Minnesota History - the history of Minnesota

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Vacation 2 USA > Minnesota > History
Vacation 2 USA > History > Minnesota History

Minnesota History

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the area that has since become the state of Minnesota was populated by a variety of Native American peoples including the Anishinaabe and the Sioux. French fur traders, who reached the area in the 17th century, were the first Europeans to arrive. Later in the century, they were followed by Ojibwe Indians who migrated Westward into the area.

Fort Snelling, Minnesota

The lands that were later to form the state of Minnesota was acquired by the United States in a two step process: the lands East of the Mississippi River were acquired by the 1783 Treaty of Paris at the end of the American Revolution (1775 to 1783), whereas the lands to the West of the Mississippi were purchased from France as part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.

The first American settlement of the region began in 1805, when Zebulon Pike acquired land in the area. This was followed by the construction of Fort Snelling, which took place between 1819 and 1825. The Minnesota Territory was formed on March 3rd 1849 by combining parts of the Iowa and Wisconsin Territories. The state of Minnesota, consisting of the eastern portion of the Minnesota Territory, was admitted as the 32nd state of the Union on May 11th 1858.

Treaties made between white settlers, and the Sioux and Ojibwe, gradually forced the Native Americans off their lands and into smaller and smaller reservations. The deteriorating conditions suffered by the Native Americans, eventually culiminated in the Sioux Uprising of 1862. The Sioux were defeated after a war lasting just 6 weeks, and, following the war, 38 Indians were executed in a mass execution and most of the rest set into exile in Nebraska.

Minnesota's economy was initially centered around logging and farming. However in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, industries began to emerge principally flour milling and iron-mining. Following World War II, farming was mechanized, and a number of new high technology industries began to emerge in the state.

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Minnesota, 1918: When Flu, Fire, and War Ravaged the State

By Curt Brown

Minnesota Historical Society Press
Released: 2018-02-15
Hardcover (304 pages)

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In 1918, Minnesota and its residents were confronted with a series of devastating events that put communities to the test, forcing them to persevere through untold hardship. First, as the nation immersed itself in the global conflict later known as World War I, some 118,000 Minnesotans served in the war effort, both at home and "over there"–and citizens on the home front were subjected to loyalty tests and new depths of government surveillance. While more than 1,400 Minnesotans were killed on the battlefields, an additional 2,300 soldiers were struck down by another destructive force working its way across the globe in 1918: the influenza pandemic, which left more than 10,000 dead in Minnesota alone. Then, in mid-October, fires raged across 1,500 square miles in seven counties of northeastern Minnesota, leaving thousands homeless and hundreds dead.

In Minnesota, 1918, journalist and author Curt Brown explores this monumental year through individual and community stories from all over the state, from residents of small towns up north obliterated by the fire, to government officials in metropolitan centers faced with the spread of a deadly and highly contagious disease, to soldiers returning home to all this from the "war to end all wars."

Thank You for Shopping: The Golden Age of Minnesota Department Stores

By Kristal Leebrick

Minnesota Historical Society Press
Released: 2018-11-01
Hardcover (224 pages)

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Throughout the twentieth century, department stores ruled the retail landscapes of downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. More than just shopping centers, stores like Dayton's, Powers, Donaldson's, Young-Quinlan, the Emporium, and the Golden Rule were centers of social life. From the legendary Dayton's Christmas displays to celebrating a special occasion at Schuneman's River Room, the department store was a destination for generations of Minnesotans, within the Twin Cities and beyond.

In Thank You for Shopping, author Kristal Leebrick presents the history and stories behind Minnesota's great department stores, offering a lively trip back to the glory days. Abundantly illustrated with vintage photos, postcards, advertisements, and artwork, the book explores the experience of shoppers and employees alike. Readers will revel in the fun, the fashion, and the thrill of discovery these stores provided.

The book also includes a chapter dedicated to the signature dishes—with recipes, menus, and photos—of the stores' esteemed dining establishments. And looking beyond the Twin Cities, Leebrick tells of beloved, locally owned stores in Brainerd (O’Brien's), Winona (Choate's), Duluth (Freimuth's), and other Minnesota cities and towns.

Thank You for Shopping is a nostalgic trip back for anybody who remembers the service, style, and charm of Minnesota's late, great department stores.

The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier

By Charles E. (Charles Eugene) Flandrau Released: 2012-05-12 Kindle Edition (439 pages)
Product Description: This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Creating Minnesota: A History from the Inside Out

By Annette Atkins

Brand: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Paperback (336 pages)

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Winner of a Spur Award, presented by the Western Writers of America (WWA), for the Best Western Nonfiction Historical Book.

Renowned historian Annette Atkins presents a fresh understanding of how a complex and modern Minnesota came into being in Creating Minnesota. Each chapter of this innovative state history focuses on a telling detail, a revealing incident, or a meaningful issue that illuminates a larger event, social trends, or politics during a period in our past.

