Twin City Rapid Transit Company and Electric Streetcars

Horse car and cable car systems in the Twin Cities spurred urban growth and gave residents more mobility. The coming of the electric streetcar in 1889 had an even greater impact. With cars that could travel faster and farther, the system grew to become one of the nation's finest public transportation networks before the dominance of automobiles and buses in the 1950s.

United States of America v. Reserve Mining Company

In the mid-twentieth century, scientists struggled to find ways to extract iron ore from the sedimentary rock called taconite, which contains 25 to 30 percent iron. The process that was eventually developed involves crushing the hard rock into a powder-like consistency. The iron ore is then removed with magnets and turned into pellets.

Universal Laboratories, Dassel

The Universal Laboratories building played a key role during World War II by ensuring that the United States had an adequate domestic supply of the essential crude drug ergot. As war threatened to cut off imported supplies of crude ergot, Universal Laboratories developed an effective collecting and processing operation in Dassel.

Veblen, Thorstein Bunde (1857–1929)

Economist and social scientist Thorstein Veblen has been called one of America’s most original and creative thinkers. His highly acclaimed treatise The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899) introduced the term “conspicuous consumption.” Veblen’s body of work remains seminal reading in understanding the modern consumer society and criticisms of capitalism.

Vermilion Iron Range

The Vermilion Range, with its distinctive hard and high-grade iron ore deposits, looms large in the history of the mining industry in Minnesota. It was the first range to open (1884) and also the first to cease commercial mining operations (1967) due to changes in the steel-making process and the rise of cheaper-to-produce taconite on the nearby Mesabi Range. After mining ended, the area’s protected wilderness spaces—including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness—took center stage in a new regional economy based on tourism and conservation.

Waconia Patriot

The Waconia Patriot has provided local news to the residents of Carver County since 1897. In the twenty-first century, the paper is owned by ECM Publishers, Inc.

Walker, Thomas Barlow (T. B.), (1840–1928)

In the 1850s and 60s, Thomas Barlow (T. B.) Walker worked his way through school and into Minnesota's lumber industry, where he became unusually successful. He later helped found two of Minneapolis's significant cultural organizations: the public library system and the Walker Art Center.

Watertown Bell Foundry

For thirty years, William Bleedorn was one of only a few cow bell manufacturers in the United States. Between 1863 and 1885, his foundry in Carver County produced thousands of bells that were used by farmers across the country.

West Publishing Company

The nation’s most innovative and most successful law-book-publishing company operated in downtown St. Paul from 1876 until 1992, when it moved to Eagan. In 1876, West Publishing Company began publishing Minnesota State Supreme Court opinions; by 1887, its “reporter” system covered the whole country. In 1908, West introduced an indexing system for all American law. In 1975, it introduced Westlaw, a computerized legal research system. The company was sold to Thomson Reuters in 1996.

Weyerhaeuser, Frederick (1834–1914)

Frederick Weyerhaeuser was a prominent, self-made lumber capitalist and millionaire in the Midwest during the Gilded Age. Nicknamed "the Lumber King" and "the Timber King" during a time when lumber ranked alongside iron and the railroads as a source of industry, Weyerhaeuser created a syndicate that controlled millions of acres of timberland. The syndicate also controlled sawmills, paper mills, and processing plants.

Wheaties

The Washburn Crosby Company first developed Wheaties in the early 1920s and introduced the product to consumers in 1924. Over time, the breakfast cereal changed the milling industry even as it helped to transform American breakfasts.

Women on the World War I Home Front

After the United States entered World War I in 1917, Minnesota women, like Americans across the nation, were called to contribute to the war effort. Though some went to Europe and served as nurses, drivers, and aid workers on the battlefields, many more participated on the home front. They took on new jobs, conserved vital resources, and joined volunteer organizations. At the same time, they struggled to come to terms with conflicting ideals of patriotism, loyalty, and what it meant to be an American.

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