Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Henry Ironshield plowing with assistance from relatives. Courtesy National Archives photos 1930-1949
In the 1920s and 30s, the U.S. government commissioned a series of surveys of American reservations that provide a vast archive of data, information and photographs of early life in the reservation period. The library hopes to get copies of the information from the 1922-1923 and 1935 Family Surveys as well as the Economic and Social Survey 1933-34 that were completed on Standing Rock.
According to information provided by an archivist at the National Archives in Kansas City, the Family Information Survey, 1922-1923 is in box 35-36. NAID 734820 and is comprised of about 400 pages. The Economic & Social Survey, 1933-1934 is contained within boxes 376-380 NAID 4734705 and contains hundreds of pages of statistical information. Finally, the Family Surveys, 1935, Boxes 380-385 NAID 4735251 contains family history, housing information but no photographs. These collections remain in manuscript form at the National Archives in Kansas City. We hope to visit one day to photograph copies and bring them back to Standing Rock as part of the libraries ongoing goal to make every archival source regarding Standing Rock available locally.
The National Archives has an informative magazine article about a segment of surveys known as the Industrial Surveys that give an idea of the value of the information contained within these sources. You can read it here. To date, we have yet to located the 1920s Industrial Survey for Standing Rock if one exists.