Cover of Rose Tidball's Corson County history Taming the Plains
Taming the Plains by Rose Tidball is a useful local history book published in 1976 about Corson County, South Dakota. Standing Rock, unlike many tribal nations, falls neatly within the borders of the counties of Sioux in North Dakota and Corson, in South Dakota. This fact, means that county level data and information sources can easily be extrapolated to the whole reservation and conversely reservation data back to the county . One of the few simple things in a land where layers of government and jurisdiction can be very confusing.
Like many of the multitudes of local history books published during the late 20th century in the Dakotas, Tidball's book is an eclectic mix of information, biographies, stories, lists and photographs that are valuable because they are found nowhere else. It is a useful and incomparable reference on the history of the county and Standing Rock.
One issue with the book and others like it is that it is becoming increasingly rare and expensive, fetching high prices on book sites and eBay. Local histories like it often were published a single time and often in small numbers. Histories like Taming the Plains are ripe for digitization that would make them both more accessible and useful in the modern age.
Here again, copyright, meant as a protection, becomes a hindrance to the ongoing survival of increasingly scarce local histories (excepting their presumed preservation in archives and libraries in low numbers) Tidball's heirs may be more than happy to see it republished in digital form, but the sheer amount of work involved in tracking such things down and then digitizing is daunting. A regional project to collect and digitize local histories with a staff member dedicated to permissions would be valuable to the continued existence and usefulness of so many books like Taming the Plains. Until then, the book sits in "copyright purgatory" waiting for new life.