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Schizophrenic City: Souvenirs of Minneapolis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Cristine M. Levenduski
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Collecting souvenirs, an impulse nearly as universal as travel it-self, has spawned industries in tourist spots throughout the United States and most other nations of the world. Tourists purchase souvenirs both as commemorative artifacts, that at some future time will call to mind the experiences of the vacation and of the city visited, and as communicative artifacts. T-shirts, coffee mugs and bumper stickers proclaim, “this is where I've been” or “this is where I live” or “this is where my friends vacationed.” Some tourist spots lend themselves to this communicative function more easily than do others. Cities like San Francisco, for example, are highly imageable cities; they have a bridge or building or monument that serves as a symbol of the city consistent with the experience of visitors and residents alike.1 Minneapolis, however, lacks this kind of symbolic artifact. While any Twin Cities' resident, most Minnesotans, and many avid fans of The Mary Tyler Moore Show will recognize the Minneapolis skyline, particularly the prominent IDS building, this same site shown to a New Yorker or Californian who has never visited the area, will fail to serve as an identifiable landmark. Lacking such a symbol, creators of Minneapolis souvenirs have had to find images that represent the city and that are consistent with the sense of the place that tourists and residents experience.

Type
Souvenirs
Information
Prospects , Volume 11 , October 1986 , pp. 301 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

NOTES

1. Lynch, Kevin, The Image of the City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960).Google Scholar Lynch defines imageability as “that quality in a physical object which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any given observer” (p. 9).Google Scholar

2. On the notion of experiencing a sense of place, see Tuan, Yi-Fu, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977)Google Scholar, particularly Chapter 12, “Visibility: The Creation of Place,” pp. 161–178.Google Scholar

3. Thoreau, Henry David, WaldenGoogle Scholar; Turner, Frederick Jackson, The Significance of the Frontier in American History.Google Scholar

4. Strauss, Anselm L., “Urban Perspectives: New York City” in The American City: A Sourcebook of Urban Imagery, ed., Strauss, A. L. (Chicago: Aldine, 1968), pp. 5–10.Google Scholar Strauss provides numerous other examples of the attempts to bring elements of country life into the city. In Images of the American City (New York: Free Press, 1961)Google Scholar, he discusses the “odd mixture of admiration and disdain for both urbanism and rurality” which he sees as a typically midwestern phenomenon, p. 149.

5. Hanson, Eric Designs, Minneapolis, 1983.Google Scholar

6. All Boundary Waters brand souvenirs are designed, produced and marketed by Dayton-Hudson Corporation, Minneapolis.

7. Matthew Mallard exists in a variety of forms, including a costumed human figure used for promotional purposes. Matthew travelled to France for a photo session with Babar the elephant to help promote Dayton's 1983 Christmas walk-through storybookland featuring the elephant. More recently, Matthew travelled to Washington D.C., in May 1984, to attend a meeting of National Football League officials considering Minneapolis as a possible sight for the Superbowl (1985).

8. Pearson, Jack, Matthew Mallard's Homecoming (Minneapolis: Lune Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Matthew Mallard's Treasure (Minneapolis: Lune Press, 1984).Google Scholar

9. Boundary Waters map. Dayton-Hudson Corporation, 1983.

10. Other Minnesota souvenir campaigns focus on the wilderness spirit in the state. Several feature the loon, Minnesota's state bird. These souvenirs are not only from Minneapolis, but can be found throughout the state.

11. Hello Minnesota souvenirs are designed, produced and marketed by the Hello Minnesota Company, Minneapolis. These souvenirs also subtlely suggest a link to the rural life in Minnesota by topping the letter “t” in Minnesota with a pine tree.

12. Minneapple souvenirs are designed, produced and marketed by the Minneapple Compny, Minneapolis.

13. This same type of humor can be found in the nationally broadcast Minnesota Public Radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, hosted and written by Minnesotan, Garrison Keillor.

14. Unlike the Boundary Waters and Minneapple souvenirs, the Guindon souvenirs can be found throughout Minnesota.