St. Paul native John Vachon made a mark with his photographs of the Depression-era Midwest
After getting kicked out of college due to drinking, Vachon found work with the Farm Security Administration.
R.L. Cartwright has a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota and was MNopedia’s associate project editor at the Minnesota Historical Society.
After getting kicked out of college due to drinking, Vachon found work with the Farm Security Administration.
For her troubles, she was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1962.
When the hospital opened its doors, it received two men from the Judge Probate of Otter Tail County. The next day, it received 80 more patients from the St. Peter hospital.
On the one hand, cities such as Minneapolis and St. Anthony were centers of the Midwest’s abolition movement. Yet, many white Minnesota businessmen benefited from trade with Southern slaveholders.
For residents of Rochester, August 21, 1883, began with oppressive heat and ominous stillness.
The opening of the Duluth ship canal in 1871 was a historical turning point for the city of Duluth, Minnesota, and the Twin Ports of Duluth and Superior.
The Clarks Grove Cooperative Creamery used new technology and a well-organized cooperative system. It became a model for the Minnesota dairy industry.
During the time that she lived in the state, Eva McDonald Valesh left a big impression on Minnesota journalism, politics, and labor organizing.
The milling, logging, farming, and railroad industries that made Minneapolis a prosperous town in the late nineteenth century also cost many men their limbs, if not their lives.
Timber workers’ peaceful organizing won union recognition, higher wages, better conditions, and a central role in regional and national timber worker movements.
Logging northern Minnesota was a difficult job — many loggers blew off steam by drinking, gambling, or visiting brothels. “Sky pilots” tried to save the men’s souls and put them on the road to holiness rather than vice.
On June 12, 1873, farmers in southwestern Minnesota saw what looked like a snowstorm coming towards their fields from the west.
Founded by women, the Handicraft Guild made the arts in Minneapolis more democratic and populist by offering classes like pottery and metalwork to artists and teachers.
Minnesota established a state board of health in 1872. It was the third such board in the United States.
The botched execution of William Williams caused renewed fervor against the death penalty.
The Sister Kenny Institute was founded in 1942 as a rehabilitation-based treatment center for polio patients.
With its lavishly illustrated seed catalogs and store displays, Northrup, King and Company became a household name at the turn of the twentieth century.
Tired of ethnic discrimination as well as dangerous working conditions, low wages, and long work days, immigrant iron miners went on strike. It was the first organized strike on the Iron Range.
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By R.L. Cartwright
May 6, 2019