Minneapolis in the Twentieth Century

• By: Iric Nathanson
• Format: Cloth, 224 pp, 6x9, 40 b&w illustrations, notes, index, bibliography
• Publisher: MHS Press
• Usually ships in: 1 to 3 business days
• ISBN 9780873517256

The Growth of an American City

Flavored with contemporary newspaper quotations and illustrated with period images, this political history inspires greater understanding of a preeminent American city.

Today, Minneapolis is considered one of the most desirable places to live in the United States. However, like most cities, Minneapolis has its own checkered history.

Iric Nathanson shines a light in dark corners of the city's past, exploring corruption that existed between the police department and city hall, brutal suppression of Depression-era unions, and reports on anti-Semitism at midcentury. Still other subjects that on the surface seem disparaging offer the city's residents as opportunity to shine. Community leaders make a difference during the "long hot summer" of 1967, when racial violence exploded across the country. Concerned neighbors guide transportation policy from more and bigger highways to forward-looking light rail transit. A forgotten riverfront is transformed into a magnet for people wishing to live and play at the site of the city's earliest successes.

Nathanson skillfully tells these stories and more, always with an eye toward how noteworthy characters, plotlines, and scenes helped create the Minneapolis we know today.

Iric Nathanson has written and lectured about local history for more than two decades. An instructor for the University of Minnesota's Ocher Lifelong Learning Institute, he has published essays in the Star Tribune, Minnesota History, and Hennepin History.

• Video: Nathanson on why and how Minneapolis is different than St. Paul