Telling River Stories

FAIN: BP-50038-07

University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN 55455-2009)
Judith A. Martin (Project Director: September 2006 to September 2007)
Patrick D. Nunnally (Project Director: September 2007 to July 2009)

Planning of site tours, exhibits, a website, and signage along the Mississippi riverfront in the Twin Cities to interpret the influence of the river on life in several historic, urban neighborhoods.

This proposal requests $45,000 to partially fund a $75,000 planning phase of a project aimed at developing historical interpretive installations along the Mississippi River in St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. These installations will identify the early communities of Native Americans, immigrants, and African Americans that have lived successively in a selected number of specific sites on the river, and convey illustrative stories about the role of the river in the lives of the people who lived in these communities. It will focus on the themes of life on the river, examining housing and domestic life, working life, and issues of gender, race, and ethnicity. This project is a collaborative effort of several units of the University of Minnesota--the Institute for Advanced Study, the Urban Studies Program, and the Mississippi River Design Initiative--led by Dr. Judith A. Martin, chair of the Urban Studies Program, and Dr. Patrick Nunnally, with the Mississippi River Initiative.