Stage 6 – Response to Marie Amelse – Evan Murphy

Marie’s map focuses on the building of the Minnesota Capitol building, focusing on the construction of the second capitol building, after the first one burned down in 1881. Marie discusses the methods used to construct the capitol, the architects and contractors that built the capitol, and the controversies that have and continue to surround the capitol. Most recently on the statues named the virtues, of which two have gone missing and at least one has been destroyed. These modern controversies make the history of the building more notable to Minnesotan readers. The mapping project overall got across a complete history of the construction of the Minnesota capitol in a concise manner, as well as giving some maps to help understand the project overall. The first map seemed dis-conjoined from the narrative of the story map, although the second one feels well introduced. As far as the quality of the project, it was well done. I feel like some more Civil War history or analysis around the controversy of Georgian marble could have been further explored to a good effect. Introducing a map of battles where Georgia and Minnesotan troops fought may have been interesting as well. I think that more information on the marble in general would have been interesting, as I know that the quarries near St Cloud are now a park, you could have touched on the enrichment of the state overall by the construction of the capitol, although that does seem slightly out of the scope of the project. I would also say that it seemed like the maps were less essential to the project than I was expecting, although I did enjoy the use of mapped locations with specific information. The use of photographs within the map was creative and well used, I liked the side scroller that let you read while looking at new photographs. A feature like that makes a story map look professional. I looked through Marie’s references as well and it looked like there was a good amount of primary document work as well. Overall, Marie’s map was effective at educating on the construction of the Minnesota state capitol, while giving some insight into more modern history with the controversies of the virtues.