Read This Book!

By Karen Obermeyer-Kolb

November is Native American Heritage Month so for our second episode of the new podcast, U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial, we have selected an interview from the 1970s with Ada Deer, American Indian and Civil Rights Activist.

You can listen to the episode in the browser here and read the script below.

Episode 2: Native American Heritage with Ada Deer

You are listening to U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial podcast and this is episode 2: Native American Heritage with Ada Deer.

If you missed our first podcast, it’s worth a listen. I explain the project and what this podcast hopes to bring to the listeners. In short, we are exploring radio from the 1940s through the 1980s with newly digitized recordings from the University of Minnesota Archives.

So Hello! I’m Karen, the project archivist here at University of Minnesota Archives and as this month is Native American Heritage Month we’ve selected a few clips to honor that. Today we’ll specifically focus on Ada Deer. Deer was the first member of the Menominee Tribe to receive a master's degree in 1961 and for her many achievements as an American Indian and Civil Rights Activist she was a National Women's History Month honoree in 2000.

We have an interview with Deer from 1972. The labeling on the tape tells us the recording is related to an episode of the  People Worth Hearing About which, as mentioned in our first podcast, was a program highlighting the great achievements of women and minorities in America.

Cover of Minnesota School of the Air Teacher Manual, 1971-1972. The University of Minnesota Radio and Television Broadcasting records, University Archives

Letter to teachers in Minnesota School of the Air Teacher Manual, 1971-1972. The University of Minnesota Radio and Television Broadcasting records, University Archives

So let’s tune in to her describing Menominee County and what growing up was like.

Deer is passionate about fixing the living conditions and social problems of American Indian life in great part through efforts in education, including the programs of PRIDE and Upward Bound, and through the support and encouragement of Native American youth.

This passion for American Indian youth and activism seems to stem greatly from her experiences, struggles, and realizations. She mentions the programs and people that encouraged her on her own journey and how she hopes to give back to American Indian youth.

The end of the recording then dives into Deer’s hopes and goals for the future. Specifically, she wants to see the American Indian community to have “basic human needs” fulfilled as well as the ability for the community’s own leaders to solve issues with dignity.

Thanks for tuning in! Next time we’ll continue our theme of Native American Heritage with an episode of Tales of Minnesota on the Sioux Treaty.

The U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial Podcast is produced every other week for your enjoyment. Subscribe or download on iTunes so you don’t miss another moment of historic Minnesota radio.

If you enjoy our clips and want to hear or learn more, go to www.lib.umn.edu/uarchives and search KUOM in the collections guides.

The in-process and finished artwork for illustrator Melissa Sweet's non-fiction picture book, "Balloons Over Broadway," was discussed on this episode of Secrets of the Archives, from the University of Minnesota Libraries.

November is Native American Heritage Month so for our second episode of the new podcast, U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial, we have selected an interview from the 1970s with Ada Deer, American Indian and Civil Rights Activist.

Master and Commander and the series of nautical historical novels by Patrick O'Brian was the topic for this installment of "Read This Book!" brought to you by the University of Minnesota Libraries.

In this episode, host Lisa Von Drasek, talks with the Libraries' Jan Fransen about the series — which focuses on Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin — and the very active community of readers.

Books discussed

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

* From University Libraries

* From Hennepin County Library

* From Ramsey County Library

From Saint Paul Public Library

A Sea of Words by Dean King

* From Hennepin County Library

* From Ramsey County Library

* From Saint Paul Public Library

Patrick O'Brian's Navy

* From Saint Paul Public Library

About Lisa Von Drasek and Jan Fransen

Lisa Von Drasek is the Curator of the Children’s Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Jan Fransen is the Service Lead for Researcher and Discovery Systems at the University of Minnesota Libraries. 

About Read This Book!

Read This Book! is a video podcast produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries. It is available on YouTube and iTunes.

Master and Commander and the series of nautical historical novels by Patrick O'Brian was the topic for this installment of "Read This Book!" brought to you by the University of Minnesota Libraries. This episode focuses not just on the series, but on its very active community of readers.

