Catalog
March of the Governors, Governor #19 Joseph AA Burnquist
Paul Nelson and Fred JohnsonMarch of the Governors, Governor #19 Joseph Alfred Arner Burnquist (Series Podcast #20) Joseph Alfred Arner Burnquist (1879-1961), born in Dayton, Iowa, was destined for leadership from an early age. A star student and orator at Carleton, he was in the…
March of the Governors, Governor #18 Winfield Scott Hammond
Paul Nelson and Ken PetersonMarch of the Governors, Governor #18 Winfield Scott Hammond (Series Podcast #19) Winfield Scott Hammond (1863-1915) was Minnesota’s eighteenth governor and the last of only four from the Democratic Party (decades before, by merger, it became the DFL.) He was the…
March of the Governors, Governor #17, Adolph Olson Eberhart
Paul Nelson and Ken PetersonAdolph Eberhart Podcast Link Adolph Eberhart (1870-1944) was a penniless, immigrant child from Varmland, Sweden, who embraced the opportunities the United States offered. Despite minimal schooling, he was named valedictorian of his class at Gustavus Adolphus College. He later became…
March of the Governors, Governor #16, John Albert Johnson
Paul Nelson and Ken PetersonJohn Albert Johnson Podcast Link Minnesota’s sixteenth governor, John Albert Johnson, was our fourth from St. Peter. He had a “rags-to-riches Horatio Alger life.” The son of Swedish immigrants, he quit school at age twelve to support his mother and siblings. Self-educated, he eventually became a newspaper…
March of the Governors, Governor #15, Samuel Van Sant
Paul Nelson and Tom O'ConnellSamuel Van Sant was Minnesota’s fifteenth governor—the first to serve in the twentieth century and the first to occupy the current capitol. After three years of combat duty in the Union cavalry (1861-1864), Van Sant joined the family steamboat business in LeClaire, Iowa. In 1883, he moved…
March of the Governors, Governor #14, John Lind
Paul Nelson and Fred JohnsonThree-term US congressman John Lind, a traditional Republican with a stream of populism coursing through his veins, made a major political course change in 1894. Unhappy with Republican policies, Lind, the first Swedish-American elected to Congress, opted not to run for a fourth term and quit the…
March of the Governors, Governor #13, David Marston Clough
Paul Nelson and Matt WrightDavid Marston Clough was a lumber baron and politician who served as Minnesota’s Republican governor from 1895 to 1899. Born in New Hampshire in 1846, he moved with his family to Spencer Brook Township, Minnesota, in 1857. He was successful in the lumber business and moved into politics,…
March of the Governors, Governor #12, Knute Nelson
Paul Nelson and Tyler TaylorKnute Nelson (1843-1923) spent two years as governor of Minnesota on his way to becoming a representative in the US Senate, where he served for twenty-eight years. Nelson was the first prominent Scandinavian-American politician in Minnesota and in the United States. He immigrated from Voss, Norway, to…
March of the Governors, Governor #11, William Merriam
Tom O'Connell and Paul NelsonWilliam Merriam (1849-1931) was the first Minnesota governor born into wealth and the first to break an unwritten code of the Minnesota Republican Party when he wrested the party’s nomination from the incumbent governor, Andrew McGill, in 1888. He proved a much better vote-getter than McGill (that…