This Day in Minnesota History

Decmber 6, 1815

Abolitionist, feminist, and newspaper publisher Jane Grey Swisshelm is born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She moved to Minnesota in 1857 and established the St. Cloud Visiter and, later, the St. Cloud Democrat. During the Civil War she moved to Washington, DC, and become a nurse. She died in 1884.

Deerwood Auditorium

The Deerwood Auditorium is a prime example of a modern municipal facility made possible by the relief programs of the New Deal. It provided local residents with an auditorium and gymnasium space, council chambers, a library, and a fire hall. The building expanded the range of services available to the residents of Deerwood and enhanced their quality of life.

Dehn, Adolf (1895–1968)

Adolf Dehn was a lithographer and watercolorist best known for his work in the American regionalist, modernist, and social-realist movements. An important American printmaker, Dehn demonstrated great skill in his works and, often, an irreverent sense of social commentary.

Denomie, Jim (1955–2022)

Jim Denomie, one of Minnesota’s most significant and beloved visual artists, is best known for his large-scale narrative paintings. He used irony and humor to depict the political realities Native Americans face, including brutality and abuse, as well as his personal visions of eroticism, joy, grief, and spirituality. Denomie’s style is distinct and inimitable, especially in its use of color.

Densford, Katharine J. (1890–1978)

Katharine Densford was a pragmatic leader of American nursing as it gained political and academic recognition in the 1940s and 50s. She is remembered as a stateswoman whose leadership of Minnesota’s flagship school of nursing at the University of Minnesota provided the model for nursing education throughout the state and nation.

Densmore, Frances (1867–1957)

From the 1890s through the 1950s, Frances Densmore researched and recorded the music of Native Americans. Through more than twenty books, 200 articles, and some 2,500 Graphophone recordings, she preserved important cultural traditions that might otherwise have been lost. She received honors from Macalester College in St. Paul and the Minnesota Historical Society in the last years of her life.

Department of Chicano and Latino Studies, University of Minnesota

Founded in 1971, the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies at the University of Minnesota is the first of its kind in the Midwest. Rooted in social justice, the department is committed scholastically and pedagogically to centering Chicana/o and Latina/o histories and experiences.

Destruction of Bois Forte Ojibwe Homeland, 1891–1929

From 1890 to 1910, timber speculators and lumbermen patented most of the valuable pine lands in north-central Minnesota—the homeland of the Bois Forte Ojibwe. By the 1920s, dams and deforestation had so damaged the landscape that it could no longer support the tribe’s subsistence economy, and its members were forced onto their reservation at Nett Lake.

DFL Feminist Caucus

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Feminist Caucus was founded in 1973 to advocate for feminist positions on issues like poverty among women, abortion, and the Equal Rights Amendment. Its members lobbied the Minnesota State Legislature, endorsed candidates, and produced a US Senate candidate of their own in 1984.

Dight, Charles Fremont (1856–1938)

Charles Fremont Dight grew up believing in the power of medicine to ascertain and correct natural or social problems. After a series of disappointments in politics in the 1910s, he turned to the burgeoning field of eugenics in the 1920s to realize his dream of a centrally planned economy and population.

District 28 School / Ramsey Town Hall

Originally built in 1892, the Ramsey School House served Anoka County’s School District #28 until the mid-twentieth century, when the schools in the county were consolidated. The building was then repurposed as the Ramsey Town Hall.

Donaldson’s

Donaldson’s, also known as William Donaldson and Company and L. S. Donaldson’s, was a Minneapolis department store located on Nicollet Avenue and Sixth Street. Started by two immigrant brothers, the company grew to be one of the major retail chains in the Twin Cities, rivaling Dayton’s for much of the twentieth century.

Donnelly, Ignatius (1831–1901)

Ignatius Donnelly was the most widely known Minnesotan of the nineteenth century. As a writer, orator, and social thinker, he enjoyed fame in the U.S. and overseas. As a politician he was the nation's most articulate spokesman for Midwestern populism. Though the highest office he held was that of U.S. congressman, he shaped Minnesota politics for more than thirty years.

