March 26, 2021 Fire safety pamphlet from the Women's Civil Defense Council collection. This flyer makes me think of those safety films we had to watch in grade school. I remember a long walk through the bowels of the [...]
September 2, 2020 Of all the public high schools in Minneapolis, Central High had the honor of being the first. The roots of Central High School took hold in the 1860s, when Union Elementary School added high school level education to [...]
April 6, 2020 “Minnie” seems like such a diminutive name for a 10,000-ton naval cruiser designed to carry up to four airplanes. But that’s exactly what the crew decided to call the USS Minneapolis (CA-36) when she went into service in [...]
March 30, 2020 "We are still marching on ... Let's keep in touch" Company B Last Man Club was an organization of Spanish-American War Veterans from Company B of the 13th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. The Thirteenth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry served during the [...]
March 4, 2020 Commedia Theater Company was a professional, improvisational touring theater from 1975 until the early-1990s. It specialized in outdoor park performances and toured across seven states within the Midwest and Canada. Former members of Shakespeare in the Streets Company created Commedia [...]
November 1, 2019 Hennepin History Museum’s archive collection of Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) materials offers a glimpse into the world of highway construction planning. The materials in the collection are mainly impartial data collected for right of way surveys done in the 1950s through the 1970s. This small [...]
June 19, 2019 Usually the first location that comes to mind when thinking about topic of slavery is the southern United States. However, Minnesota, “the Star of the North,” has a long and dark history as part of the nation’s greatest shame. The most infamous case of [...]
March 26, 2019 In celebration of International Women’s Month it seems appropriate to explore one of the many untold stories surrounding the women of Hennepin County. Being a woman, much less a mother, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was no easy feat. Women were [...]
March 1, 2019 Image from HHM Archives The Dakota, like many American Indian communities, passed down information orally over generations, without incident. However, during ever-important treaty negotiations, under the pressure of white settlers to cede territory, the Dakota were [...]
November 20, 2018 In July of 1911, a week-long civic celebration was held to honor and advertise the city of Minneapolis. The festival had been proposed by the city’s Publicity Club, and organization of advertisers founded four years earlier. It was [...]
