Winner of a Spur Award, presented by the Western Writers of America (WWA), for the Best Western Nonfiction Historical Book. Renowned historian Annette Atkins presents a fresh understanding of how a complex and modern Minnesota came into being in Creating Minnesota. Each chapter of this innovative state history focuses on a telling detail, a revealing incident, or a meaningful issue that illuminates a larger event, social trends, or politics during a period in our past. A three-act play about Minnesota's statehood vividly depicts the competing interests of Natives, traders, and politicians who lived in the same territory but moved in different worlds. Oranges are the focal point of a chapter about railroads and transportation: how did a St. Paul family manage to celebrate their 1898 Christmas with fruit that grew no closer than 1,500 miles from their home? A photo essay brings to life three communities of the 1920s, seen through the lenses of local and itinerant photographers. The much-sought state fish helps to explain the new Minnesota, where pan-fried walleye and walleye quesadillas coexist on the same north woods menu. In Creating Minnesota Atkins invites readers to experience the texture of people's lives through the decades, offering a fascinating and unparalleled approach to the history of our state.
This guide is an essential tool for all genealogists researching Minnesota family, local, and state history. Highlighting the many holdings of the society, this unique handbook features a lengthy, annotated listing of resources in subject areas such as: biographical, census, naturalization, cemetery, school, religious, business, court, government, legal, military, and veterans' records; official state-wide death records and index, 1908-96; photographs, personal papers, oral histories, ethnic resources, and local and county histories; family histories, newspapers, directories, passenger ship lists, and publications of genealogical organizations; maps, atlases, and other geographical resources.
... An 8 year plan to preserve Lowell's historic and cultural resources in order to tell the story of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century; included in the plan are mills, institutions, residences, commercial buildings and canals; describes the areas covered; discusses preservation standards, public improvements, financing, related programs, etc.; provides architectural information, dates of construction, history, plans for building reuse, etc. of specific structures in the Lowell National Historic Park and Lowell Heritage State Park ...
"The first comprehensive and in-depth assessment of Minnesota's breeding birds in nearly a century, The Breeding Birds of Minnesota offers an unprecedented, extraordinarily detailed, finely illustrated account of 250 of those birds, including their historical and present breeding distribution, habitat, population abundance, and prospects for the future"--
This true crime history recounts more than a century of crime, deviousness, and disaster in the North Star State. In Minnesota Mayhem, local historian and author Ben Welter explores the best of the state's worst moments. Culled from the archives of the Minneapolis Tribune and its successor newspapers, these stories and photos range from the catastrophic to the chillingly curious and the simply strange. Among the true tales told in these pages, Welter recounts the career of a successful con man in 1871; an 1881 fire that destroyed the State Capitol; a flu outbreak that killed more than 10,000 Minnesotans in 1918; the arrest of Frank Lloyd Wright at a Lake Minnetonka cottage in 1926; an arrested stripper who claimed wardrobe malfunction in 1953; and the 1977 murder of a wealthy matron in Duluth.
More than 30 years of experience photographing Lake Superior culminate in Minnesotaís North Shore, a melding of classic landscapes with images of incredible freshness and spontaneity. The book includes video footage of the North Shore on DVD.
The story of Somalis in Minnesota begins with three words: sahan, war, and martisoor. Driven from their homeland by civil war and famine, one group of Somali sahan, pioneers, discovered well-paying jobs in the city of Marshall, Minnesota. Soon the war, news, traveled that not only was employment available but the people in this northern state, so different in climate from their African homeland, were generous in martisoor, hospitality, just like the Somali people themselves. The diaspora began in 1992, and today more than fifty thousand Somalis live in Minnesota, the most of any state. Many have made their lives in small towns and rural areas, and many more have settled in Minneapolis, earning this city the nickname "Little Somalia" or "Little Mogadishu." Amiable guide Ahmed Yusuf introduces readers to these varied communities, exploring economic and political life, religious and cultural practices, and successes in education and health care. he also tackles the controversial topics that command newspaper headlines: alleged links to terrorist organizations and the recruitment of young Somali men to fight in the civil war back home. This newest addition to the people of Minnesota series captures the story of the state's most recent immigrant group at a pivotal time in its history.
Based on ground-breaking research, this book describes the unique concerns of individual ethnic groups and delves into their personal Minnesota stories: farmers and factory workers, families and single people, idealists and pragmatists, people who were devout or irreligious -- those who cut ties with their homeland and formed part of Minnesota's ethnic saga.