Local History News: November 30, 2022

Field Note

We were out in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis for a Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Grant site visit at the American Swedish Institute (ASI). They received Legacy funding for critical repairs to the historic Turnblad Mansion’s limestone veranda following the discovery of accelerated deterioration.

Pictured are MNHS staff Ryan Maciej, Melinda Hutchinson, and John Beaty; ASI COO Peggy Korsmo-Kennon and Facilities Manager Nate Adelmann; and HGA architect Ginny Lackovic.

Heritage Preservation Grants

Spotlight Project: Digital Conversion of Cable Arts Consortium Video Collection 1983-1991
Minnesota Media Arts converted analog videotapes to digital media for approximately 60 programs compiled and collected by the Cable Arts Consortium between 1983 and 1991.

The grant project resulted in the creation of digitized video and audio files from more than a decade of Cable Arts Consortium programming and collecting of arts and culture video programs. These programs were assembled from Minnesota arts and cultural organizations, artists, and film & video makers, and are now preserved for historical, educational, and research purposes. The digitized files will be available through the MNMA archive, controlled access to online videos available for researchers, and a finding aid on their website. The finding aid and its additional content descriptive metadata will be searchable by our potential audience of scholars, students, architects, preservationists, and other interested parties. Because of the digital conversion, this valuable arts and cultural resource will be preserved and available for long-term use.
Recipient: Minnesota Media Arts
Funded Amount: $9,925
Project Details

December Grants Open House
December 1 - Online: The Grants Office will hold a virtual Grants Office Open House using Google Meet from 2 to 3:30 pm in order to provide wider support to our community. We encourage people to RSVP to Gillian by email with a short summary of what you want to talk about and she will try to ensure that someone helpful will be available. Learn more »

Small Grant Deadline
The next small grant deadline (requests of $10,000 or less) for the MHCHG program is Friday, January 13, 2023.

From the Blog

This week's blog post is from The Minnesota Historian. Have a blog? Let us know!

Solving the Mystery of a 150-Year-Old Photo
As this history blog has grown, I frequently have individuals reach out with historical questions. Most of these exchanges are quick in nature - questions about historical dates, timelines, buildings, locations, and a few historical corrections (let's be honest I'm bound to miss some details here and there). However, a message came to my inbox earlier this month that piqued my interest. A fellow history lover reached out asking me to pinpoint the location of this picture taken in 1873. Continue Reading »

More MN Blog posts

• Horace Cleveland’s Friends: Five of Clubs - Minneapolis Park History
• Celebrating the Birthday of Charles M. Schulz - Minnesota Prairie Roots
• Farmer-Labor Founder William Mahoney and his Battle with Communists - Ramsey County Historical Society
• Celebrating the Health Sciences Libraries from 1892 to 2022: A 130-year photo history - U of M Libraries
• Part 2 How are we going to raise $500,000: Saving Andrew’s House - Andrew Peterson Farmstead Blog

From the Tube

This week's video is from Ramsey County Historical Society. Have a vlog? Let us know!

History Revealed: "A Natural Curiosity: The Story of the Bell Museum"
Since its humble start in 1872 as a one-room cabinet of curiosities, the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History has become one of the state’s most important cultural institutions. From its conception as part of a state-mandated geological and natural history survey to its most recent ventures into technology, environmental science, and DNA sequencing, the Bell Museum has informed, explained, and expanded our relationship to the natural world. Drawing on a wealth of materials unearthed during the museum’s recent move, the gorgeously illustrated book "A Natural Curiosity" chronicles the remarkable discoveries and personalities that have made the Bell Museum what it is today.  Watch Video »

More MN Tube posts

• Rebecca Ebnet-Desens, Executive Director of the Anoka County Historical Society: Power of Personal History - League of Women Voters
• Environmental Management Career Choice, Ave L. Kenney - African American Registry
• Historic Cocktail Lesson with Caitlin: Mulled Wine - Stearns History Museum
• MPI Presents: Global Food Insecurity: What Can Be Done? - Norway House

Job Opportunities

Minnesota Historical Society's Job Announcement, Internship,  Fellowship, and Volunteer Opportunity pages.

