This collection encompasses 50-plus years of interviews, readings, speeches, and reports on the vibrant literary scene in Minnesota. Not only home to giants F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis, our state has an array of incredible contemporary poets, novelists and playwrights. Their words make up majority of this collection.
Repeatedly being named the “Most Literate City in the United States,” the Twin Cities has played host to numerous visiting national writers via book tours, festivals, and lectures. Many recordings of these are also included.
This project was funded by the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.
The MPR Archive contains some content that may be harmful or difficult to view. These and all items across MPR’s history are preserved and made available to the public as a historical record. As a result, some of the materials presented here may reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions due to pervasive systemic intolerance. In addition, some interviews and recordings relate to violent, triggering, or graphic events which are preserved for their historical significance.
If you discover harmful or offensive language in catalog records and metadata on the Archive Portal, please contact us through the form above. The MPR Archive is committed to using inclusive, antiracist, non-derogatory language when creating catalog records and describing our collections. However, we acknowledge that some of our descriptions contain language that is euphemistic, racist, homophobic, sexist, ableist or that demeans the humanity of the people we describe. We are dedicated to correcting those records as we find them, and we ask you to contact us if you have encountered any harmful language in any of our catalog records.
We acknowledge that we are often describing communities of which we are not a part, and many of these communities are historically marginalized and underrepresented in the archives. We recognize our responsibility to describe our collections and their creators respectfully and carefully. We also recognize that we may sometimes fail and are committed to a process of constant learning, reflection, and improvement.
July 1, 1968 - Taking a break from his campaign for the presidency, Eugene McCarthy reads his own poetry to a group of students at a Minnesota university (possibly St. Johns).
January 1, 1972 - MPR’s Marvin Granger and author/journalist Gerald Vizenor discuss the case of Thomas Whitehawk, and the civil right issues of Native Americans in the U.S. court system.
February 15, 1972 - MPR’s Bob Potter reports on local Corporate War Crimes Investigation Conference sponsored by the Honeywell Project.
May 11, 1972 - A news feature of the "Eight Days in May" - anti-war demonstrations known as the Dinkytown riot. McCarthy is sympathetic to the protests.
July 21, 1972 - MPR’s Paul Gruchow interviews Phil Easton, the publisher of the Stillwater Gazette, about giving furloughs to inmates of Stillwater Prison.
September 27, 1972 - MPR’s Paul Gruchow reports on Minnesota AFL-CIO meeting, and if group will endorse Senator George McGovern for President of the United States. Reports includes excerpt of speech at AFL-CIO convention from Hubert H. Humphrey in support of McGovern.
October 13, 1972 - Kate Millett speaks on self-publishing for/by women. In speech, Millett talks on filtering through the male establishment and the autonomy of women to do their own thing; that an editor is not a writer; and about the opposition to any new artistic form. She states that outsiders are better to have their own presses and should not depend on fat-cat capitalism.
November 15, 1972 - MPR’s Connie Goldman reports on the work of Sigurd Olson, and his book "Wilderness Days." Report also presents a question and answer period with Olson from an appearance at the Minnesota Press Club, where he called Minnesotans to protect the environment. This recording was made available through a grant from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.
December 15, 1972 - MPR’s Connie Goldman reports on play “Hell, That’s Politics” being performed at Minneapolis’s Theatre in the Round. Goldman interviews playwright Ernest Bormann, a professor at University of Minnesota, about his work and the history of Huey Long.
December 22, 1972 - Dr. William A. Nolen discusses problems in potentially unnecessary surgeries, specifically hysterectomies performed on women.