Dr. Michael Lansing, Associate Professor and Chair of the History Department, and Dr. Kirsten Delegard, Scholar-in-Residence, were awarded $82,486 from the Minnesota Historical Society through the State of Minnesota’s Historical and Cultural Heritage Fund for their Historyapolis Project. This is the first time that an academic department of history has received funding from this program for such a project.
Minneapolis currently has no central clearinghouse where citizens can discover the full history of the state’s largest city. The Historyapolis Project seeks to remedy this situation. Animated by the belief that history is a powerful tool for community-building, this initiative will use digital tools to make the city’s history more accessible, catalyzing community dialogue around some of the most challenging aspects of the past in Minneapolis.
The Historyapolis Project seeks to make Augsburg College the leading center for Minneapolis history. It also plans to give Augsburg students practical opportunities to do local history and learn digital skills.
The award funds cover the cost of one year of research for a team of faculty and student researchers. Historyapolis researchers will work work in local and national repositories to gather material. The team will share the results of this work through the project Facebook page and website: www.historyapolis.com. At the end of the year, the project will publish an annotated bibliography that will serve as a roadmap for future researchers looking to explore the history of the city. The team expects that this document will be used by teachers, students, citizen researchers and professional historians looking to explore aspects of the city’s history.
This project has been financed in part with funds provided by the State of Minnesota from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the Minnesota Historical Society.
If you would like to learn more about this project, please feel free to contact Dr. Lansing at lansing@augsburg.edu or Dr. Delegard at delegard@augsburg.edu.