Mary Costello books re: Mississippi River Bridges

Collection

Identifier: 2008-09

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of the research materials collected for Costello’s Climbing the Mississippi River Bridge by Bridge, which was published in two volumes. Volume 1 was published in 1995, and volume 2, which is devoted to the bridges in Minnesota, in 2002.

These papers are related to research done for volume 1, which begins with the bridges in Louisiana, and ends with the Winneshiek Slough Bridge near the Iowa/Minnesota border. There is some material related to volume 2. Specifically the headwaters area in Itasca State Park in Minnesota, and the swing bridge in Inver Grove, Minnesota.

There are additional folders relating to riverboat tourism, gambling, and the Big River Rendezvous.

The arrangement of this collection follows Costello’s table of contents. Each bridge has its own folder (or multiple folders), and the contents within the folder are made up of newspapers clippings, HAER reports, journal and magazine articles, maps, schematic drawings, and various visual resources related to that bridge. Many folders contain Costello’s preliminary sketches, snapshots that she took, as well as correspondence.

Dates

Creation: 1970-2013

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Materials are available for use in the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center only.

Request permission before copying materials.

Personal digital cameras and scanners are allowed in the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center on a case-by-case basis. The items that a researcher may want to scan or photograph must be examined and evaluated for physical condition, copyright issues, and donor restrictions by staff.

Copyright restrictions may apply; please consult Special Collections staff for further information.

The copyright law of the United States (title 17, United States Code) governs the making of reproductions of copyrighted material.

Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a reproduction. One of these specific conditions is that the reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement.

Biographical / Historical

Mary Costello is an author, artist, and teacher. She grew up in Moline, and came from a family of railroad workers. The author researched Climbing the Mississippi River Bridge by Bridge, volumes 1 and 2, over a span of ten years, traveling the length of the river (starting in New Orleans and moving north) where she took photos, made sketches, and conducted interviews. These books were conceived from her work as an art teacher at McKinley School in Davenport, where she taught a unit on bridges. She has exhibited her artwork, much of it river-life related, in the Quad Cities area. Mary has degrees from Marycrest College and the University of Iowa.