Wild Rice and the Ojibwe

Wild rice is a food of great historical, spiritual, and cultural importance for Ojibwe people. After colonization disrupted their traditional food system, however, they could no longer depend on stores of wild rice for food all year round. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, this traditional staple was appropriated by white entrepreneurs and marketed as a gourmet commodity. Native and non-Native people alike began to harvest rice to sell it for cash, threatening the health of the natural stands of the crop. This lucrative market paved the way for domestication of the plant, and farmers began cultivating it in paddies in the late 1960s. In the twenty-first century, many Ojibwe and other Native people are fighting to sustain the hand-harvested wild rice tradition and to protect wild rice beds.

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial, St. Paul

Designed to commemorate people who served in the US military during the Civil War, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in St. Paul (sometimes called the Josias King Memorial) was erected in 1903. Crowning the monument is a statue of Josias R. King, who is widely regarded as the first US volunteer in the Civil War. King also participated in violent campaigns to punish Dakota people after the US–Dakota War of 1862, known as the Punitive Expeditions. These included the Massacre of White Stone Hill, in which the US military killed hundreds of Native men, women, and children. King's participation in the massacre has complicated his presence in the monument.

Christopher Columbus Memorial, St. Paul

Italian Americans erected a Christopher Columbus memorial on the grounds of the Minnesota State Capitol in 1931 to mark Columbus as the first white man to set foot in the Americas. Though they intended to celebrate the achievement of a fellow Italian during a time of anti-Italian bigotry, the memorial they installed promoted white supremacist myths of discovery and erased Native Americans from history. It made no comment on the atrocities committed by Columbus against Native people. Native Americans and their allies protested the memorial’s existence for decades, and in 2020, a group that included self-identified members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) tore it down.

Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP)

Founded at the beginning of the HIV/AIDS crisis in Minnesota by a small group of gay volunteers, the Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP) provided education, prevention, and services for HIV-positive people and people with AIDS during the tumultuous early years of the epidemic. Organized on a grassroots level within the communities most affected by the virus, MAP became a model for successful community responses to public health crises. Its activities led directly and indirectly to a huge expansion of services and organizations serving HIV-positive people and people with AIDS in Minnesota and beyond.

Kensington Runestone

The Kensington Runestone is a gravestone-sized slab of hard, gray sandstone called graywacke into which Scandinavian runes are cut. It stands on display in Alexandria, Minnesota, as a unique record of either Norse exploration of North America or Minnesota’s most brilliant and durable hoax.

Blackface Minstrelsy in Minnesota

Blackface minstrelsy was born out of New England in the early nineteenth century and reached the peak of its national popularity in the mid-1800s. The performances put on by blackface actors electrified audiences across the country, who were typically white people. Their reception in Minnesota was no different.

Ginseng Boom in Rice County, 1858–1859

The demand for American ginseng (panax quinquefolius), which grew abundantly in the “Big Woods,” reached its peak in 1859. Following a nationwide economic panic in 1857, and near crop failure for Rice County in 1858, many locals found themselves in dire circumstances. Enticed by ginseng’s profitability and local abundance, settler-colonists were quickly overcome by “ginseng fever,” which led many to dig up as much of the aromatic green root as they could. However, it was not long before excessive exploitation depleted easily accessed ginseng and the rising grain market encouraged farmers to work the land again.

Eugenics in Minnesota

Eugenics, meaning “good stock,” is a scientific doctrine of race. It aims to produce what are considered good racial traits and eliminate those deemed harmful or defective, with the goal of reaching an ideal of purity. To the people eugenics policies targeted, it said that their physical or mental differences made them deficient or immoral. It further implied that, due to characteristics deemed “undesirable” or low IQ-test scores, their lives were not worth living.

Pearson’s Nut Goodie Candy Bar

The Pearson’s Candy Company has produced some of Minnesota’s best-loved candies since its founding in 1909. The milk chocolate-coated Nut Goodie, introduced in 1912, has survived several changes in company ownership and a temporary departure from its original recipe to remain a regional favorite.

Nerstrand Meats and Catering

In 1890, Adam Roth and his son, William E., established a butcher business in Nerstrand (Rice County) that grew to specialize in smoked and grilled meats—particularly bologna and wieners. In 2019 the family-owned enterprise, Nerstrand Meats and Catering, celebrated 129 years of continuous operation.

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Thing