THE MAKING OF NEIGHBORHOOD IDENTITIES IN DULUTH MN

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*This class will be presented as a webinar*

"The Making of Neighborhood Identities in Duluth MN"--Dr. Jennifer D. Webb, University of Minnesota Duluth

In this 2 hour class, we will explore the "making" of neighborhood identities in Duluth after the 1854 treaty. Rather than consider the city as a whole, we will focus on the western neighborhoods of the City (from the West End/Lincoln Park to Fond du Lac). Not only will we talk about how the river and the landscape helped to make "spaces" but also explore how people made those spaces into "places" with particular identities.

In order to explore questions of place-making and identity, we will look together at Art Fleming's twenty-one architectural portraits of local industries which still hang in the Kom-on-Inn bar in West Duluth. At the time that they were painted in the early 1950s, these portraits of place were already tinged with a nostalgia for a lost past that lingers today. These paintings invite us to look beyond the surface and to really tell the stories of our "places." By considering the art, architecture, and places of our communities we can talk together about neighborhood disadvantage, exclusionary practices, and inequality.