COVERING 1968 takes a wide-ranging look at one of the most turbulent years in American history. The starting point is “the cover” — of magazines, record albums, newspapers, and a lot more. How were the often shocking and outrageous events of the day covered? What can we tell from these miniature “billboards” about the era’s fashions and fads, hopes and fears, winners and losers? What caught our attention, what turned us on in 1968?

COVERING 1968 will “cover” the Sixties in ways unlike anything that’s come before. The year 1968 is– yes– notorious and infamous. But “coverage” of it can also feel clichéd at times, with the same old stories and images recurring like mantras. COVERING 1968 seeks out some of the surprising corners of a year that has been burned deeply into collective memory.

COVERING 1968 is part of THE 1968 PROJECT, an effort to recover and document the stories, images, sounds, and things of this sensational year. The PROJECT is a production of the Minnesota Historical Society, in partnership with the Atlanta History Museum, the Chicago History Museum, and the Oakland Museum of California. A nationally touring exhibition, an interactive website, and a three-year short film competition are all planned as part of THE 1968 PROJECT.

Brian Horrigan, principal writer on “Covering 1968,” has been an exhibition curator at the Minnesota Historical Society since 1990.  In 1968, he graduated from high school in Houston, TX; headed off to Chicago for college; and turned 18 that October.