantage over those of the east, for they get less snowfall,
and chinooks (warm dry winds which descend from the Rocky Mountains)
often temper the weather and melt the snow, permitting social life to
continue almost uninterrupted.
In every rural community "fair week" is an important date. Farmers
take their best cattle, hogs, sheep, and poultry to compete with their
neighbors' entries for the prized blue ribbons. Farm women select their
finest handiwork, their choicest jars of jellies, jams, and pickles,
to enter in competition. Cookies, cakes, and pies are baked both to
exhibit and to fill the picnic baskets, for when the family goes to
the fair everyone is prepared to spend the day; one or two hurry home
in the evening to do the chores, and return in time for the grandstand
events at night. Almost every county has its annual fair in June or
July, the oldest being the Pembina County Fair, which has been held
at Hamilton each year since 1894. Even before this Pembina County
Fair, a State fair under State subsidy was being held annually in
Grand Forks, where the citizens had donated 80 acres of land for that
purpose. When the first State legislature met, it created a department
of agriculture, one of the duties of which was to hold an annual
agricultural exhibit. Now State help is also received by the fair
associations at Fargo and Minot.
Increasingly popular in recent years are the harvest festivals in
various towns. These are held in September and October, when the garden
products have reached maturity, and therefore often surpass the earlier
fairs in the quality of exhibits. The junior chambers of commerce of
the State sponsor a Golden Grain Festival which is held the latter part
of August, each year in a different city of the State. In September
comes the Grand Forks Harvest Festival, and the extension division of
the agricultural college sponsors a similar event in Fargo early in
October. Bismarck is the scene of the annual Corn Show in October.
Alfalfa Day at Fessenden in March features displays of alfalfa hay and
seed, and also includes small grains, corn, and potatoes. The midwinter
fair at Park River is sponsored by the Walsh County Agricultural
College, and consists of exhibits from farmers throughout the Red River
Valley. Other outstanding exhibits include the Barnes County Corn and
Lamb Show held in Valley City the fourth week in September, and the
Emmons County Breeders Association Stock Show which takes place in
Hazelton each June.
INDUSTRY AND LABOR
On any cold winter night in the early 1800's it was not uncommon to
see a fur trader set out from Pembina, with his dogsled loaded with
valuable pelts, to make the long trek to St. Paul or Fort Garry. With
no roads, few landmarks, and the constant danger of Indian attack, such
a night trip was extremely hazardous. Daylight, however, presented
even more dangers, for the reflection of the winter sun upon the snowy
ground often caused snow-blindness; daytime temperatures softened the
drifts so that the dogs sank deep into them, while at night they could
skim easily over the frozen surface. Despite the dangers of the fur
trade, many men engaged in it, taking their cargoes to the frontier
cities and bringing back sled-loads of supplies to be exchanged for the
furs that Indians brought to the trading posts.
The first stores were at these posts, where the Indians came to barter
for blankets, trinkets, food, and alcohol, using the valuable beaver
skin as the standard of reckoning. To avoid long discussions over the
price of goods, the traders devised a system of marking which could be
readily understood by the natives: a single horizontal line drawn on an
article indicated a value of one beaver skin, two parallel lines placed
the price at two skins, and so on. The quality of some English-made
blankets is still designated by a survival of this early system, with
lines known as "points" woven into the border.
From this frontier commerce, North Dakota industry grew. In 1909, a
century after the fur trade began, the State produced goods valued at
$19,150,000; and in 1935 manufactures were valued at $40,076,326, with
325 establishments each doing an annual business of $5,000 or more, and
collectively employing 3,306 workers. Although these figures are small
in comparison with those of essentially industrial States, they are
large in view of the youthfulness of North Dakota and its distinctly
agricultural economy.
The fur trade prospered until the Indian insurrections of 1863-64.
Then trapping became a perilous occupation, and traders and trappers
returned East. Eastward, too, went most of the settlers who had come
to farm. The only ones to remain were Charles Cavileer and his little
colony at Pembina, who staunchly continued to cultivate their level
farms in the face of Indian dangers. With the exception of a few brave
adventurers, they had the entire area virtually to themselves, until
the extension of the Northern Pacific lines into the Red River Valley
in 1871 promoted a period of homesteading. Then, for the first time,
agriculture took its place as the leading occupation of this area.
Many of the industries which were important during the development of
the State are no longer in existence. Because lumber was an expensive
commodity to import, sawmills were established at Grand Forks and Fargo
in the 1870's; and because the North Dakota side of the Red River could
not furnish a large enough supply for the mills, logs were floated down
from the Minnesota woods. Lumberjacking meant cash and wages, and many
homesteaders left their families in possession of their claims while
they went to Minnesota to earn money for seed and machinery and for
building permanent homes on their farms. As traffic on the Red River
increased, construction of steamers became an important industry for
which North Dakota mills supplied much of the lumber.
On the prairies west of the Red River Valley, the homesteaders could
not engage in logging and lumbering to earn money for improving their
farms; but, resourcefully, they found another way to get funds.
