Catalog
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…
Ramsey County History – Spring 2022: “Six Decades Making Music and Memories: Minnesota Boychoir”
Barbara W. SommerSix Decades Making Music and Memories: Minnesota Boychoir Author: Barbara W. Sommer Sixty years ago, father and son—Morris M. Nilsen and Morris A. Nilsen—wished to give back to their community, and, so, they founded the Morris Nilsen Boys Choir, featuring the high treble voices of young, male singers. In the first…
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,…
A Natural Curiosity: The Story of the Bell Museum
Reviewer: Anne FieldA Natural Curiosity: The Story of the Bell Museum Lansing Shepard, Don Luce, Barbara Coffin, and Gwen Schagrin Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2022 400 pages; cloth cover/jacket, 310 color plates, $34.95 The Bell Museum, located on the edge of the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul…
Whiteness in Plain View: A History of Racial Exclusion in Minnesota
Reviewer: Renoir GaitherChad Montrie St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2022 272 pages; 26 b/w photos and 4 maps, notes, bibliography, index; $19.95 Reviewed by Renoir Gaither Chad Montrie’s book, Whiteness in Plain View: A History of Racial Exclusion in Minnesota, examines racial exclusion around job and housing discrimination meted…
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…