Minnesota: A History of the State

In an engaging and readable style, renowned historian Theodore Blegen takes the reader on a tour of Minnesota's development, from the geological events that shaped the land to westward movement to twentieth-century modernization.  This second edition includes a concluding chapter by Russell W. Fridley that chronicles the impact of turbulent national politics and cultural changes of the 1960s and 1970s on the state, as well as an extensive reading list and detailed index. Minnesota is a concise yet comprehensive account of the state's progress, highlighting landmarks in politics, technology, the arts, and architecture.

History

Blegen, Theodore C.

Americas

Univ. of Minnesota Press

Grass Roots History was first published in 1947. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.The pivot of history is not the uncommon, but the usual, and the true makers of history are "the people, yes."Theodore C. Blegen, writing with discernment and vigor, explores in his book the simple essence of grass roots history, the colors and forms and the processes of our daily life and civilization. He uses diaries and letters, songs and ballads of the immigrants and pioneers, everyday speech, and newspaper advertisements to show clearly and sharply the exciting sources of "the literature of the unlettered," to reveal the spirit of the day, and to reconstruct for the reader a segment of the American past."We have need to dig into the folk story of America if we are to bring out the pattern of American development and American culture in all its color and richness of texture and design. Grass roots history is an avenue to that 'social awareness' which the natural scientists, more boldly than the social scientists, have declared to be the most urgent and compelling need of our day."This is the author's own statement of the significance of grass roots history.

Grass Roots History

World

University of Minnesota Press

The Land Lies Open was first published in 1949. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.In The Land Lies Open some of the thousands of characters and incidents that made up the panorama of exploration and settlement in the Upper Mississippi Valley are recreated. Although the author is an outstanding professional historian, he writes with the narrative skill of a novelist; his history is never dry and remote, but always vividly alive.Here are the stories of a few of the many thousands who, when the land at last lay open, moved in to people it. From the rich mosaic of their lives Mr. Blegen has set down tales that stir the imagination. Some of the men Mr. Blegen writes about have famous names – Father Louis Hennepin, La Vérendrye, Hernando de Soto, Louis Jolliet – but most of them were jjust plain people unknown to present-day Americans. There are stories of adventurous sons of New France, England, and America who slowly, over a period of more than two centuries, opened to knowledge and usefulness the river channels leading into the great Midwest.The tales set down in The Land Lies Open vary from an exciting buffalo hunt to the story of immigrant farmers who came to the Midwest and patiently coaxed new kinds of fruit and grain to maturity. There are stories of bitter townsite rivalries, of a covered wagon heroine, of the Yankees who moved westward to leave the stamp of New England on the midwestern frontier, and of “pioneers of the second line” who developed new forms of social organization and action as these were needed.Once more, as in Grass Roots History, Mr. Blegen gives eloquent proof that history is not made by spectacular events or the experiences of a few exceptional people, but by all the small, everyday people whose names are unfamiliar.

The Land Lies Open

A distinguished historian examines the circumstances surrounding the stone's discovery in 1898 and discusses the ensuing controversy in the light of later sources.

The Kensington Rune Stone: New Light on an Old Riddle

Minnesota Historical Society Press

This selection of traditional voyageur songs, sung in French by the 30-voice male choir of the Universit de Moncton of New Brunswick, Canada, celebrates the French-Canadian canoe men of the North American fur trade who sang as they paddled over rivers and lakes during the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. The accompanying book contains the song texts in French and a description of voyageur life by renowned historian Theodore C. Blegen.

Songs of the Voyageurs (MHS Minnesota Musical Traditio)

Arts & Photography

Music

"Few questions in American history," writes Theodore C. Blegen, "have stirred so much curiosity or provoked such extended discussions as that of the authenticity of the runic inscription on a stone found near Kensington, Minnesota, in 1898." Swedish-American farmer Olof Ohman discovered the stone clasped in the roots of an aspen tree on a knoll above the surrounding swamp. His young son was the first to notice the strange letters chiseled into the rock face. Since then historians, geologists and runic scholars have entered the debate over the age and meaning of these carvings. Are they genuine 14th-century runes, evidence of a pre-Columbian Viking expedition to North America, or are they a clever 19th-century hoax? In this classic volume, Blegen untangles the circumstances surrounding the unearthing of the Kensington Rune Stone. Marshalling letters, affidavits, newspaper accounts and investigative reports, he lays out in authoritative detail the early history of this controversial artifact and investigates the background and character of Olof Ohman and other men involved in its discovery. He also describes the first cycles of investigation and dispute and devotes a chapter to the role of Hjalmar R. Holand, who acquired the stone in 1907 and was its chief defender until his death in 1963. Fourteen appendixes offer useful primary source materials and supply English translations where needed. This lucid text, together with its footnotes and appendixes, remains a cornerstone for further investigation and discussion.

Kensington Rune Stone

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