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.

By the late 1950s Minnesota’s legislative districts—last configured in 1913—had become alarmingly imbalanced. Though the state constitution required the districts to be drawn “in proportion to population,” the populations of House districts ranged from 7,290 residents to 107,246, and Senate districts from 16,878 to 153,455. It would take fourteen years, three federal lawsuits, three special sessions of the legislature, three governor’s vetoes, one trip to the Minnesota Supreme Court, and one to the US Supreme Court to fix the problem, and then temporarily. Twenty years and one more governor’s veto later, the US Supreme Court intervened again.

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.

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.

The founders of the United States—anxious about the fragile republican experiment they’d embarked on—knew that the nation needed an educated citizenry. They did not know, however, how to get there. The American decision to educate its citizens at public expense was an idea as radical as the revolution itself. The story of public education in Minnesota, then, tells about the aspiration, invention, and development of a great national idea into a state-wide practice and about women’s key role in carrying out that great idea.

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.

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.