David Beard
Award for global engagement goes to Duluthian
Dan Nolan recently won a statewide award for teaching about internationalization. Below is the news release for the announcement, but I thought it might be more important to remind folks of the cool work Dan has also done for internationalization for the city of Duluth. (more…)
Initiatives in telehealth, as reported by CSS students
I have a pet interest in rural health issues. So I was very interested in a presentation recently to Wilderness Health. (more…)
What was the WEBC Traffic Tower?
According to the Duluth News Tribune, this WEBC Traffic Tower was located in a glass enclosure on the roof of the building on the northwest corner of Fourth Avenue West and Superior Street. (more…)
WDSM: Queen of the Towers
Collected here are 1950s-era advertisements for WDSM-TV, the forerunner to KBJR-TV. The ads appeared in Broadcasting and Sponsor magazines and can be found in the Media History Digital Library. (more…)
Comparing Little Italy to Duluth
Oddly, this ad uses Duluth as a benchmark against which a reader might understand how many Italians are in New York. For a while, Duluth was one of the 100 biggest media markets in the United States, and so among media professionals it could serve as a benchmark.
From the Media History Digital Library.
Traditional Christmas folk musical stylings of Goat Hill Quartet
On Saturday, I was at Wussow’s for coffee, and midway through the morning Goat Hill Quartet appeared. The group’s traditional Christmas folk musical stylings raised money for Loaves and Fishes.
Media Excavation: WHYZ in the Age of the Seaway
WHYZ was the ABC affiliate in Duluth — I think it would become WDIO? Or did WDIO begin after WHYZ died? (more…)
KDAL sells the Duluth-Superior-Iron Range market
KDAL 610 AM is a commercial talk radio station in Duluth, owned and operated by Midwest Communications. There was also a KDAL-TV, which later became KDLH and then merged with KBJR. (more…)
Media Excavations: Ojibway Publications
Well, I’m not sure how to feel about posting this advert pulled from the Media History Digital Library, because the name of the company bears no connection to the people, that I can tell …
… but Ojibway Publications was a nationally significant trade-magazine publisher located in Duluth. (more…)
Duluth, a Cosmopolitan City
Advertising campaigns for Duluth’s KDAL radio in the trade press were intent on revealing the cosmopolitan dimensions of Duluth. These ads both reveal Duluth’s unique industries and reveal that some of Duluth’s retail, especially, can stand shoulder to shoulder with other major urban areas. (more…)
Media Excavations: Duluth-Superior Television Revolution
This ad campaign, luring businesses to advertise on TV in Duluth/Superior uses a picture of supporters of the Revolutionary government of Cuba manning a machine gun post overlooking one of the main streets, Zapata Avenue, into the heart of Havana, Jan. 4, 1959. (more…)
“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.