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.
May 9, 1991 -
May 16, 1991 -
May 18, 1991 - "Fences" by August Wilson, "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" by August Wilson, "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller, "Miss Evers' Boys" by David Feldshuh, "Driving Miss Daisy" by Alfred Uhry, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf" by Ntozake Shange
May 18, 1991 - Voices from the Heartland
May 21, 1991 -
May 24, 1991 - Guthrie Theater actress Sally Wingert reads the Meridel Le Sueur essay, "I Was Marching.”
May 24, 1991 - MPR’s Marlana Benzie presents a report from Hibbing on the 50th birthday of former hometown resident Robert Allen Zimmerman, better known as the legendary Bob Dylan.
May 24, 1991 -
May 24, 1991 - MPR’s Marlana Benzie reports on Bob Dylan’s 50th birthday and the how his hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota, is reconsidering its view of the famous musician.
June 3, 1991 - Robert L. Spaeth came to Saint John’s University as a visiting professor in Liberal Studies and director of Freshman Colloquium in 1977. He was appointed dean in 1979 and held that post for nine years. He resigned in 1988 to return to teaching. He died at his Sauk Rapids home on November 28, 1994, after leaving the Greco-Roman Study Abroad program he had been directing due to heart trouble.As dean, Spaeth supported initiatives in curriculum development and revision which resulted in the First Year Symposium (FYS), the Forum, the Core Curriculum, the Christian Humanism program and the Honors Program. In his honor the Robert L. Spaeth Teacher of Distinction Award for SJU faculty was established in 1995.