Date of Award
Spring 2021
Document Type
Restricted Thesis
Terms of Use
© 2021 Samantha Wagner. All rights reserved. Access to this work is restricted to users within the Swarthmore College network and may only be used for non-commercial, educational, and research purposes. Sharing with users outside of the Swarthmore College network is expressly prohibited. For all other uses, including reproduction and distribution, please contact the copyright holder.
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
History Department
First Advisor
Bruce Dorsey
Abstract
On June 15, 1920, three young, Black men were lynched by a white mob of ten thousand in Duluth, Minnesota. My thesis seeks to place the lynchings and the process of forgetting and remembering them over the course of a hundred years in their historical contexts. From the white supremacist memories that made the lynchings into a spectacle, to the erasure and silences that dominated the next six decades, to the slow and imperfect memory work of the past forty years, this thesis explores how changing ideologies about race and racism have impacted how Duluthians remember their history of lynching. Drawing on newspaper articles, census records, radio programs, and personal interviews, I trace the memories of the lynchings from 1920 to 2020, interrogating the myth that racial violence does not happen in places like Duluth, Minnesota and the challenges of memory work at the site of a northern lynching.
Recommended Citation
Wagner, Samantha , '21, "Strange Fruit on the Iron Range: Myth and Memory of a Northern Lynching" (2021). Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards. 563.
https://works.swarthmore.edu/theses/563
Comments
Co-recipient of the Paul H. Beik Prize in History, awarded in 2021.