Catalog
Ramsey County History Fall 2024
John W. Diers, Jim McCartney, Adam BledsoeRamsey 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 McCartneyThe 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…
Rise to the Challenge: A Memoir of Politics, Leadership, and Love
Reviewed by Anne CowieRise to the Challenge: A Memoir of Politics, Leadership, and Love Marlene M. Johnson Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2024 248 pages; cloth/jacket, 15 b&w plates, $24.95 Marlene Johnson came to leadership early. When she was just thirty-seven, she became Minnesota’s first woman lieutenant governor, assuming that position…
March of the Governors: Mark Dayton
Tom Beer and Paul NelsonMark Dayton, Minnesota’s fortieth governor, was the oldest to assume that office for the first time at sixty-three. He stepped into the role with vast political experience. In the 1970s, he served as legislative aide and Minnesota Economic Development commissioner and later worked four years as state auditor and six…
March of the Governors: Tim Pawlenty
Paul Nelson and Ken PetersonTim Pawlenty grew up in a family of South St. Paul Democrats but embraced Republicanism as a teenager. He was a hard worker and excellent student in public schools and at the University of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota Law School. He was hired by a prestigious Minneapolis law…
March of the Governors: Jesse Ventura
Paul Nelson, Matt Wright, and Ken PetersonTo 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: Arne Carlson
Paul Nelson and Tom BeerArne Carlson, Minnesota’s thirty-seventh governor, was a Swede and a progressive Republican, like several before him, but unlike them, too. He grew up poor in New York City and had no connection to the dominant Harold Stassen political lineage. Carlson came to Minnesota for graduate school—then won election after election:…
Decisions, Destiny, and Dreams: Plympton’s Reserve, St. Paul’s Founding, and Desnoyer’s New Bridge Square
Drew M. RossThe Desnoyer Halfway House located on the St. Anthony Falls-St. Paul Road attracted soldiers from Fort Snelling, residents from growing villages along the Mississippi, and tourists traveling to the area to glimpse the cascading St. Anthony Falls. Courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society. By Drew M. Ross To see this…
March of the Governors, Governor #36: Rudy Perpich Part II
Paul Nelson and Anne FieldPart 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…