Dorcas Circle, Carson Mennonite Brethren Church

The Dorcas Circle, organized in Cottonwood County's Carson Township in 1936 and later known as the Women’s Mission Society (WMS), served as the backbone of the Carson Mennonite Brethren Church’s strong missions program. Working in supportive capacities, members of the circle impacted church and community life without taking on pastoral roles.

Dorsett, Martha (1851–1918)

Martha Angle Dorsett is best known for being Minnesota's first female lawyer. After being denied the right to practice law in Minnesota in 1876, she successfully petitioned the Minnesota legislature to change the state law governing attorney admissions. With the law amended to permit admission regardless of sex, Martha went on to practice law and remained active politically throughout the rest of her life in Minneapolis.

Dorsey, Ida (1866–1918)

Employing the racial prejudices and fantasies of elite male clients once used against her, Ida Dorsey established herself as one of the Twin Cities’ most notorious madams, running multiple brothels between the 1880s and the 1910s. As a woman of color in an industry dominated by white women, she demonstrated herself an adept entrepreneur and real estate owner when most women had neither income nor property.

Downfall of Russell Heim, 1947–1952

In 1952 Russell Heim (1886–1960) was a practicing physician and, after 1942, Hennepin County’s elected coroner. The Minneapolis Star called his narcotics prosecution “one of the most sensational trials of a public official…in the history of Minnesota federal courts.”

Dr. Henry Schmidt Memorial Hospital

Members of the small southwestern Minnesota community of Westbrook worked together and raised money to open a hospital in 1951. Since then, the hospital has seen changes and challenges but continues to meet community health needs as the smallest hospital in the state.

Drag Performance in Minnesota, 1880–1950

Drag performance, historically referred to as “male impersonation” or “female impersonation,” was a popular act in Minnesota theater from the 1880s through the 1920s, reflecting the heyday of vaudeville nationally. As vaudeville declined after the 1920s, drag moved to standalone performances in bars and nightclubs, intertwining with Minnesota’s increasingly public queer scene. The shift coincided with drag queens of color gaining visibility and the emergence of drag celebrities—not just as humorous side acts in larger productions, but as artists in their own right and practice.

Dream of Wild Health

Dream of Wild Health is a regenerative farm in Hugo, Minnesota, that offers programs to restore the health and well-being of the Native American community in Minneapolis–St. Paul. Founded in 1998, it is one of the oldest Native-led non-profit organizations in the Twin Cities and has one of the largest Indigenous seed collections in the country.

Dred and Harriet Scott in Minnesota

African Americans Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott lived at Fort Snelling in the 1830s as enslaved people. Both the Northwest Ordinance (1787) and the Missouri Compromise (1820) prohibited slavery in the area, but slavery existed there even so. In the 1840s the Scotts sued for their freedom, arguing that having lived in “free territory” made them free. The 1857 Supreme Court decision that grew out of their suit moved the U.S. closer to civil war.

Duluth Armory

The Duluth Armory has served as both a military training facility and an entertainment venue since its construction in 1915. Notable for its neoclassical design, the armory was central to the work of the National Guard and Home Guard. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

Duluth Incline Railway

In December 1891, the Duluth Street Railway Company opened an incline railway on the right-of-way of Seventh Avenue West. The company had received a charter from the state in 1881 to build a streetcar line for Duluth, and this railway was part of the larger system. The hillside was too steep for a regular rail line, and cable powered lines were often used in similar situations.

Duluth Lynchings

Lynching is widely believed to be something that happened only in the South. But on June 15, 1920, three African Americans, Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie, were lynched in Duluth, Minnesota.

Duluth Ship Canal Opening, 1871

The opening of the Duluth Ship Canal in 1871 was a historical turning point for the city of Duluth and the Twin Ports of Duluth and Superior.

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