Roald Tweet
Writer and Narrator of 'Rock Island Lines'Beginning 1995, historian and folklorist Dr. Roald Tweet spun his stories of the Mississippi Valley to a devoted audience on WVIK. Dr. Tweet published three books as well as numerous literary articles and recorded segments of "Rock Island Lines." His inspiration was that "kidney-shaped limestone island plunked down in the middle of the Mississippi River," a logical site for a storyteller like Dr. Tweet.
It was from Rock Island’s rich heritage that Dr. Tweet spun his histories, biographies and "stretchers." Among his favorite topics were railroads and riverboats, which he combined on a CD in celebration of the Grand Excursion in 2004. "Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet" received awards from the Illinois Historical Society as well as the Towner Award from the Illinois Humanities Council.
Dr. Tweet was professor emeritus, retired from the Augustana College English department, where he was professor and Conrad Bergendoff Chair in the Humanities. A writer and radio personality, Dr. Tweet was also an accomplished woodcarver and whittler.
Dr. Tweet left us in November of 2020, but his legacy lives on. You can hear many of his Rock Island Lines in podcast form here and also in a forthcoming book from WVIK and East Hall Press.
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.It was a late February day in 1870 when the city of Rock Island came out of a twenty-year hibernation, wide awake and…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.When Dr. Isaac Galland published his Iowa Immigrant Guide in 1840, outlining the opportunities in Iowa and the kind of…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.Like many famous Englishmen and women who toured the Mississippi Valley in the 19th century, Charles Dickens was…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island."A suburban paradise" is how the Argus described the sixty acres at the edge of Rock Island. A public relations…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.When the Illinois Press Association chose Rock Island and Moline as the site for their 1871 annual meeting, the Twin…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.When the Reverend George Gale and his followers built their Eden on the Illinois prairie in 1836 as a place to train…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.Perhaps love really is blind, as Shakespeare claimed in The Merchant of Venice. How else to explain the epic poem Henry…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.The announcement that Elizbeth Cady Stanton, the famous campaigner for women's rights, was coming to speak at the…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.If a simple fence can make the grass greener on the other side, just think what a river like the Mississippi can do.…
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CommunityThis is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.I wonder whatever possessed several young Rock Island ladies to demand equal rights back in 1916.That summer, Rock…