Oral Histories of Intellectual and Cultural Leaders of Minnesota (2000-2012)
Statewide Historic and Cultural Grants. $5,250,000 the first year and $5,250,000 the second year are for history programs and projects operated or conducted by or through local, county, regional, or other historical or cultural organizations; or for activities to preserve significant historic and cultural resources.
The interviews were completed and broadcast on cable TV. Cable broadcasts and word of mouth publicity about the project have inspired the Northeast Library Friends group to plan a page celebrating Northeast writers, as a prelude to a larger documentation of Northeast artists. The initial gathering session for that project has been tentatively scheduled for Dec. 5, 2014. Because most of the interviews have not yet been uploaded to the project website, we do not yet have viewing and download data. However, based on the popularity of the Southwest Minnesota Food Stories page, we anticipate a significant response to these interviews in the near future.
IAS hosted two public programs featuring discussions about interviews with two Twin Cities artists, exploring their creative process. These will serve as a model for 2014-15 programs featuring interviews from this collection. Peter Shea reports that people who were interviewed have recommended other plausible interview candidates, and those people will be interviewed in the course of regular Bat of Minerva production and added to the archive. A Duluth interviewee is interested in collaborating on
an extensive project to document Duluth area writers and artists; together they will seek funding from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council. We are also in discussions with several colleagues about a project to digitize the original Northern Lights interviews, which would preserve them and make them more readily accessible.
Long-term goals are achievable, based on past experience with publicity, especially editing Wikipedia articles (a very successful policy in the past) and getting word of our project out to MN high school and college teachers in the relevant fields: history, English, visual arts.