Buffalo bones were scattered abundantly upon the land from Devils Lake
westward, and cash prices of eight to ten dollars a carload were paid
by sugar manufacturers who used the bones in a refining process. Many
homes were built and much machinery purchased with the income derived
from gathering and selling this material. Gradually, however, these
pioneer occupations died out. The more efficient railway supplanted the
river steamers. The supply of buffalo bones was soon exhausted. New
occupations, allied with the expanding agriculture of the region, grew
into importance.
The first farmers here found the lack of transportation and marketing
facilities a great problem. Fort Garry and St. Paul were the nearest
markets for grain until 1851. In that year Father Belcourt, who had
established a mission where the town of Walhalla now stands, found that
sufficient power could be obtained from the Pembina River there to
operate a small flour mill. The mill was built, and farmers came from
as far east as Pembina to patronize it. Generally, however, there was a
lack of mills throughout the region. Elevators and shipping points were
far apart, and many farmers had to drive their wagonloads of grain from
25 to 100 miles to market. When the railroads were extended westward,
elevators were built in the towns and at sidings, greatly simplifying
the marketing problem. The new freight lines made it possible for
mills to import fuel from the East, but unfortunately the cost of
shipment was prohibitive. The development of North Dakota lignite
mines, beginning in the 1880's, removed an important handicap to mill
operation, however, and later the lowering of freight rates allowed
importation of other fuel. Although a large proportion of North Dakota
grain is still shipped out, there are now in the State 27 flour mills
which in 1931 had an output valued at $12,000,000. The largest of these
is the State-owned mill and elevator opened at Grand Forks in 1922 as
part of the Nonpartisan League program of State industries.
One of the important industries which has grown out of the agriculture
of North Dakota is seed production. Potatoes, clover, alfalfa,
brome-grass, and corn are shipped out in large quantities. A number of
nurseries ship trees, plants, and shrubs.
A French nobleman, the Marquis de Mores, was the first person to
realize the possibilities of a packing plant in North Dakota. Drawing
upon his own and his father-in-law's resources, he established a plant
at Medora in 1883. The venture failed, partly because his grass-fed
beef, produced at a high cost because of his artless business methods,
could not compete with grain-fed meat; but today modern packing plants
at Grand Forks and West Fargo prove that the marquis was not the
impractical dreamer his contemporaries thought him.
Since most of North Dakota's industry is concerned with the processing
of agricultural products, no large manufacturing centers have been
developed; but mills, warehouses, poultry markets, and creameries have
been established near the areas which they serve--many of the finest
creameries are in sparsely settled rural areas. Fargo is the only city
in the State that manufactures other than agricultural products.
Difficulties in shipping grain to outside markets provided one of the
chief factors in the development of the many cooperatives which are
important in the present economic life of the State. Grain farmers
early realized that by acting independently they could not trade
advantageously with eastern buyers. By 1891 there were ten farmers'
elevators in the State, and the cooperative movement grew until the
Equity Association, the National Producers Alliance, and the Better
Farming Association developed the North Dakota division of the Farmers
Educational and Cooperative Union of America, which at present includes
some 540 buying and consumers' cooperatives in the State. At first
exclusively grain-selling organizations, the cooperatives have expanded
to include the handling of twine, machinery, petroleum products, tires,
electricity, dairy products, and groceries.
The period since the World War has seen the revival of the occupation
of the first white settlers--the fur industry. Some trapping is
done each winter, but the fur sellers today do not rely upon this
nineteenth-century method of getting pelts. Instead they have farms on
which they raise the furbearing animals, usually silver-black foxes.
The climate is well suited to this industry, for the cold winters
produce heavy and valuable furs.
Although agriculture and its allied industries will probably always
predominate, recent years have seen the beginning of the development
of North Dakota's great mineral resources, which lay neglected
or unrecognized for years while farmers attempted to emulate the
phenomenal success of the bonanza wheat growers.
Ranchers in the western counties early discovered large deposits of
lignite, a black or brownish substance in a stage between peat and
bituminous coal, lying at or near the surface of the earth. Lignite
has a conspicuously woody appearance, often showing clearly the grain
of the wood or the shape of the trunks and branches from which it
was formed. It is known to underlie the entire western part of the
State. For many years its use was entirely local, chiefly because it
contains a large amount of moisture which evaporates upon exposure to
the air, causing the coal to crumble. To overcome this difficulty,
shipment is now made in closed boxcars; briquetting of lignite has also
proved successful, and the mineral is now common fuel. Lignite is used
exclusively by State institutions and by many of the manufacturing
concerns in the State. In the eight-month period from November 1, 1935,
to June 30, 1936, the production of 355 mines, amounted to 1,704,983
tons, valued at $2,077,800.15. New mines are continually being opened.
The rapidity with which the industry has been developed is demonstrated
by the fact that there were 67 more mines in operation in 1935 than in
1931, with production in 1935 twice that of 1924 and eight times that
of 1908.
