From the Archivist

In June 1968, attendees of the commencement ceremony had to run for cover due to severe weather. Learn how University Archives staff reconstructed the events from historical documents and newspaper clippings.

The Shoe Tree is known for the numerous pairs of shoes thrown from the bridge whose laces wrap around the branches and hang from the tree. Located on the West Bank, there is no single event or campus tradition that results in shoes being thrown into the tree.

On September 17, 2019, award-winning broadcaster, journalist, and author Cokie Roberts passed away at the age of 75. In her memory, on this episode, we’ll share a recording of the speech that Roberts gave at the University of Minnesota Law School Commencement Exercises, held on Saturday, May 9, 1992 at Northrop Auditorium.

Throughout the spring of 1970, tensions were high among students and the campus community at the University of Minnesota in regards to the United States' military efforts, which ignited student strikes across the nation, including the University of Minnesota. Now fifty years later, we look back on the history of the student strike and the impact it had on campus.

What started as an act of post-war technical aid led to the fondly known “sister relationship” between the University of Minnesota and Seoul National University (SNU) beginning in the mid-1950s. Spanning eight years, the partnership left a historic mark on both institutions

We are saddened to learn of the passing of Marion Watson, a long-time station manager for the University of Minnesota's radio station – KUOM. 

KUOM radio's Minnesota School of the Air series People Worth Hearing About first aired in 1969 with programs that featured biographies of prominent African Americans. In 1971, the program broadcast an interview with Dr. Joyce Jackson, the newly appointed Principal of Central High School in Minneapolis.

The Roseau Stone is a small, smooth, one-and-a-half-inch oblong sedimentary stone. The stone was found in an area near the present-day town of Roseau, Minnesota, in 1916 or 1918. There are many theories about the origin of the stone. For the past 50 years, it was part of the collections at the University of Minnesota Archives.

The University of Minnesota Libraries has received $44,000 for its digitization project: "University Radio at Risk: Digital Preservation Reformatting of Educational Radio." The grant is from the Council on Library and Information Resourc and will be used to preserve about 2,500 aging reel-to-reel audio recordings.

Celebrating 10 years of TCF Bank Stadium with a look back at the University's Memorial Stadium.

Freshman Week began at the University of Minnesota in 1926. As a way to welcome everyone to campus for the start of the academic year, University Archives would like to share glimpses of Freshman Week and Welcome Week from our collections.

Four months after the 1984 presidential election, Geraldine Ferraro visited Minnesota where she was greeted by a large and receptive audience as the guest speaker for the Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series, sponsored by the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.  Interest was so great that after full capacity was reached in Northrop Auditorium, accommodations were made for a screening at Williams Arena on campus. The speech was also broadcast live on KUOM radio stations throughout the Twin Cities.

Machines and people have been working together for decades, perhaps more than you had thought, to keep University information technology systems running. The people operating punch card and tabulating machines, the majority of whom were women, most likely did not see their role as one of managing information technology.

The program series People Worth Hearing About originated with The Minnesota School of the Air director, Betty Girling. The series first aired in 1969. In this episode, a feature on Maria Sanford is highlighted along with the behind-the-scenes decisions on how to produce the script.

On the afternoon of October 12, 1918 in northeastern Minnesota, several forest fires killed over 450 people and decimated 2,000 square miles of forests, homesteads, and townships. The University of Minnesota Forest Experiment Station, known today as the Cloquet Forestry Center, survived the fire. The Center’s archival collection contains photographs that document the aftermath of the fires in the region.

This episode features a woman who achieved many notable firsts, a political leader who used her voice to better her community, implement and sustain diplomacy, and develop her own potentiality: Eugenie Anderson, the first woman to be named a United States Ambassador. A profile of Eugenie’s personal and professional life was featured on KUOM on “Minnesota Honor Roll,” a program of The Minnesota School of the Air - a series of educational radio programs designed for school-age children to listen to in the classroom.