The Michigan Tech Archives announces the opening of a new exhibit highlighting images from archival collections. “A Sense of Place,” is a photographic essay of the Michigan Tech campus, community life, and of the Copper Country. Historic images selected from the Archives’ collections create a story of the Keweenaw and its people from the earliest days of European settlement to the present. The photos are grouped into four themes: early life on the Keweenaw Peninsula; copper miners and the mines in which they labored; the changing face of the Michigan Tech campus; and the communities that are home to long-time residents and thousands of students through the years. The story told is one that gives the viewer a sense of the special character of the Copper Country, a place that so many people are proud to claim a connection to, no matter where they may live.
Funded in part by the Friends of the Van Pelt Library, the new exhibit was conceived as a tribute to Jonathon DeCleene, a student assistant in the Archives for many years. Although Jonathan’s life ended at a young age, it was his zest for life and adopted love of the Copper Country which shaped the themes of this exhibit. Additional financial support for the exhibit came from Jonathan’s family, Gloria Kennedy and Valerie DeCleene, and members of the Archives staff.
The exhibit is a permanent installation in the halls of the Library’s Garden Level, outside the Michigan Tech Archives’ reading room and can be viewed at any time during the Library’s open hours. Images were selected by the staff of the Michigan Tech Archives, caption text was written by Julia Blair, and graphic design for the exhibit was completed by Mike Stockwell of Cranking Graphics.
The content of this photograph exhibit is also available as the “Sense of Place” web exhibit on the archives’ website.
Update: Here are some photographs from the exhibit opening event on Thursday, February 4, 2010:
Members of the public view the exhibited photographs near the entrance to the Michigan Tech Archives on the ground floor of the J.R. Van Pelt and Opie Library.
From left to right: Mike Stockwell, exhibit graphic designer with Cranking Graphics, Ellen Seidel, interim library director, Julia Blair, assistant archivist and exhibit writer, Terry Reynolds and Dana Richter, Friends of the Van Pelt Library.
Erik Nordberg, university archivist, shares appreciation to the family of Jonathan DeCleene, members of the archives’ staff, and the Friends of the Van Pelt Library for their financial support of the exhibit.
