• Clear Filters

Ramsey County History Fall 2024

John W. Diers, Jim McCartney, Adam Bledsoe

Ramsey County History Fall 2024 Volume 59, No. 4: Fall 2024 John W. Diers, Jim McCartney, Adam Bledsoe Link to download PDF of full Ramsey County History Fall 2024   Articles in this issue: Growing Up on the Empire Builder Author: John W. Diers John W. Diers’…

Communist Clarence Hathaway and His Powerful Impact on Minnesota Politics

Jim McCartney

The Communist Party played an influential role in Farmer-Labor Party politics in the 1930s and early ’40s, thanks, in part, to relationships that Minnesota-born Clarence Hathaway developed with Gov. Floyd B. Olson and Gov. Elmer Benson. Hathaway image in Minneapolis Newspaper Photograph Collection, courtesy of Hennepin County Library; Olson/Benson images…

Clarence Hathaway and the 1934 Riot at Madison Square Garden

Jim McCartney

By Jim McCartney How did Minnesota native Clarence Hathaway find himself bruised, beaten, and dangling from a railing in front of a packed house at Madison Square Garden in New York City? The year was 1934. The poverty and social unrest from the Great Depression had warmed many citizens in America…

March of the Governors: Jesse Ventura

Paul Nelson, Matt Wright, and Ken Peterson

To call our thirty-eighth governor, Jesse Ventura, unique is to engage in understatement. He was Minnesota’s first third-party governor since Elmer Benson in 1936. Though he ran on the Reform Party ticket, that party elected no one else, so he had no allies in the legislature. His plurality, 37% of…

March of the Governors, Governor #36: Rudy Perpich Part II

Paul Nelson and Anne Field

Part II: Following his gubernatorial defeat in 1978, Rudy Perpich (1928-1995) spent a few years in Vienna, Austria, working as a trade representative for Control Data Corporation, but it wasn’t long before he began planning another run for the state’s highest role. Voters remembered him fondly and ushered him back…

March of the Governors: Rudy Perpich

Paul Nelson and Anne Field

March of the Governors, Governor #34 Rudy Perpich (Series Podcast #37) Part I: Rudy Perpich (1928-1995) served as Minnesota’s thirty-fourth governor in the years 1977 and 1978. He got there by succession when Wendell Anderson resigned. Perpich then appointed Anderson…

March of the Governors: Karl Fritjof Rolvaag

Tom Beer, Paul Nelson

March of the Governors, Governor #31 Karl Fritjof Rolvaag (Series Podcast #34) Karl Fritjof Rolvaag (1913-1990) grew up in Northfield, the son of acclaimed novelist Ole Rolvaag. Upon his father’s untimely death in 1931, Rolvaag roamed the West for five years, working…

History Revealed: Defying the Silence

Julie Ayer

Defying the Silence: A Chronicle of Resilience that Saved the World-Renowned Minnesota Orchestra Julie Ayer History Revealed Series Program Date: Thursday, November 30, 2023 Video on YouTube In partnership with the East Side Freedom Library & Roseville Library In this extraordinary example…

March of the Governors: Orville Freeman

Paul Nelson and Tom O'Connell

March of the Governors, Governor #29 Orville Lothrop Freeman (Series Podcast #32) Orville Lothrop Freeman (1918-2003) was, like governors Floyd Olson and Luther Youngdahl before him, a product of the streets and schools of Minneapolis: His parents ran a clothing store on…