Dorris Keeven-Franke

 dorris
Current Projects:

 

Giessen Emigration

 
Reisende Sommer-Republik

 

Dutzow Verein

e-mail:

dorris@keeven-franke.com

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A Trip to a Forgotten Utopia is a documentary made by maxim films of Bremen, Germany about the Sommer-Republik's visit to the United States in 2009. There will be an encore showing in Dutzow, Missouri on Sunday, February 27, 2011 at 1:00 pm.

"A democratic German-Republic in the United States of America"

This utopian idea brought Friedrich Muench and Paul Follenius to the United States in 1834, when they abandoned their homeland, along with 500 emigrants, to establish a new home in a Missouri valley.

Today that Missouri valley is known as Dutzow, in the Lake Creek valley, across from Washington, Missouri, approximately 50 miles west of St. Louis, Missouri.

In October of 2009, members of the Sommer-Republik from Bremen, Germany visited the location to see what remained of the sites and the culture brought by the Giessen Society.  They visited with local historians, and the sites and museums that remain today, that are dedicated to the history of these early German emigrants.

This film shares that visit, and follows their discoveries of how much of the culture and values remain today. The film was first shown by the Sommer-Republik on September 4, 2010 in Bremen Germany, and was followed by

a United States premiere at Blumenhof Winery in Dutzow on November 2, 2010.

An encore is being co-sponsored by the Dutzow Verein and the Boone-Duden Historical Society at the St. Vincents DePaul School in Dutzow, MO on February 27, 2011 at 1 pm.

PDF

 

 

Recent Publications and Papers:

Paper on the Giessen Emigration Society A Call for Emigration that I presented April 23, 2010 at the Society for German American Studies Conference in New Harmony, Indiana.

Other publications in progress:

A History of Warren County by Arcadia Press for their Images of America Series, to be published in 2011.

Previous Publications
  • Books
  • A Window Through Time: A Pictorial History of Warren County; Eagle Ventures Inc., 1990 (Dorris Keeven)
    The Power of People: Building Today for a Better Tomorrow; Cuivre River Electric Cooperative; 1998,   Received 1999 Award of Excellence for Best Special Publication from the Council of Rural Electric Communicators (Dorris Keeven)
    A History of Warren County;  Compilation of newspaper articles published in the Warren County Tribune, The Warrenton Banner, The Warren County News-Journal (Dorris Keeven)
    Missouri’s German Heritage; Edited by Don Heirnrich Tolzmann; 2004; Chapter 4; Gottfried Duden, the Man Behind the Book. (Dorris Keeven-Franke)
    Missouri in the Civil War; Daughters of the Union Veterans; Warren County Missouri; 1987
    History of Warren County; Arcadia Publishing; Spring 2011 (in progress)
  •  
  • Research
  • HEC-TV, St. Louis, Missouri
    Germans to America; ARD Television Network
  •  
  • Editor
  • Der Maibaum, Journal of the Deutschheim Verein
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  • Papers
  • Society of German American Studies: 1996; Castles in the Sky: the Story of the Berlin Society
    Society of German American Studies; 2002; Gottfried Duden – The Man Behind the Book
    Society of German American Studies; 2010; The Giessen Emigration Society
    Missouri Historical Conference; 2009;  Gottfried Duden; Broken Dreams
  •  
  • Newspaper Columnist
  • Warren County Tribune
    The Warren County News-Journal
    The Warrenton Banner
    The Focus News
    The Missourian
  •  
  • Miscellaneous
    • Lectures on Germans in Missouri for various historical societies
    • Professional Genealogist
    • Programs and tours of historic sites