Exhibits

Remembering the Forgotten Pandemic: The 1918-1920 Spanish Influenza Pandemic in the Red River Valley

This exhibit opened at the Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead, MN, on May 12, 2021, and continued through the summer when it was moved to Bonanzaville in West Fargo from fall 2020-2021. A product of the spring 2020 Intro to Museum Studies class, the exhibit told the story of the Spanish Influenza Pandemic during the early 20th century and explored the impact on Red River Valley schools, health system, and Native American communities. The exhibit makes use of diaries, letters, telegrams, transcripts of oral histories, and newspaper accounts from the era. I contributed to the students‘ research and designed all the panels for the exhibit. (2021)

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North Dakota Goes to War, The 1st North Dakota Volunteers in the Philippines

An exhibit designed, written, and installed by me with assistance from graduate and undergraduate students as part of a Museum Studies class at North Dakota State University in the spring of 2019. After the documentary was created in the fall of 2018, this exhibit expands on the story of the 1st North Dakota Infantry Volunteers role in the Spanish-American War and the research of Dr. Carole Butcher. The exhibit was on display at Bonanzaville from May 2019 through May 2021. (2019)

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In the Spirit of the Land-Grant Mission, Alba Bales House Exhibition

NDSU Human Sciences and Education Dean, Margaret Fitzgerald, recruited me to assemble a small team to create an exhibit for the 1920s Alba Bales House, which for several decades served as the Home Management Practice House for Home Economics students; researched, wrote, designed, and installed the portion of the exhibit on Henry Bolley, a late19th- and early 20th-century agronomist and professor at the North Dakota Agricultural College, and collaborated on the accompanying exhibit to tell the story of Dr. Alba Bales, who served first as head of Home Economics, and later dean of the School of Home Economics, the first woman to hold that rank at NDSU. (2019)

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The North Dakota Jewish Experience: Shvitzing on the Prairie

Told the history of Jewish presence and importance in North Dakota, starting in 1850s through modern day and to encourage understanding of Jewish culture, through artifacts, documents, and stories of those who have made their place in North Dakota. Collaborated with graduate student Typhanie Schaefer on this project. Designed, wrote, and installed exhibit. This exhibit went up at Bonanzaville in West Fargo during the summer of 2017 and remained on display for two years. (2017)

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Uncovering Vice in Fargo/Moorhead, 1871-1920

Uncovering Vice in Fargo/Moorhead, 1871-1920 was an exhibit designed, written, and installed by me with the help of graduate and undergraduate students as part of a Museum Studies class at North Dakota State University in the spring of 2017. The focus of the exhibit—vice in the towns geographically opposite each other on the Red River of the North—was examined through the lens of a central character, Melvina Massey and the legal and cultural context of the time. Massey was an African American madam who operated a brothel in Fargo between 1886 and 1911, and the material that was interpreted included archeological evidence found near the foundation of Massey’s brothel during the fall of 2016. The exhibit was on display from May 2017-May 2019. (2017)

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