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To play the mp3 files on this site, you can download Windows Media Player or Real Player for free, or try Google’s browser Chrome in order to listen to the audio in this window!

The communities included are:

Chippewa County: Sault Saint Marie.
Dickinson County: Iron Mountain, Kingsford, Loretto, Norway, Vulcan.
Gogebic County: Bessemer, Ironwood, Wakefield.
Keweenaw County: Mohawk.
Houghton County: Baltic, Calumet, Franklin Mine, Hancock, South Range.
Iron County, Michigan: Caspian, Crystal Falls, Iron River, Virgil.
Mackinac County: Cedarville-Hessel.
Marquette County: Gwinn, Ishpeming, Marquette, Negaunee.
Menominee County: Hermansville.
Iron County, Wisconsin: Hurley, Kimball.
Ontario: Sault Saint Marie.

Monsignor David Spelgatti encouraged and aided the project over a period of twenty years. The catalyst who got the project started in 1982 was Greta Swenson, formerly of Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin. Many of the interviews were conducted by Donna Anderson, Mary Adams Bone, Rick Filizetti, Pete Frecchio, Flora Fregerio, John Ghiardi, Bev Gschwind, Diane Kordich, Greg Nienwendorp, Adele Perugini, Greg Rose, Myron Re, Christine Sericati, Greta Swenson, Robert Varda, and Alycee Westphal. Besides the interviewers and interviewees, many unnamed people also helped by providing basic information on who to interview within a specific community. They are remembered and thanked as well.

Dr. Magnaghi donated the original tapes to the Northern Michigan University Archives. Two additional copies have been made to facilitate their use among researchers. They are available at the Michigan Collection in the Bentley Library at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and at the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul.

In order to facilitate the use of this collection of tapes, Dr. Magnaghi had a catalogue of the tapes in question prepared. It has been reproduced below. Magnaghi, Mr. Ted Bays, and Mr. Jim Seelye edited the catalogue.

The catalogue provides general information about what is available for each interview, such as a transcript of it if available. Magnaghi and Bays had an index prepared of some of the subjects and places discussed in some of the interviews on tape, but not for all of them.

Dr. Magnaghi published a book based on the interviews on tape in this collection and on summaries of interviews not on tape. This book is entitled, Miners, Merchants, and Midwives: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Italians (1987).