Michigan Education

Michigan Tech works to include black voices in the history of Copper Country

Michigan Public | By Stateside Staff

Published July 14, 2016 at 5:22 PM EDT

Laborers work at a Herman Gundlach construction site in Houghton County in the early 1900s.

The history of Copper Country in the Upper Peninsula tends to focus on mining and the mostly European immigrants who worked those mines.

That traditional history is missing something: the presence of African-Americans.

The Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections is working to rectify that with a project called "Black Voices in Copper Country," funded in part by the Michigan Humanities Council.

Copper Country native and university archivist with Michigan Technological University Lindsay Hiltunen joined us today to talk about the project and why this piece of history has gone so unnoticed.

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Lindsay Hiltunen is a university archivist at the Michigan Tech Archives, working on the Black Voices in the Copper Country. She tweets @librarianlindz.