Conservative lawyer John F. McGee was the dominant personality on the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, the body that governed Minnesota during World War I. Under McGee’s leadership, the commission demanded unquestioning support for the war effort and suppressed possible German American dissent. After the war, McGee became a federal judge who was well known for the heavy sentences he imposed on bootleggers.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Evangeline Whipple used her wealth to improve the lives of women, people of color, and the poor. She supported social justice for Native Americans in Minnesota, for African Americans in Florida, and for villagers and World War I refugees in Bagni di Lucca, Italy.

In December of 1916, mill workers at the Virginia and Rainy Lake Lumber Company went on strike, and lumberjacks soon followed. The company police and local government tried to crush the strike by running the lumberjacks out of town, but when the strike was called off in February, the company had granted most of the workers’ demands.

During World War I, families began to hang flags in their windows that displayed a gold star for each relative killed in military service. The title “gold star mother” was used unofficially to describe a woman who had lost a child in service until the national organization American Gold Star Mothers, Inc., was established in 1929. Many Minnesota mothers claimed membership, and local Minnesota chapters followed.

On the bluffs above New Ulm stands a statue of Hermann, a first-century German chieftain who triumphed over Rome. This copper-sheet sculpture reflects the pride the early German American immigrants to Minnesota felt in their cultural background. Built in 1897 with funds raised from Sons of Hermann lodges all over the country, the monument is now owned by the City of New Ulm.

Platteville limestone is a distinctive building stone of southeastern Minnesota and southwestern Wisconsin characterized by its gray color, rough texture, and many fossils. It was heavily used in the early decades of the building of the Twin Cities and Faribault.

In the years leading up to and immediately following World War I, African Americans in St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Duluth established separate chapters of the recently formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

At the close of World War I, the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) was the only centralized veterans’ organization prepared to help returning soldiers re-enter civilian life and to assist the families of the deceased. The American Legion formed soon after the war in order to serve veterans returning from Europe. Minnesota’s department of the Legion answered the call, creating programs that assisted veterans and led the way for the organization.

Douglas Volk was an American painter and arts educator. He was the founding director of the Minneapolis School of Arts and provided two paintings to the Minnesota State Capitol.

The earthquake that rattled a large portion of central and northern Minnesota on September 3, 1917, while small by historical standards, fascinated many Minnesotans. In the days after the quake, exaggerated accounts and faulty expert analysis reflected the state’s inexperience with geological convulsions.