Barns will tell their story when the Smithsonian exhibit, Barn Again!: Celebrating an American Icon, comes to a South Dakota community near you in 2000 and 2001.

The 2000 - 2001
South Dakota Barn Again! Celebrating an American Icon Tour
Dates and Cities

The barn is a familiar sight in South Dakota. In the past the barns were the heart of the farm and the soul of the farm community. Today they are often found in a state of disrepair or abandoned. Yet barns continue to be monuments to our rural past and represent the continuing challenges of our agricultural future.

Barns are no longer the centers of family and community life they once were. Many farmers consider traditional barns obsolete because they were not designed to hold today's enormous machinery or the bountiful harvests of our large-scale farms. Despite their shortcomings, barns continue to appeal to our senses, our memories and our imagination. Whether we grew up on the farm or in the city, barns speak to the feeling of country life and America's rural past.

The Smithsonian exhibit Barn Again!: Celebrating an American Icon, does just that -- it celebrates the American barn as a symbol of rural architecture, rural life, and the rural community.

The exhibit looks at the barn as an architectural structure and examines the barn's role as "narrator" of our agricultural history, looking at the origin and fate of the barn as warehouse, factory and legend. It uses the barn to ask questions about our past and future.

Check back with this site for specific events scheduled in these communities. For complete information about the exhibition schedule and events please contact the South Dakota Humanities Council, SDSU Box 510, Brookings, SD 57007, (605) 688-6113 or email us at Jeanne_Manzer@sdstate.edu