The interest of the university school of mines in lignite
experimentation did not end with the perfecting of the briquet process.
The most recent achievement of the school is the production from
lignite of activated carbon, a substance (hitherto produced largely
from animal bones) used in water purification, sugar refining, rubber
tire manufacture, and other commercial processes. The development of
this product should furnish a new and profitable industry for western
North Dakota.
Western North Dakota has, in addition to its lignite beds, large
deposits of clay. These, like lignite, engaged the interest of the
late Dean E. J. Babcock of the university school of mines, and largely
as a result of his efforts are being developed. Upon his urging, a
ceramics department was created at the university in 1910 to determine
the commercial value of native clays. From experiments conducted,
it was found that certain varieties made excellent brick, tile, and
other building materials, while others were especially suitable for
pottery. Reproductions of fine European pottery and original pieces
of local design turned out at the university have attracted attention
at exhibitions throughout the United States. Large-scale commercial
development of the State's clay deposits is centered at Dickinson,
where both building materials and pottery are produced.
Sodium sulphate and bentonite are two of the more recent mineral
discoveries in North Dakota. In the southwestern part of the State
are large beds of bentonite which, because close to the surface, are
easily accessible for commercial purposes. Bentonite is used in the
manufacture of paint, rubber, soap, cosmetics, dynamite, and a variety
of other products; it has also been found to give rich gold and brown
tones to decorative designs on pottery. The chalky-white crystals
of sodium sulphate, sometimes known as Glauber's salts, are found
in few places in the United States outside of the old lake beds of
northwestern North Dakota. Sodium sulphate is principally used in the
manufacture of paper. Millions of tons of it are easily accessible in
the open lake beds where it has been deposited by springs.
Development of mineral resources should help to solve the unemployment
problem of the State--a problem which is constantly growing. Except in
recent years, residents have had no difficulty in finding work, because
agricultural pursuits usually require the same amount of labor year
after year regardless of agricultural prices. Despite this, new factors
are increasing unemployment. In the period between 1930 and 1935, North
Dakota was the only State in the spring wheat belt to show an increase
in population. Another primary cause of increasing unemployment is the
steadily growing percentage of persons over 40 years of age: in 1900,
18.4 percent of the population was over 40, in 1920 this had increased
to 20.8 percent, and in 1930 to 25.6 percent.
In keeping with the comparative unimportance of the State labor
movement at present is the small number of labor unions in North
Dakota. The State's first labor organization was the Bismarck
Typographical Union, chartered in 1883. In 1906 the American Federation
of Labor granted a charter to the Fargo Trades and Labor Assembly, and
in 1911 the State Federation was officially organized. Branches of the
latter have since been formed in almost all of the larger towns in the
State.
State regulation of labor conditions had its beginning in 1907 with
the passage of a Workmen's Compensation Act. Many revisions have since
been made in this law. A State welfare commission was formed in 1917
to regulate labor conditions; and two years later, partly through the
efforts of this commission, a minimum wage law was passed and placed
under the administration of the Workmen's Compensation Bureau. At
the same time provision was made for regulating the wages and hours
of women laborers. In 1936 North Dakota was the only State having an
eight-and-one-half hour day provision for women in factories, stores,
hotels, laundries, cafes, and telephone and telegraph offices.
[Illustration:
ANCIENT INDIAN TURTLE EFFIGY
_Photo by Russell Reid_]
[Illustration:
SIOUX
SUN DANCE
AS ORIGINALLY
PERFORMED
_Copy of an old drawing courtesy of Frank Fiske_]
[Illustration:
A MODERN SIOUX SUN DANCE CEREMONIAL
_Photo by Paul S. Bliss_]
[Map: NORTH DAKOTA IN 1879, FROM AN OLD MAP OF DAKOTA TERRITORY]
The first State child-labor act was passed in 1909. Under the present
law, employment of children under the age of 14 is prohibited. The
proposed child-labor amendment to the Constitution of the United States
was ratified by the North Dakota Legislature at the 1931 session.
RACIAL GROUPS AND FOLKWAYS
International repute as a farming State brought North Dakota a steady
stream of immigration up to the time of the World War. Tales of the
rich wheatlands of Dakota drew a continuous procession of settlers with
their household goods from the eastern States and from across the sea,
to claim a share of the fertile western acres.
Little more than two decades has passed since this influx ceased. The
State presents a patchwork of foreign groups, each still retaining
many Old World customs of speech, dress, and social life. Cultural
assimilation, however, has slowly veneered the life of the State with
an American character which is gradually seeping into and supplanting
the ways of the Old World.
The prevalence of foreign speech and customs seems quite justified by
the 1930 census, which showed 105,148 persons, or 15.5 percent of the
total population of 680,845, to be of foreign birth. In addition to
this number, a still larger portion of the population, 45.4 percent,
is first-generation American, born of foreign parents and therefore in
close contact with the speech and customs of its fathers during its
formative years.