Minnesota

MINNESOTA

The highly publicized 1998 election of Reform Party candidate Jesse Ventura to the governor's seat came as no surprise to those who had studied Minnesota history. With a long tradition of protest politics and a disdain for power monopolies, the state has always steered an independent course. Situated in the heart of the American prairie and supplied with many natural resources, Minnesota was able to parlay its independent spirit into great economic success. From its wheat fields to its iron ore ranges and timber lands to its large industrial belts, Minnesota represented the economic diversity to which most of the country aspired.

Europeans who first came into the territory that is now Minnesota were witness to numerous confrontations between the Dakota and Ojibwa Indians who inhabited the territory. In the mid-1600s French explorers, fur traders, and missionaries sent back the first reports from the region. American and British explorers also came to the area, vying with the French for influence. After the French and Indian War (1754–1763) the part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi was ceded to Great Britain. In 1762 France ceded the land west of the river to Spain. British activity in the region continued until the U.S. Congress banned British fur trade there after the War of 1812 (1812–1814). The American Fur Company headed by John Jacob Astor (1763–1848) replaced a British company at Grand Portage, a center for inland trade.

The eastern part of Minnesota (east of the Mississippi) became part of the Northwest Territory in 1787. Most of the western part of the territory was acquired by the United States through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The Red River Valley was ceded by a treaty with England in 1818. The American Fur Company continued to prosper on the upper Mississippi until treaties with the Ojibwa and Dakota Indians transferred large parcels of their land to the federal government in 1837. Unlike pioneer settlers fur traders had developed a profitable partnership with the Indians, one which was threatened by this action. The treaties opened up the territory to lumbering, farming, and settlement. Settlements such as Marine and Stillwater on the St. Croix River and St. Anthony (later Minneapolis) sprang up around the lumbering industry. St. Paul was a trading center at the head of the Mississippi.

In 1849 Minnesota became a territory, and by 1857 it had more than 150,000 inhabitants. It became the 32nd state of the Union in 1858. Minnesota supported the Union in the American Civil War (1861–1865). But during that period the state faced a more serious internal challenge from disgruntled Dakota Indians who waged a war on white settlers in 1862. Following the pattern of white western conquest both the Dakotas and the Ojibwas were eventually moved to reservations.

The first railroad joined St. Paul and St. Anthony, a flour-milling center, in 1862. Later rail routes connected the state with Chicago and the Red River Valley. Immigrants from the east and from northern Europe, especially Scandinavia and Germany, started coming to Minnesota in great numbers. They established farms and grew produce that was carried back east on the trains. Large-scale farming developed along with small farms, particularly for the wheat crop; 70 percent of all farms were planted with wheat by 1870.

Farmers suffered occasional natural disasters such as drought. They felt themselves injured also by high railroad rates and a general deflation. Agrarian discontent became part of the tradition of protest politics in the state. The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry was the first national farmers' organization which had its origins in Minnesota beginning in 1867. It had great influence on state politics in the 1880s. In 1890 another farm-oriented activist party called the Populists (or People's Party) helped elect John Lind Governor of Minnesota. Labor organizing was also strong in this period. As the Minnesota Federation of Labor gained power it succeeded in getting a landmark Workmen's Compensation Act passed in 1913. This laid the groundwork for the Farmer-Labor Party.

Aside from third parties the so-called Progressive Movement had other manifestations in Minnesota. Rural residents feared the power of big business, especially the railroad industry. An angry public outcry was heard in 1901 when railroad barons James J. Hill (1838–1916) and Edward Harriman, with help from banker J. P. Morgan (1837–1913), formed the Northern Securities Company. The company merged the Northern Pacific, Great Northern, and Chicago and Burlington railroads, virtually monopolizing railroads in the state. Governor Samuel Van Sant had his attorney general sue the company and led other Midwest governors in condemning the company. When President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) instituted a federal suit against the company in his first action as a "trust-buster," the Northern Securities Company was broken up.

