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Minnesota Experience
Minnesota Orchestra at One Hundred: a Collection of Essays and Images (2002)
The history of the Minnesota Orchestra depicted in essays, photographs, and other writings. Published in the 100th anniversary year of the orchestra.
Chester Anderson, ed. - Growing Up in Minnesota: Ten Writers Remember Their Childhoods (1976)
Ten Minnesota authors, including Meridel Le Sueur and Robert Bly, describe their childhood and coming-of-age experiences in Minnesota. The resulting sketches provide an intimate glimpse into varied communities and landscapes, ranging from north Minneapolis to northern Minnesota.
Heidi Bauer, ed. - The Privilege for Which We Struggled: Leaders of the Womans Suffrage Movement in Minnesota (1999)
Biographical portraits of 25 Minnesota women who led the fight for women’s right to vote. Quotations and vintage photographs accompany each profile.
Marjorie M. Douglas - Eggs in the Coffee, Sheep in the Corn: My 17 Years as a Farm Wife (1994)
In 1943, the Douglas family moved from the suburbs to the family farm. Her "warts and all" account captures the transitions in farming as well as the trials and tribulations of farm life. Written fifty years later, this is a refreshing, honest account of Midwestern farm life.
Marjorie M. Douglas - Barefoot on Crane Island (1998)
A local author shares her pleasant memories of spending summers with her family on a remote island in Lake Minnetonka in the early 1900's.
Michael Dregni - Minnesota Days: Our Heritage in Stories, Art, and Photos (1999)
This attractive book combines work by prominent Minnesota artists, photographers and authors (Garrison Keillor, Meridel LeSueur, Jim Northrup, Jon Hassler and others) to tell the story of Minnesota's history and peoples. Explore the culture of Minnesota's early and contemporary Native Americans, 19th century settlers, St. Paul's African-American community, small-town life and more.
Jack El-Hai - Lost Minnesota: Stories of Vanished Places (2000)
The first book to showcase Minnesota's forgotten landmarks, this beautifully illustrated volume highlights architectural oddities and lifestyles of days gone by. Includes landmarks from rural and small town Minnesota as well as the urban landscape.
Evelyn Fairbanks - The Days of Rondo (1990)
In this fond reminiscence, Fairbanks describes growing up in the 1930s and 1940s in the vibrant Rondo district of St. Paul. The author chronicles the lives of many remarkable people in St. Paul’s African American community, and muses on “being black in Minnesota.”
Catherine Friend - Hit by a Farm: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn (2006)
When Catherine Friend’s partner of twelve years decides she wants to fulfill her lifelong dream of owning a farm, Catherine agrees. What ensues is a crash course in both living off and with the land.
Stephen Graubard, ed. - Minnesota, Real & Imagined: Essays on the State and Its Culture (2001)
This anthology contains essays focusing on the state-of-the-state from its founding to the present. The writers examine Minnesota’s history, landscape, spirituality, politics, and culture.
Paul Gruchow - Travels in Canoe Country (1992)
A contemplative account of a canoe trip through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, accompanied by beautiful photographs.
John Henricksson - A Wild Neighborhood (1997)
A collection of essays about Henricksson's neighbors - black bear, wolf, jays, deer, raven, moose, and more. Chapters are scattered with information about these creatures, and anecdotes describe the relationships that develop between Henricksson and his wildlife friends.
Steven R. Hoffbeck - The Haymakers: A Chronicle of Five Farm Families (2000)
The author follows five rural Minnesota families over 150 years, documenting their struggles and joys in farming the land. Diaries, old farming books, and interviews are used to highlight the haymaking process in particular and farm family history in general. Minnesota Book Award winner.
Bill Holm - The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth: Minneota, Minnesota (1996)
Holm captures the heart and spirit of those who might be called "failures" in the modern world, the Icelandic emigrants of Minneota. An affectionate reminiscence, complete with brown bread recipes.
William H. Hull - All Hell Broke Loose: The Story of How Young Minnesota People Coped with the November 11, 1940 Armistice Day Storm, the Worst Blizzard Ever to Hit Minnesota (1985)
Armistice Day, 1940 started as a warm day, but then one of the worst snowstorms in Minnesota’s history struck without warning. In a flurry of personal accounts, over 100 Minnesotans recount their experiences of surviving the blizzard.
Julie Landsman - A White Teacher Talks about Race (2001)
Veteran teacher Landsman takes us into her multi-ethnic classroom, speaking honestly about issues including race, poverty, white privilege and how they affect her students and their lives. She brings keen observation and empathy to her observation of the daily trials and triumphs of her class.
William E. Lass - Minnesota: A History (1998)
This readable volume tells the story of Minnesota from its beginnings to the end of the twentieth century. The author, a professor of history and director of the Southern Minnesota Historical Center, focuses on the geography, economic history, and political and cultural trends that have made Minnesota unique.
Leehan, Brian. Pale Horse at Plum Run : the First Minnesota at Gettysburg. 2002
Drawing on soldiers’ personal accounts, this book describes the fate of the First Minnesota Regiment at the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War.
Roger Allan MacDonald - A Country Doctor's Casebook: Tales from the North Woods ( 2002)
In the years after WWII, young Roger MacDonald became the doctor in one of the most remote regions of northern Minnesota; an area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. A "Country Doctor" for nearly 40 years, he relates the stories of that region and the people he cared for.
Peg Meier - Too Hot, Went to Lake: Seasonal Photos from Minnesota's Past (1993)
Star Tribune reporter Meier went to historical societies across the state to find these enchanting vintage photographs of Minnesota residents. Organized by season, the photos and accompanying entries – many from diaries and letters – portray scenes from the 19th and 20th centuries, including lumberjacks, Ojibwa Indians gathering wild rice, Minneapolis streetcars, and the Bald Headed Men’s Club of St. Cloud.
Lucy Leavenworth Wilder Morris, ed. - Old Rail Fence Corners: Frontier Tales Told by Minnesota Pioneers (1976)
Initially published in 1914, this collection of first-hand anecdotes from more than 100 women and men provides a compelling account of daily life as experienced by some of Minnesota’s first white settlers in the mid-1800’s.
Peter Razor - While the Locust Slept (2001)
Peter Razor chronicles his survival of abuse and bigotry at a state orphanage in the 1930s and the brutal farm indenture that followed.
Cheri Register - Packinghouse Daughter (2000)
In 1959, meatpackers in Albert Lea, MN went on strike. The daughter of a meatpacker, Sheri Register writes a moving memoir of both the strike and growing up in the 1950's.
Barton Sutter - Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map (1998)
Originally aired on Minnesota Public Radio, these essays about the people and places of Duluth and the Arrowhead region are funny, observant, grumpy and delightful. Minnesota Book Award Winner.