Ben Jones

During the “dirty thirties,” Earl Neller took six children hitch hiking 850 miles from Sioux Falls, to the Black Hills and then to Hebron, North Dakota.

How can political candidates win in South Dakota? To answer that, one has to know something about the state's complicated political culture, traditions, and voting habits. Some of those answers can be found in our just-released book, "Plains Political Traditions," edited by Jon Lauck and Paula Nelson.

On this edition of History 605, we speak to author April White who brings us back to the high society of the Sioux Falls’ Cataract Hotel and how it became the place where certain women from the east coast could escape a bad marriage.

In today's episode, we discuss Akim's book, "Ruling Pine Ridge: Oglala Lakota Politics from the IRA to Wounded Knee" published by Texas Tech University Press.

Writer Joseph Starita joins us to talk about his book "I am a Man" where he shares the remarkable story of how Standing Bear defeated General George Crook in 1879, not on the battlefield, but in federal court.

Who were the Lakota Code Talkers? What kind of language is Lakota? What can go wrong when two very conceptually different languages such as English and Lakota try to communicate in treaties?

How can we know what happened in the past? Historians use a wide variety of sources in order to answer that question. But how do we know what happened when there was no written language?

What prompts revolution and calamity? A sudden and sharp rise in grain prices, claims historian Scott Nelson, the UGA Athletics Association Professor of the Humanities at the University of Georgia. Nelson chatted with us about his book, Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World.

Today we talk to Joseph Daniels about how history and heritage will be used to commemorate and celebrate the nation's Semiquincentennial, or the 250th year since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Daniels is the CEO of the America 250 Foundation charged with supporting the nation's celebration.

In this episode of History 605, I spoke with Roger Grant, a historian of the American railroad. Roger has had a long career teaching at Clemson University and has written several books. I spoke with him about his book, "Railroads and the American People," and his forthcoming essay on South Dakota's railroads with the Center for Western Studies. As Roger reminds us, "An idea is what an idea does," and the railroads were a practical idea that met a need — but also a source of great fascination with a profound influence on America. In this episode, you'll hear how the railroads shaped so much of South Dakota.