First School of De Smet Blackboard Preservation Project

FAIN: PG-50696-09

Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society, Inc. (De Smet, SD 57231-0426)
Rachel Clendenin (Project Director: May 2008 to December 2009)
Cheryl Palmlund (Project Director: December 2009 to December 2010)

Hiring a conservator to conduct a preservation assessment of a 19th-century blackboard built into the wall of a 19th-century school house. The blackboard will be used in public programming to demonstrate education and social history in 19th- and 20th-century South Dakota.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Society (LIWMS), a 501 (c) (3) non-profit educational corporation, requests grant funding to support bringing Donna Haberman, Conservator at the Midwest Art Conservation Center (MACC), to De Smet, South Dakota, the home of revered American Children's Author Laura Ingalls Wilder, to examine and consult on the preservation of an original blackboard in the First School of De Smet in order to develop a plan of action to preserve this iconic artifact of American History. This early school building was the original classroom of Laura and her sister, Carrie, from 1881 through 1885 and is a focal point in several of her books that have become classics in American Children's Literature and 19th-century American History.