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RCHS/TPT Film – North Star: Civil War Stories

RCHS and TPT

North Star Civil War Stories Ramsey County Historical Society is proud to partner with TPT-Twin Cities PBS to produce a ground-breaking new documentary, North Star: Civil War Stories, which uncovers hidden details of African-American men from Minnesota involved in the Civil War. Using emerging research and scholarship, North Star: Civil War…

The Crusade for Forgotten Souls: Reforming Minnesota’s Mental Institutions, 1946–1954

Reviewer: Gary Gleason

The Crusade for Forgotten Souls: Reforming Minnesota’s Mental Institutions, 1946–1954 Susan Bartlett Foote Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018 312 pages; soft cover; photos; $22.95 Susan Bartlett Foote has written an impressive book that combines a great story and exhaustive research about the early years of social…

Ramsey County History Podcast #10 – Spring 2018: Minnesota Caves: History and Lore

Paul Nelson and Greg Brick

Minnesota Caves: History and Lore No one knows more about subterranean St. Paul — the caves beneath our feet — than geologist and author Greg Brick. In his new book, Minnesota Caves: History and Lore, Brick describes the many caves, both natural and human-made, under St. Paul — their…

Ramsey County History – Winter 2018: “Another Siberia, Unfit for Human Habitation: Saint Paul’s Super Ice Palaces 1886, 1887, 1888”

Bob Olsen

Another Siberia, Unfit for Human Habitation: Saint Paul’s Super Ice Palaces 1886, 1887, 1888 Author: Bob Olsen When a New York newspaper correspondent criticized St. Paul in 1885 as “another Siberia, unfit for human habitation,” local boosters banded together and initiated St. Paul’s first Winter Carnival in February…

Ramsey County History – Winter 2018: “Growing Up in St. Paul: Fifteen Minutes with My Dad: Reginald Hopwood”

Victoria Hopwood

Growing Up in St. Paul Fifteen Minutes with My Dad: Reginald Hopwood Author: Victoria Hopwood This is a daughter’s tribute to her father, a waiter on the Great Northern Railway’s Empire Builder that ran between Chicago and the two Pacific coast cities of Portland and Seattle…

Ramsey County History – Winter 2018: “Terror Visits Fort Snelling: The 1940 Murder of Mary Jane Massey”

Steve Lydon

Terror Visits Fort Snelling: The 1940 Murder of Mary Jane Massey Author: Steve Lydon On the afternoon of July 13, 1940, thirteen-year-old Mary Jane Massey disappeared from the grounds of Fort Snelling, a quiet US Army base on the western outskirts of St. Paul. Mary Jane’s father…

The Scott Collection: Minnesota’s Black Community in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s

Reviewer: Earl Ross

The Scott Collection: Minnesota’s Black Community in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s Author: Walter R. Scott Sr. Introduction by Anthony R. Scott; Preface by Chaunda L. Scott; Foreword by William D. Green St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2018 500 pages; softcover; 500 photos; $29.95 Published previously…

Ramsey County History Podcast #9 – Fall 2017: Gibbs Farm

Paul Nelson

The Gibbs Farm The Gibbs Farm museum preserves remnants of both Indigenous and pioneer life from the mid-nineteenth century, right in the middle of a densely populated urban environment. There, you can find farm buildings from the Gibbs family, an archeological site, recreations of a sod hut,…

Ramsey County History – Fall 2007: “Growing Up in St. Paul: Frogtown’s Arundel Street”

James R. Brown

Growing Up in St. Paul: Frogtown’s Arundel Street Author: James R. Brown Driving through his old neighborhood brought back memories to James Brown, especially while he was looking at the Edmund Street home where he lived in the 1920 and ‘30s. One of his recollections was about climbing up…