David Beard
“They Want Culture but Won’t Watch It”
Radio and television audiences in Duluth were surveyed in 1961. While the general demographics could be useful for media historians, it might surprise the readers of Perfect Duluth Day that, in 1961, the category of “first generation Scandinavian immigrants” was statistically significant in a survey like this. We are not so far away from the days when Duluth was a rich community built from immigrants, with all the magic and tension that follows from immigration.
Information from Media History Digital Library. (more…)
Media Excavations: KDAL and WEBC
Briefly, Duluth-Superior radio stations KDAL and WEBC advertised together. I found these joint ads while scouring a database of media trade publications. (more…)
Media Excavations: WEBC
I’ve been excavating media magazines for references to Duluth. Some of them are adverts for WEBC 560 AM, which is presently branded at “Northland Fan” and broadcasts Duluth-area sports interspersed with statewide sports talk from KFAN in Minneapolis and national sports talk from FOX Sports Radio. (more…)
Duluth Central High School 1920 Zenith Yearbook
Archive.org has the 1920 Duluth Central High School yearbook, Zenith, available for perusal online.
Select Images from the 1941 Denfeld Oracle
The Internet Archive hosts the 1941 edition of the Denfeld Oracle. My friends’ grandparents — those are the folks I am looking for in here, I think. And a nod to “then and now.” (more…)
NorShor Theatre in Movie Trade Magazines
Movie trade publications loved the NorShor Theatre and its milk bar. These features on the NorShor were taken from the Media History Digital Library. (more…)
A novel set in a fictionalized Duluth/Superior
A colleague sent me a link to the novel False Negative by David B. Rusterholz, which is set in a fictional university in Superior/Duluth. The author lives in River Falls, a semi-rural, semi-suburb-of-the-Twin Cities community.
Has anyone read it?
Summer Trips to the Northwest through Duluth, 1911
The Internet Archive hosts advertisements from transportation-themed magazines. This one features Duluth as the endpoint on a steamer trip to the Northwest, before joining the train to Seattle and points nearby in Canada and Oregon.
Steamships from Buffalo to Duluth, 1901
This advert from Life magazine promotes trips from Buffalo through Chicago and Milwaukee to Duluth. I found it on the Internet Archive. (more…)
Duluth retailer on Twin Cities TV
Ryan Fleming of Rogue Robot Comics and Games was on KSTP-TV’s Minnesota Live with a nearly statewide audience, showing off hot holiday gift items and/or “a little bit of everything in geekdom.”
One more tribute to Low
Rick Beato on Low. (more…)
Duluth in Anarchy: A Journal of Anarchist Ideas
I found reference to Duluth in Anarchy: A Journal of Anarchist Ideas, issue #84, from February 1968, with a feature about something I have never heard of, the Kropotkin House. (more…)
Duluth Central High School Jazz Ensemble
The 1977 album Project Two features music by various high school jazz groups, including a track from the Duluth Central High School Jazz Ensemble, directed by James Stellmaker. The tune “All God’s Children” was composed by Dominic Spera.
Philip Blackburn’s Ghostly Psalms
I hadn’t heard of Philip Blackburn until I found this recording online. Blackburn “was born in Cambridge, England, and studied music there as a Choral Scholar at Clare College (BA, MA). He earned his Ph.D. in Composition from the University of Iowa.” At some point, he relocated to Minnesota. (more…)
Celebrating the 9 o’clock Meltdown
I don’t know Crystal Abernethy well, though I am filled with a deep respect and admiration for her work and her commitment to making a thing. The 9 o’clock Meltdown was a good companion when I was a radio listener. I missed it when it went away, briefly, without realizing that it moved online. There, it’s still a great companion.
See a just-published interview with Crystal on Voyage Minnesota for more.
Duluth in MUFON
I found a reference to Duluth in the Mutual UFO Network newsletter. The Minnesota MUFON chapter is still alive and well. (more…)
Loaves and Fishes Zine
Last semester, my students did a research project on Loaves and Fishes. Now, a semester too late, I find this electronic archive of quarterly newsletters from 2010 to 2017.
Telling the Stories of Coming to Duluth at LSC
So I sat around a table in the Intercultural Center at Lake Superior College, filling my belly with food from Zhong Hua and filling my heart with stories of people coming to Duluth. It was all part of “We are here. Hear us.” (more…)
Def Leppard at the DECC Arena in 1999
In 1999 I was living in Minneapolis, listening to the Legendary Pink Dots. In Duluth, Def Leppard was playing. The audio is available on the Internet Archive. (more…)
OMG, that’s a lot of smoke in this video
I’m plunking about in the Archive.org site, and this video shows the Duluth harbor as a dystopian nightmare of smoke at about 2:30.
What an amazing transformation how we fuel our ships and how we imagine our port.
Dick Anthony: Basement Popcorn Entrepreneur of Duluth
Dick Anthony of Duluth made popcorn in his basement circa 1952 for distribution to local stores, where it was sold in dispensers. The video clip is from the television series “Industry on Parade,” which was created by the National Association of Manufacturers and ran from 1950 to 1960. (more…)
‘The bridge between Duluth and Superior’
“The bridge between Duluth and Superior” appears at just after the 1-minute mark in the circa-1957 short film Al-Can Trailer Trek, which promotes trailer traveling. After the quick bridge shot, zoom, it’s straight to International Falls.
This bridge is the Duluth/Superior Interstate Bridge, which was replaced when the Blatnik Bridge opened in 1961. Parts of the Interstate Bridge still exist as a fishing pier on Rice’s Point. (more…)
Northeastern Minnesota Book Award Winners for 2022
Ojibwe homesteads, shipwrecks and working class haunts provide just some of the backdrops for works honored by this year’s Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards. (more…)
Low Concerts on the Internet Archive
There are an array of Low concerts available on the Internet archive. Joy joy joy while also vaguely restful.
The master list of recordings is at archive.org/details/lowmusic. (more…)