Sigurd Ferdinand Olson was a prominent American conservationist in the twentieth century who is remembered for his work to preserve the northeast Minnesota wilderness. His career can be separated into two parts: the first as an educator and wilderness canoe guide, and the second as an author and national leader in conservation. He wrote and published eight books. His first book, The Singing Wilderness (1956), is perhaps his best-known work.

James Otis Powell (a.k.a. J. Otis Powell‽) was an influential Minnesota-based American spoken word poet. He was the founding producer of the award-winning Write On Radio! show at KFAI-FM in Minneapolis, an advisor for the Minnesota Spoken Word Association, a curator for Intermedia Arts, and a program director for the Loft Literary Center. He was also the recipient of numerous awards, including the Loft Creative Nonfiction Award, Jerome Foundation mid-career-artists grants, a Jerome Foundation travel-and-study grant, the Intermedia Arts Interdisciplinary McKnight fellowship, and the 2017 Sally Award at the Ordway Theater. The MN Spoken Word Association awarded Powell‽ its Urban Griot Innovator Award and inducted him into the MN Spoken Word Association Hall of Fame in 2009.

Harry Shepherd, an African American photographer who lived and worked in St. Paul between 1880 and 1905, became one of the most successful photographers in the city. Shepherd’s work earned awards and an opportunity to provide photographs for the American Negro Exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Politically active, he took part in the National Afro-American Council (NAAC), and ran for Fourth Ward alderman in 1902.

Carl Thomas Rowan was a prominent American journalist, author, and government official. A liberal commentator and champion for civil rights, Rowan published books and a variety of news columns syndicated across the US. He was one of the first commissioned black officers in the US Navy, and became the highest-ranking black government official of his time.

James Warren Northrup was an award-winning Ojibwe author, columnist, playwright, poet, performer, political commentator, and Vietnam War veteran. He wrote extensively on combat life as a marine in the Vietnam War and on daily life on the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation.

Osmund Osmundson, founder of Nerstrand, Minnesota, played a prominent role in a variety of local affairs, including business, civics, and education. He was one of several men who incorporated St. Olaf College in 1874. Built in 1880, his spacious brick house in Nerstrand was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

To sum up the broad scope of Oscar C. Howard’s life, one could say simply that he fed Minnesota— literally. The trained chef moved from managing large industrial cafeterias to owning successful catering businesses, which culminated in the development of the Meals on Wheels program. Many others were nourished in a more figurative sense through Howard’s teaching, mentorship, preaching, and philanthropy. Along the way, he broke through countless racial barriers, both official and unspoken.

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.

With a career spanning fifty years, Anna Arnold Hedgeman was an educator, civil rights advocate, and writer. In 1963, she was the only woman on the planning committee for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

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.