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March of the Governors #22: Floyd B. Olson

Paul Nelson, Fred Johnson, and Tom Beer

March of the Governors #22 Floyd Bjornstjerne Olson (Series Podcast #23) By age thirty, Floyd Bjornstjerne Olson (1891-1936) had been a shabbos goy, a college dropout, a stevedore, and a Wobbly. By age forty, he had served ten years as Hennepin County…

Ramsey County History – Spring 2022: “The Man and the Can: Patrick J. Towle and the St. Paul Origins of Log Cabin Syrup”

Matthew M. Thomas

The Man and the Can: Patrick J. Towle and the St. Paul Origins of Log Cabin Syrup Author: Mathew M. Thomas In 1888, after a grocery business failed in Chicago, Patrick J. Towle relocated to St. Paul with a new focus on packaging and selling a single product—maple-flavored syrup. Settling on…

History Revealed: Harriet Scott

Jane Henderson

Settler Colonialism Seen Through the Life of Harriet Scott With Jane Henderson History Revealed Series Program Date: Thursday, February 10, 2022 Video on YouTube In partnership with the East Side Freedom Library and the Roseville Library. Scholars of institutionalized racism have used the term…

Mairs & Power at 90: A Rich History, A Bright Future

Dave Beal

Over the last nine decades, nearly all the firms in the tumultuous and unforgiving financial services industry have been rolled up, split up, spun out, or blown up. A shining exception: St. Paul’s Mairs & Power, the oldest continuously independent investment management firm in Minnesota and one of relatively few…

Ramsey County History – Summer 2021: “How It Started; How It’s Going: Land O’Lakes Celebrates Ten Decades of Innovation”

Karen Mellott-Fosier

How It Started; How It’s Going: Land O’Lakes Celebrates Ten Decades of Innovation Author: Karen Mellott-Fosier Arden Hills-based Land O’Lakes, Inc. celebrates a milestone birthday in 2021. A century ago on June 7, 1921, representatives from 320 of the state’s co-op creameries gathered in the old state capitol…

History Revealed: Sinking Middle Class

David Roediger, August Nimtz, Kieran Knutson, Megan Brown

The Sinking Middle Class David Roediger with August Nimtz, Kieran Knutson and Megan Brown History Revealed Series Program Date: 02/11/2021 Video on YouTube In partnership with the East Side Freedom Library. “Middle class” is an ideologically shaped and deployed term in American culture…

History Revealed: Connemara Irish

Jane Kennedy

The Connemara Irish, Despair in the Heartland Jane Kennedy History Revealed Series Program Date: August 27, 2020 YouTube Video When people living in the Connemara region of Western Ireland were offered assistance to escape from the ravages of famine and disease, they knew little…

Ramsey County History – Fall 2019: “Creating Communities of Interest: James J. Hill and the Minnesota Transfer”

Brian McMahon

Creating Communities of Interest: James J. Hill and the Minnesota Transfer Author: Brian McMahon Railroad magnate James J. Hill was a busy man with little patience for inefficiencies. So he initiated a partnership that some might consider counterintuitive. Hill met with other railroad directors—intense competitors—to collaborate, coordinate, and…

Metropolitan Dreams: The Scandalous Rise and Stunning Fall of a Minneapolis Masterpiece

Reviewer: Alan K. Lathrop

Metropolitan Dreams: The Scandalous Rise and Stunning Fall of a Minneapolis Masterpiece Author: Larry Millett Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018 248 pages; hardcover/cloth jacket; 140 b&w photos; $29.95 Larry Millett, author of Metropolitan Dreams: The Scandalous Rise and Stunning Fall of a Minneapolis Masterpiece, has done an…