Brandon Cutler Designs

While taking my first class in historic preservation, a resident from the Field-Regina-Northrop Neighborhood in South Minneapolis reached out to my professor, Greg Donofrio, asking him about getting her 1930 bungalow on the national register.  Intrigued about what made this house special, Greg turned the research of the house and neighborhood into the final project for the class.  This project included delving into the status of Minneapolis and the country during a very tumultuous time.

 

We discovered that a World War I veteran and postal worker, Arthur Lee, decided to move into a primarily white neighborhood with his family, however, the residents were adamant about them leaving; mobs broke out, black paint flung at the house, buyout attempts were made.  We discovered a side of Minneapolis that was burried and unspoken about for decades. It was extremely shocking to everyone involved that something like that could happen in a "north" state.

 

The final project ended up being quite the undertaking, and ultimately became a bit of a disorganized, yet highly informational, booklet about the right for minorities to establish a home in the 1930s.  This struck a chord with a few of us to carry on the project, to bring it to a polished format to be presented to the public.  To tell the story.

 

Feeling the need to finish the projet, myself, another student by the name of Erica, our teaching assistant from the class, and Mr. Donofrio chose to make the following semester into a directed study to complete what we started.  We made a decision to turn the booklet into a more condensed exhibition format that could be displayed in public areas or galleries.

 

In the end we had given over our condensed exhibition boards to a graphic designer and an assistant of Mr. Donofrio to polish it further, and finally it became a temporary gallery exhibit at the HGA Gallery in Rapson Hall at the University of Minnesota on August 23, 2014.