The lumbering industry in Minnesota prospered greatly in the decades following the American Civil War. It reached a peak in 1899. As it shipped some of the logs by rail and even more by water down the Mississippi, Minnesota supplied tons of lumber to the country, particularly the growing areas of the Great Plains states. Minneapolis became a sawmill center. In combination with flour mills and railroads sawmills helped the city's population swell to well over 150,000 by 1890. The combined population of Minneapolis and its "twin city" St. Paul grew to over 250,000. Lumber was also shipped from Duluth, which owed its prosperity to its position at the starting point of the North Pacific Railroad.

Duluth also became a major Lake Superior port after the discovery of iron ore in the northeast Mesabi and Vermilion ranges. After the 1880s eastern cities and industries began to grow. After a short boost to the economy produced by World War I (1914–1918) an economic downturn afflicted the state. Since Minnesota forests had been depleted of their resources lumbering shifted to the Pacific Northwest. An agricultural depression also caused several flour mills to move to Kansas City and Buffalo, New York.

Minnesotans adapted to the changes by planting corn, soybeans, and sugar beets in addition to the traditional wheat crop. Canning and meat packing had become important industries in the early part of the twentieth century; by the late part of the century food processing plants such as Green Giant, Libby, Del Monte, and General Foods shipped more manufactured products than any other industry in the state.

Like the rest of the nation Minnesota was plunged into a depression in the 1930s. The governor during this period was Floyd B. Olson, a reform politician who championed the poor farmers and laborers and supported the policies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945). This period marked the first time that Minnesota departed from a nearly unbroken history of Republican domination. In 1944 the populist Farmer-Labor Party merged with the Democrats and began a new chapter of reform in Minnesota under the leadership of Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1973). Humphrey would later become Mayor of Minneapolis, U.S. senator, and vice president.

In the ensuing decades other manufactured products like business machines, computers, and electronic components added to the state's economic base. After the high-grade iron ore produced by the state was depleted new processes were instituted to extract iron from low-grade ore. This caused concern about environmental damage to Lake Superior. A sign of the changing demographics in the state was that the urban population of Minnesota exceeded its rural population for the first time in 1950.

Minnesotans experienced some economic challenges in the late 1980s and into the 1990s. An important environmental concern was addressed in 1980 when the Reserve Mining Company was forced to end the dumping of taconite (low-grade iron ore) wastes, thought to be carcinogenic, into Lake Superior. Other companies such as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company have been forced to clean up hazardous waste sites. Natural disasters also put a strain on Minnesota's economy. A drought plagued the state in 1988 and severe flooding of the Mississippi in 1993 and the Red River in 1997 devastated the lowlands.

The state maintained its economic health through diversification with increasing attention to service industries such as real estate, insurance, and finance. Tourism also became increasingly important to the state as millions of travelers, fishermen, and hunters came to enjoy the state's many scenic and recreational areas. Farming remained important to the state as well; in 1995 Minnesota ranked seventh in the nation by farm income. The state's proximity to the Mississippi River, the Great Lakes, and the St. Lawrence Seaway continued to make Minnesota a major marketing and distribution center for the upper Midwest. The state's per capita personal income in 1996 was over $25,000, ranking it ninth in the nation.

See also: Mississippi River, Plains Indians, Populist Movement, Saint Lawrence Seaway

FURTHER READING

Blegen, Theodore C. Minnesota: A History of the State. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1975.

Brook, Michael. Reference Guide to Minnesota History: A Subject Bibliography of Books, Pamphlets,

and Articles in English. St. Paul, MN: Historical Society, 1983.

Chrislock, Carl H. The Progressive Era in Minnesota, 1829–1914. St. Paul, MN: Historical Society, 1971.

Folwell, William W. A History of Minnesota. 4 vols. Rev. ed. St. Paul, MN: Historical Society, 1956–1959.

Lass, William E. Minnesota: A Bicentennial History. New York: Norton, 1977.

from out of the past of exploration and exploitation, out of boom and bust times, out of the experiences of pioneers and immigrants, and out of the heritage of industrialization and the tradition of protest politics has come the minnesota that is now.

william e. lass, minnesota: a bicentennial history, 1977