MNHS

• Program Manager I - Split Rock Lighthouse
• Program Facilitator III - Minnesota State Capitol

LOCAL

• Collections Specialist - Stearns History Museum, St. Cloud, MN
• Visitor Experience Staff - The Works, Bloomington, MN
• STEM Educator - The Works, Bloomington, MN
• Outreach Programs Coordinator - The Bakken Museum, Minneapolis, MN
• Open Education and Affordable Content Librarian - Minitex, Minneapolis, MN

REGIONAL

• Marketing and Communication Manager - Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI
• Head of Digital Scholarship & Initiatives - Iowa State University Parks Library, Ames, IA

NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

• Freelance Archivist - Wood Library/Museum of Anesthesiology, Schaumburg, IL
• Curator – Samara - Indiana Landmarks, West Lafayette, IN
• Head of Collections - Indiana University-Archives of African American Music & Culture, Bloomington, IN
• Archaeology – Crew Member - Colonial Michilimackinac, Mackinac State Historic Parks, Mackinaw City, MI
• Downtown Revitalization Manager - City of Fairborn, Fairborn, OH
• President - Linda Hall Library, Kansas City, MO
• Executive Director - PreservingUS, Inc., Merriam, KS
• Collection Specialist - Special Project - Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON
• Professional Development Program Manager - Ontario Museum Association, Toronto, ON
• Curator - Muskoka Lakes Museum, Port Carling, ON

INTERNSHIPS/VOLUNTEERS/FELLOWSHIPS

• Intern - Most Endangered Historic Places in Illinois Program - Landmarks Illinois, Chicago, IL
• Archives Intern - Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park, Topeka, KS

Additional Job Postings in the Field »

Do History Here

Image used with permission from the Nathan and Theresa Berman Upper Midwest Jewish Archives.

Be sure to check with each organization for COVID-19 updates and safety measures for in-person events.

Event: Christmas Holiday Tree Ornament Party
December 3 - Becker: 10 am. Sherburne History Center - Celebrate one of the best seasons of the year. Live music courtesy of the Becker High School music department, a visit from Santa, and craft activities--                                                                                                                                                                                                        making cornhusk wreath and angel ornaments, gingerbread puppets, and paper snowmen. Fun for family and friends of all ages. Cost: Free. For more information call 763-261-4433 or 763-262-4433 (metro line).

Event: Christmas at the Hubbard House
December 3 & 4 - Mankato: Blue Earth County Historical Society - Explore Victorian holiday décor at the Historic R.D. Hubbard House. New this year, discover holiday traditions celebrating light in the dark days of December. Enjoy a special display, stories, and crafts celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, and Kwanzaa. Opening weekend tours are self-guided with costumed characters to meet along the way. Tickets must be purchased in advance. Cost: $7 members/$10 nonmembers. Learn more »

Workshop: Memory Writers
December 6 - St. Cloud: 10 am to 12 pm. Stearns History Museum - Memory Writers is a writing group that meets twice a month on the first and third Tuesdays. The group develops topics to write about and in turn shares those stories. Cost: Free to members/$7 non-members. Learn more »

Exhibit Opening: Never Dry: The Rise of Prohibition on the Iron Range
December 8 - Chisholm: 5:30 pm. Minnesota Discovery Center - This exhibit takes you on a journey of booze, bootlegging, and busts in true Iron Range fashion. Guest author Tony Dierckins will be presenting the history of Iron Range brewing prior to the exhibit unveiling. Cost: Free. Learn more »

Hmong Cultural Center 30th Anniversary Celebration
December 8 - St. Paul: 3 to 4 pm. Hmong Cultural Center Museum - HCC will celebrate three decades of serving the St. Paul and Minnesota communities at a special event in their new storefront museum where they will also share their vision for a vibrant future of training Hmong folk artists, promoting cross-cultural understanding, and providing community education. Please RSVP. Learn more »

Continuing Education

Highlighted Museum: William G. LeDuc House, operated by the Dakota County Historical Society, Hastings, MN.
Photograph by McGhiever, distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 license.

Leveraging Federal Resources to Improve Museum Security and Resilience
December 8 - Online: 10 am (CT). Texas Historical Commission - The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) leads the national effort to understand, manage, and reduce risk to our cyber and physical infrastructure. Lee Otten, CISA's Protective Security Advisor (PSA) for Central Texas, will provide a brief overview of the various no-cost resources available to assist with improving security and resilience at your museum or organization. CISA's free resources, analyses, and tools are available to help build and maintain cyber, communications, and physical security and resilience. Learn more »

Town Hall: We Don’t Know What Collections Cost: Let’s Find Out
December 13 - Online: 2 to 3 pm (CT). New England Museum Association - Museum collections cost money to acquire, care for, and make accessible. What are the costs? Is this the question? What do we need to know to answer it? Participate in designing the research questions and paths to the answers. Cost: No cost. Learn more »

Fundamentals of Nonprofit Board Governance
December 13 - Online: 9 am - 12 pm (CT). Minnesota Council of Nonprofits - You will learn typical board responsibilities and explore the nuances of board authority and relationships. Participants will receive Propel’s Nonprofit Board Governance workbook, which includes the Fiduciary Duties of Directors of Charitable Organizations. Cost: $75. Learn more »