By Karen Obermeyer-Kolb

As mentioned in a previous post "Reel to Reel," University Archives received grant funding to digitize 2,000+ tapes of recorded audio held in our collections. These past couple months have been busy hiring a Project Archivist (That’s me!), selecting tapes for digitization, shipping them to the outside vendor, and now we are in stages of receiving the digital files and preparing them for online access!

Unidentified man with KUOM microphone. University of Minnesota Radio and Television Broadcasting records, University Archives

Launching U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial

Today we are launching our U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial podcast based on the new materials. It will be posted biweekly here on the From the Archivist blog and is available on iTunes and Google Play. Below you will find the first episode, you can listen in the browser here and read the script below.

Episode 1: Intro to the Collection

You are listening to U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial Podcast and this is episode 1: Intro to the Collection. I’m the project archivist, Karen, here at University Archives and today we’re getting our feet wet by answering a couple questions.

Maybe you’re wondering what is University of Minnesota Radio?

This podcast and this project are not produced by the current campus station, Radio K, although it is their predecessors that we will be talking about, KUOM and WMMR. KUOM, previously under the call letters WLB, was the professional radio station on campus. The University actually received the first radio broadcasting license in the state of Minnesota in 1922, with experiments in broadcasts by F.W. Springer as early as 1912. The station continued their operations until 1993 when they merged with WMMR, which had been the student run campus radio station since the late 40s. They became the station heard on campus today, Radio K, which still broadcasts on the same frequency and under the call letters of KUOM.We also have some recordings in our collection from University Media Resources and Visual Education, which produced University courses over the radio and rebroadcast speeches and commencements across the state.

On to our second question, what is this project?

The project I am working on received funding to get at least 2,000 of our 11,000+ reel-to-reel tape collection digitized which will mean greater access and preservation of the recordings from these organizations of U of M radio. It will mean access because in the near future anyone with internet connection can listen to these tapes and in listening we’ll have a better idea of what is actually on them. As much as we can hope, the archives world knows labels don’t always tell the truth or maybe not the whole truth. In our first batch of digital files I’ve already discovered programs we didn’t know we had because they were recorded on the second half of a tape without being noted on their cases. This project is also a great step towards preserving these historic documents because the unfortunate truth is physical materials deteriorate for many reasons. We do keep our audiovisual collections in cold storage which prevents, or at least slows down, much of this, but with digital technologies we can have copies that don’t require outdated equipment or ha...

Today University of Minnesota Archives is launching "U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial,"a podcast that features historic recordings from KUOM and WMMR — the original professional and student-run radio stations at the University of Minnesota. The podcast is also available on iTunes and Google Play.

Rabbi Harold Gordon was known as the "Flying Jewish Chaplain" for his years of service as the Circuit Chaplain of the North Atlantic Division of the Air Transport Command, 1944-1946.

In this installment of Secrets of the Archives, Curator Kate Dietrick talks about Gordon, a 1929 graduate of the University of Minnesota, and his papers and photos, which are housed in the Nathan and Theresa Berman Upper Midwest Jewish Archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries.

Rabbi Harold Gordon was known as the "Flying Jewish Chaplain" for his years of service as the Circuit Chaplain of the North Atlantic Division of the Air Transport Command, 1944-1946. In this installment of Secrets of the Archives, Curator Kate Dietrick talks about Gordon, and his papers and photos, which are housed in the Nathan and Theresa Berman Upper Midwest Jewish Archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries.

Joseph Ellis presented 'The Second Founding: Four Men Who Created a Country' on September 28, 2016 at the University of Minnesota's Ted Mann Concert Hall.

Ellis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author of The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783–1789, discussed one of the most crucial periods in American history — the years between the end of the Revolution and the formation of the federal government — and the men most responsible for the creation of the United States: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. The event, attended by nearly 700 people, was sponsored by the Friends of the University of Minnesota Libraries.