Francis H. Shoemaker’s 1931–1932 journey from a Leavenworth prison cell to a seat in the U.S. Congress ranks among Minnesota’s most bizarre political odysseys. But little about Shoemaker surprised those following the meteoric career of the radical newspaper editor from Red Wing.
Two Jewish homes for the poor and elderly operated in the Twin Cities area through most of the twentieth century. They merged in 1971, then merged again in 1995 with another agency devoted to eldercare to form Sholom Community Alliance. Sholom operates two campuses, one in St. Louis Park and the other in St. Paul.
Born and raised in St. Paul, educated there and at the University of Minnesota, Max Shulman published seven successful novels and two collections of short stories, wrote or co-wrote three Broadway plays and five Hollywood movies, and produced two popular TV series, most famously The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.
Established by fur trader and politician Henry Hastings Sibley, the Sibley Historic Site was a regional headquarters of the American Fur Company between 1836 and 1842. It sits on a bluff on the south side of the Minnesota river, just east of Historic Fort Snelling, and is a symbol of the thriving fur trade in nineteenth-century Minnesota. Today, the site contains several original buildings and operates as a museum that offers public tours.
Henry Hastings Sibley occupied the stage of Minnesota history for fifty-six active years. He was the territory's first representative in Congress (1849–1853) and the state's first governor (1858–1860). In 1862 he led a volunteer army against the Dakota under Ta Oyate Duta (His Red Nation, also known as Little Crow). After his victory at Wood Lake and his rescue of more than two hundred white prisoners, he was made a brigadier general in the Union Army.
Raised in a large Catholic family in North Minneapolis, Hilda Simms became a national celebrity for her leading role in the first all-Black performance of the Broadway show Anna Lucasta. Frustrated by her struggling career and the lack of roles for Black actors, Simms worked as the creative director for the New York State Human Rights Commission to address racial discrimination in the entertainment industry.
Launched in 1890, Hesper was a bulk freighter with a forward pilot-house, designed to haul loads like grain and iron ore across the Great Lakes. With masts and a steam engine, Hesper was a hybrid that reflected the transition from wind-powered vessels to mechanically propelled ships.
The Sister Kenny Institute, opened in 1942, was a world-renowned center for polio treatment. Founded by Australian nurse Elizabeth Kenny, it was an early leader in the field of rehabilitation medicine and remains a prominent center for rehabilitation treatment and research.
In 1851 Bishop Joseph Cretin needed help to preach the Catholic faith to the growing St. Paul community. In July of that year he asked the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in Missouri to assist him. Mother St. John Fournier and three Catholic sisters traveled to the city in the fall and quickly influenced the health and welfare of the region.
During World War I, African American Minnesotans wanted to serve their state and their nation. Historically, however, the U.S. military had been racist in its recruiting. It allowed African Americans to serve only in segregated units. Facing this institutional racism, the African American community of Minnesota asked Governor J.A.A. Burnquist to form an all-African American battalion of the Minnesota Home Guard. The Sixteenth Battalion became the first Minnesota-recruited African American military unit in state history.
The Sixth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry performed crucial frontier service during the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862 and into 1863. Their first experience in the South involved horrible attrition due to disease. Yet the regiment held together, and they took part in one of the final Southern campaigns in 1865.
Minnesota's worst known encounter with smallpox came in 1924 and 1925. Five hundred people died—four hundred of them in the Twin Cities. Almost 90 percent of the Twin Cities deaths took place in Minneapolis.
In 1941, Minneapolis leftists from the Socialist Workers Party and Teamsters union local 544 were accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government under the Alien Registration Act. Twenty-eight were indicted; eighteen were convicted and sentenced to prison.
Alice Gustava Smith, better known by her students and readers as Sister Maris Stella, taught English at the College of St. Catherine (now St. Catherine University) in St. Paul for nearly fifty years. During that time she also published books of verse that built her reputation as a skilled and spiritual poet.
Lena Olive Smith was a prominent civil rights lawyer and activist during the 1920s and 1930s. She made major contributions toward securing civil rights for minorities in the Twin Cities. Smith began fighting for the rights of others when she became the first African American woman licensed to practice law in Minnesota in 1921. She was the only African American woman to practice law in the state until 1945.
For a single trading season between the fall of 1804 and the spring of 1805, the Snake River Fur Post was an epicenter of the Upper Mississippi fur trade. The stockaded structure, supervised by veteran trader John Sayer, was a place where employees of the North West Fur Company came together with Ojibwe and Metis hunters and trappers. The Minnesota Historical Society rebuilt the post’s buildings and opened them as a historic site in 1970.
Bravery at the Battle of Tippecanoe and during the War of 1812 distinguished the military career of Colonel Josiah Snelling, but he is best known for commanding Fort Snelling in the 1820s. It was the first permanent U.S. government outpost in what would become the state of Minnesota.
Virginia's Socialist Opera House was one of many halls built in communities across the nation where concentrations of Finnish immigrants had settled. Used for dances, gymnastic performances, and stage plays, the halls also provided meeting places for like-minded Finns, many of them laborers who embraced socialist ideals.
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.
The Solomon G. Comstock House is a Queen Anne/Eastlake-style Victorian home that was built by one of the city of Moorhead’s first citizens, Solomon G. Comstock, in the years 1882–1883. It is a historic house museum and one of the twenty-six historic sites owned by the Minnesota Historical Society.
Although the first Somalis to arrive in Minnesota were students and scholars, the majority of Somalis who live in the state in the 2010s came as refugees fleeing a civil war in their homeland. Like earlier immigrant communities, Somalis have struggled to figure out where they belong and how to maintain cultural traditions as they adjust to living in a new place. They have faced unique challenges as African Muslims living in a historical moment (post-9/11) when their religion is being scrutinized and their home country is in the news for instances of Islamic terrorism and piracy.
The Somali Museum of Minnesota was founded in 2013 to preserve Somali culture and tradition through art exhibits, educational programs, and dance. Since then, the Minneapolis-based nonprofit has become more visible to Somali Americans across the United States as it expands efforts to showcase its growing artifact collections and traditional Somali dance across North America.
Somali poetry is a unique art form with an ancient history and a living legacy. Since 1991, it has connected Somali and Somali American refugees living in the United States with those who remain in their East African homeland. In the twenty-first century, Somali Minnesotans have kept their poetic traditions alive by forming arts groups, organizing public performances in the Twin Cities, and encouraging young people to become poets.
Cottonwood County citizens have participated in local chapters of the national Sons of Norway organization, called lodges, since 1938. Since 1974, Stavanger Lodge 538 has brought members together to participate in cultural, artistic, and community events that celebrate Norwegian American traditions.
When it opened at the corner of Marquette Avenue and Fifth Street in 1915, the Soo Line-First National Bank Building was the tallest skyscraper in Minneapolis and also among the most elegant.