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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: Charles W. Malchow

Dr. Ryan Hurt & Paul Nelson

Charles W. Malchow and the Story Behind “The Sexual Life” With Dr. Ryan Hurt with Paul Nelson History Revealed Series Program Date: April 22, 2021 Video on YouTube Viewer discretion advised. At the turn of the twentieth century, a progressive doctor named…

History Revealed: Booth Girls

Kim Heikkila

Booth Girls: Pregnancy, Adoption, and the Secrets We Kept Kim Heikkila, PhD History Revealed Series Program Date: Thursday, April 8, 2021 Video on YouTube In partnership with the East Side Freedom Library & Roseville Library “Booth Girls” is a thoughtful, multigenerational story of…

Ramsey County History – Winter 2021: “Take a Hike: A Century of Walks with the St. Paul Hiking Club”

Bob Tholkes, with Meredith Cummings

Take a Hike: A Century of Walks with the St. Paul Hiking Club Author: Bob Tholkes, with Meredith Cummings On January 15, 1921, twenty-five hardy young people bundled up in their warmest boots, knickers, hiking skirts, and woolen mittens and socks for a six-mile round-trip jaunt on the…

Ramsey County History – Winter 2021: “Growing Up Along the Mighty Mississippi: The Great Depression Through the Eyes of a Young ‘River Rat'”

Harriette Peterson Koopman, with Connie Koopman Pettersen

Growing Up Along the Mighty Mississippi: The Great Depression Through the Eyes of a Young “River Rat” Author: Harriette Peterson Koopman, with Connie Koopman Pettersen When Harriette Peterson Koopman was growing up during the Great Depression, she and her siblings were sometimes called “river rats” by classmates. The derogatory slur…

Ramsey County History – Fall 2020: “A Doctor Ahead of His Time and the Trouble that Followed: The Sexual Life by Charles W. Malchow”

Ryan T. Hurt and Paul Nelson

A Doctor Ahead of His Time and the Trouble that Followed: The Sexual Life by Charles W. Malchow Authors: Ryan T. Hurt and Paul Nelson At the turn of the twentieth century, a progressive doctor named Charles W. Malchow, who worked at Hamline University’s short-lived Department of Medicine, wrote…

Ramsey County History – Spring 2020: “Women and Children First: The Volunteers of America and Louis W. Hill Build Fresh Air Rest Camp”

Eileen R. McCormack and Aine C. McCormack

Women and Children First: The Volunteers of America and Louis W. Hill Build Fresh Air Rest Camp Authors: Eileen R. McCormack and Aine C. McCormack In the early 1920s, Irving and Martha Starr, a married couple employed by the Volunteers of America (VOA) approached St. Paul businessman…

Ramsey County History – Winter 2020: “Ramsey County’s ‘Boy Problem:’ Snapshots of Boys Totem Town”

Bobbie Scott

Ramsey County’s “Boy Problem” Snapshots of Boys Totem Town Author: Bobbie Scott When Boys Totem Town, a detention home on St. Paul’s east side, closed its doors in 2019, administrators, teachers, judges, and several men who once spent time there as boys, gathered to remember. The facility opened…

Ramsey County History – Summer 2019: “‘I’m as Restless as a Lion:’ The Aspirations of St. Paulite Ruth Cutler”

Johannes Allert

“I’m as Restless as a Lion:” The Aspirations of St. Paulite Ruth Cutler Author: Johannes Allert A young, affluent St. Paulite, Ruth Cutler searched for a purposeful life. A college-educated progressive, Ruth watched the world around her react to war, poverty, the suffrage movement, illness, and loss and responded…