Whitewater is the sixth Minnesota state park, authorized by the legislature in 1919, and the first in the Driftless Area of dramatic bluffs, ravines, and promontories in the southeastern corner of the state.

Minneapolis real estate developers began writing racial covenants—race-based property ownership restrictions—into property deeds in 1910. They were banned by the Minnesota state legislature in 1953, but their use in the early twentieth century laid the foundation for contemporary racial disparities in Minnesota.

The Malt-O-Meal Company was founded by John S. Campbell in Owatonna in 1919 and grew to be one of the top cereal manufacturers in the country. Since 1927, Malt-O-Meal cereal products have been made in Northfield and sold internationally.

Over a quarter of a million Swedes came to Minnesota between 1850 and 1930, drawn primarily by economic opportunities not available to them at home. Once Swedish immigrant settlements were established in the state, they acted as magnets, creating migration chains that drew others. Attracted at first to rural areas by agricultural opportunities, Swedes eventually chose to move to cities as well. In the twenty-first century, Minnesota’s Swedish Americans continue to honor their ethnic roots through family traditions, public festivities, and education.

Scottish immigrants first came to Minnesota with the fur trade in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the 1850s, colonies of Scots began to put down roots in towns such as Mapleton and Caledonia, while others migrated to the larger cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth. Like other immigrants, they sought to preserve the customs of their homeland wherever they landed. They clubs they formed and the events they held allowed them to celebrate their heritage.

In the annals of Minneapolis crime one man occupies the place held by Al Capone in Chicago and Meyer Lansky in New York and Miami: Isadore Blumenfeld, also known as Kid Cann. He was a lifelong criminal who made fortunes in liquor, gambling, labor racketeering (all protected through political corruption), and real estate. Only late in life did he serve more than a year in prison. He retired in Florida and died rich.

The first female nominee of a major party for the US Senate, Anna Dickie Olesen was a celebrated orator and passionate social reformer who became one of the most prominent Democratic women of the early twentieth century.

The Gateway District was Minneapolis’s original downtown, where life revolved around mills and railroads. As aging buildings became boarding houses for the thousands of temporary workers who spent their off-seasons in Minneapolis, the neighborhood gained a seedy reputation and the nickname “Skid Row.” The twenty-five-block zone was targeted for decades by mission workers, city planners, and police as a hub of vice and firetrap buildings, but the redevelopment of the area failed to mitigate its decline after World War II.

The short-lived run of the Minneapolis Millerettes brought professional women’s baseball to the Twin Cities. While providing entertainment during wartime and highlighting women’s athleticism on a national scale, the female players struggled against press perceptions and male competition. Their two-year run was immortalized in the film A League of Their Own.

In the summer of 1939, workers went on strike across the nation to protest budget cuts to the Works Progress Administration imposed by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. While they did not bring about the act’s repeal, they kept their jobs and were allowed to return to work after the strike. Minnesota was the only state in which strikers faced criminal charges for preventing people from working.