A three-act play about Minnesota's statehood vividly depicts the competing interests of Natives, traders, and politicians who lived in the same territory but moved in different worlds. Oranges are the focal point of a chapter about railroads and transportation: how did a St. Paul family manage to celebrate their 1898 Christmas with fruit that grew no closer than 1,500 miles from their home? A photo essay brings to life three communities of the 1920s, seen through the lenses of local and itinerant photographers. The much-sought state fish helps to explain the new Minnesota, where pan-fried walleye and walleye quesadillas coexist on the same north woods menu.

In Creating Minnesota, Atkins invites readers to experience the texture of people's lives through the decades, offering a fascinating and unparalleled approach to the history of our state.

A Popular History of Minnesota

By Norman K. Risjord

Minnesota Historical Society Press
Paperback (256 pages)

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What do Paul Bunyan, Charles Lindbergh, and Jesse Ventura have in common? Minnesota, of course! In A Popular History of Minnesota, historian Norman K. Risjord offers a grand tour of the state's remarkable history. This highly readable volume details everything from the glacial formation of the land to the arrival of the Dakota and the Ojibwe people, from Minnesota's contributions to the Northern cause during the Civil War to the key players in reform politics who helped sculpt the identity the state retains today.

A Popular History of Minnesota highlights the historical significance of Minnesota's natural resources—the bountiful north woods, the treasured iron ranges, the impressive Mississippi waterfall on which the Mill City was built. It details the powerful marks left on the state by such luminous figures as Oliver H. Kelley, founder of the national Grange movement, Hubert H. Humphrey, champion of civil rights, and Betty Crocker, aid to homemakers everywhere. Lively side trips outline noteworthy subjects, from the Kensington runestone to the devastating forest fires of the 1890s and 1920s, from the rise of the Mayo Clinic to the preservation of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Handy travelers' guides highlight historic destinations for readers who enjoy seeing where history happened.

Fast-paced and informative, with generous illustrations, A Popular History of Minnesota is a must-read for newcomers and established Minnesotans alike.

Minnesota's Lost Towns Northern Edition

By Rhonda Fochs

North Star Press of St. Cloud
Paperback (240 pages)

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The long-awaited second book in the Minnesota’s Lost Towns series is now available. Travel along as we visit and learn about more than 125 central Minnesota locations. The book covers twenty-six of Minnesota’s central corridor counties, from east to west. Read how the towns were created, how they developed and lived, and why they died. Discover the people and places of Minnesota’s past. Filled with tales and photos, the book is a fun and educational read for anyone who loves history or a good story.

Lost Minnesota: Stories of Vanished Places

By Jack El-Hai

Brand: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Paperback (160 pages)

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Architecture/Regional

The first book to tour forgotten landmarks throughout the state of Minnesota.

Believe it or not, Minnesota's architectural landscape has included a house made from the fuselage of a B-29 bomber, a hotel that spent its final years as a chicken hatchery, a Civil War cemetery, a treehouse built and occupied year-round by an eccentric university professor, and a railway that once carried passengers up Duluth's steep incline from Lake Superior.

They are all gone now, along with countless houses, parks, bridges, theaters, sports stadiums, courthouses, and farm buildings in which Minnesotans have worked, played, and lived their lives. Though other books have looked at the lost architecture of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Jack El-Hai's Lost Minnesota is the first book to tell the stories of buildings and landmarks from rural and small-town Minnesota, as well as those of the residential and suburban areas of the state's largest cities.

From Rochester's Hotel Zumbro and the Charles H. Mayo House to the Hastings Spiral Bridge and the Lyceum Theater of Duluth, El-Hai rediscovers a lost landscape and the values and lifestyle of a bygone era. He tours not only Twin Cities buildings, such as the Fairoaks mansion, the Wilder Baths, and the Beyrer Brewery, but also its sites, such as the Wonderland amusement park, in order to re-create not only where but how Minnesotans lived.

Lost Minnesota presents eighty-nine beautifully illustrated stories about these fascinating places and those who built them, lived in them, and tore them down. This is a book sure to delight the Minnesota history enthusiast and anyone who is curious about the state's changing urban, small-town, and rural landscapes.

Jack El-Hai is a freelance journalist and columnist for Architecture Minnesota magazine, and the author of Minnesota Collects (1992) and (with Barbara Degroot) The Insiders' Guide to the Twin Cities (1995). He lives in Minneapolis.

Translation Inquiries: University of Minnesota Press

The North Star State: A Minnesota History Reader

Brand: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Paperback (486 pages)

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Two hundred years of Minnesota history spring to life in this lively and captivating collection of essays. The North Star State encompasses the wide range of Minnesota's unique past—from the Civil War to the World Wars, from frontier life to the age of technological innovation, from Dakota and Ojibwe history to the story of St. Paul's black sleeping-car porters, from lumber workers and truckers' strikes to the women's suffrage movement.

In addition to investigative articles by the state's top historians, editor Anne Aby has assembled captivating first-person accounts from key moments in Minnesota history, including George Nelson's reminiscences of his years in the early nineteenth-century fur trade; the diary of Emily Goodridge Grey, an early African American settler; and Jasper N. Searles's letters home from the Battle of First Bull Run.

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