Northern Michigan University receives grant to create traveling exhibit

Northern Michigan University's Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center has received $8,500 in grant money that it will be using to create a traveling exhibit paying homage to interesting and exceptional women who hailed from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The exhibit will be called Extraordinary Women of the Upper Peninsula. The grant is coming from Michigan Humanities, a council that seeks to support efforts to explore and celebrate Michigan’s stories.

According to an article on Northern Michigan University’s website, the goal of the exhibit will be to inspire. The exhibit will travel to schools, libraries, and anywhere else that wants to showcase the included women. There are plans for the exhibit to make stops at museums like Iron River Museum and Houghton’s Carnegie Museum, as well. Hopefully, those who get to experience the exhibit will find themselves inspired to do extraordinary things, too.

Dan Truckey, who is the director and curator of the Beaumier Center, said of the exhibit, “We've wanted to really focus on the stories of women in the Upper Peninsula for some time now, and we wanted to coordinate it with Women's History Month. Now we have funds to create the traveling panels that are going to go around to schools and libraries across the U.P.”

Truckey will be collaborating with Emily Romeo, associate professor of History, and her women’s history classes, to research the women they want to include and write the copy for the exhibit.

Among the women planned to be featured in the exhibit are Connie Binsfield of Munising and Viola Turpeinen of Champion. These women were once the lieutenant governor of Michigan and a Finnish-American accordion player, respectively. 

“It's stories like those that we want to share. One, to let others know more about these people, but also to inspire young people—especially young women—to say that just because they grew up in a small town in the U.P., it doesn't mean they can't go on to achieve some really significant things and make an impact on the world,” said Truckey.

While these women and other inspiring people from the Upper Peninsula can be looked up on the internet at any time, Truckey says an exhibit is a better method of reaching people. “The internet's great at [reaching people], but oftentimes, it's hard to get their attention. If they're walking into a library to get a book and they see this exhibit, then they're more likely to look at it and say, ‘Wow, this is really cool.' I just think it's important to reach as many people as you can, and this is a way of getting the attention of people who aren't looking for things like this online,” he said.

For more information about Michigan Humanities and the programming it supports, visit the organization's website.

For more information about Northern Michigan University, visit the school’s website.