Introduction To Museum Law 2022/2023
January 3 through 12, 2023 - Online: Mitchell Hamline School of Law - Museums must comply with a myriad of laws regulating virtually every aspect of their organization and operation. While some of these laws apply to businesses in general, some apply to nonprofit charitable organizations of all kinds, and others are unique to the museum community. This course will provide an overview of museum law, including a discussion of issues relating to museum organization and governance; museum personnel and facilities; museum intellectual property, collections management and cultural property; and funding for museums. For Non-JD Registration (degree) please contact Deanna Burns, Assistant Director of IP Institute, Mitchell Hamline School of Law by email or call 651-290-6309. Cost: $200. Learn more »

Workshop: Examining Your Organization's Origin Story with the Institutional Genealogy Framework
January 26-27, 2023 - Online: AASLH - Is your organization knowledgeable about its origin story—how it began, for what purpose and audiences, with whose money, on whose land, and with whose collections? This virtual workshop uses Aletheia Wittman’s Institutional Genealogy Framework to help you re-examine your organization’s past. Participants will leave with key questions and takeaway tools for positioning newfound awareness of the past as the basis for equity and inclusion actions that respond to institutional legacies. The workshop is limited to 25 participants. Deadline to register is January 22. Register »

TIPS & TOOLS

• LGBTQ+ Inclusive Interpretation Resource Kit - American Association for State and Local History

Additional Educational Opportunities »

Fund Your Mission

Media Projects Grants
January 11, 2023 - (Deadline): National Endowment for the Humanities - This grant program supports the development, production, and distribution of radio programs, podcasts, documentary films, and documentary film series that engage general audiences with humanities ideas in creative and appealing ways. Media Projects offers two levels of funding: Development and Production. Learn more »

Climate Smart Humanities Organizations
January 17, 2023 - (Deadline): National Endowment for the Humanities - The program provides up to $300,000 in matching funds (1:1 match required) to support development of climate action and adaptation plans for humanities organizations. This type of comprehensive planning increases organizational resilience and involves two primary assessment types: mitigation, which looks for ways to reduce an institution’s impact on the environment, and adaptation, which looks for ways to protect an organization from climate impacts. Learn more »

News

Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub
A content update to the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub added 5,539 new issues and 100,533 new pages. Newly publicly-available titles & dates:

• Pelican Rapids press (Pelican Rapids, Minn.) 1925-1938 added
• Lafayette ledger (Lafayette, Minn.) 1927 added

New issues for the years 2007-2021 were also added to numerous existing current newspaper titles, available to view only in the MNHS Library.

Hmong Museum Teaching Artists featured on PBS' "Craft in America"
This episode of Craft in America: Inspiration, features Hmong Museum teaching artists Suzanne Thao and Mandora Young. The episode will air on PBS on December 16. You can see the episode online now (see minute 28:00 for the segment on the Hmong). Other Hmong Museum affiliates featured include Mai Vang Huizel (Interim ED of Hmong Museum), Lee Pao Xiong (ED of Center for Hmong Studies), Tousue Vang (artist), and Chef Yia.

Standing Room Only
Gary Lenz packed 'em in with two presentations of the "History of Christmas Lights" at the Mille Lacs County Historical Society Depot Museum located in the historic 1902 Princeton station. At the same time, at the other end of the depot, Gary started with the era of live candles on trees in the 1800s and moved through several decades of colored electric lights and a variety of bubble lights. It just goes to show good things come in small Christmas packages. View Post »

Learning History in the Elements
Many history museums experience an uptick in tour activity during the holidays. These four groups of lively kindergarteners learned about their local history at the Pope County Museum last Saturday in Glenwood, MN sitting around the presenter surrounded by warm artificial snow in the Encampment exhibit and by cold real snow in the plaza. View Post »

Featured Book Twin Cities Sports: Games for All Seasons, edited by Sheldon Anderson. Minnesota Historical Society Press.	Featured Article Minnesota History Riot, revolution, repression in the Iron Range strike of 1916. Volume 41, Issue 2, 1968	Featured Article MNopedia Jewish Immigrants in Brook Park Featured MNopedia Article
Minnesota History Organizations Directory  • County, Chapters, and Local • Statewide/Topical Historical • Regional History Coalitions • Professional Organizations	Minnesota Main Streets Reinvigorate your community's commercial district.	Preservation Specialists Directory Look up products or services.

From the Heritage Preservation Department
Reminder: Due to COVID-19 all Heritage Preservation Department staff (Grants Office and Local History Services) are working remotely until further notice. If you need to connect with a specific staff member, please email them directly.

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