Minnesota History Magazine Winter 2023–24 (68.8)

Departments

Editor’s Note
Pam McClanahan

Curator’s Choice
Kathryn Hujda
Gedney, It’s the Minnesota Pickle

EyeWitness
John Rosengren
1948 St. Paul Winter Carnival Ice Fishing Contest

LandMarks 
Greg Gaut and Marsha Neff
Arlington Hills Public Library/East Side Freedom Library, Ramsey County

Book Review
Karen Sieber
Into the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights by Samuel G. Freedman

News & Notes, Our Back Pages, Take Three

Preserving > Sharing > Connecting
Jean Larson: A Love of History, A Family Affair

Articles

Many Voices, Many Stories, One Place: Engaging Scholarship, Audience, and Diversity at Historic Fort Snelling 
William Convery

In September 2023, the Minnesota Historical Society opened a 4,000-square-foot exhibit at Historic Fort Snelling. As Bill Convery writes, exhibit staff at the Minnesota Historical Society spent more than seven years moving carefully, thinking deeply, consulting with community stakeholders and scholars, conducting archival research, and testing exhibition ideas to convey the flow of the full 12,500-year history, in all its complexity, at Minnesota’s most significant historical site. The result is Historic Fort Snelling’s first major exhibit update in more than 25 years: Many Voices, Many Stories, One Place.

The Vital Role of Public History: An Interview with Chantel Rodriguez

Dr. Chantel Rodríguez believes that public history must be accessible to everyone. Rodríguez, the senior public historian for the Minnesota Historical Society, spoke to Minnesota History about the vital role of public history in shaping our understanding of the past and present.

From the White House to the Lake House: Tracing Eliza Winston’s Enslavement and Her Pursuit of Freedom in Minnesota
Christopher P. Lehman

On August 22, 1860, an enslaved woman from Mississippi named Eliza Winston petitioned for her freedom before a judge in Minnesota—and she won. The court ruling in her favor enabled her to redirect her life from the paths imposed upon her by a winding, lifelong journey through the institution of American slavery. Looking beyond the courtroom proceedings and revealing a complex history of enslavement, Christopher P. Lehman traces the story of Winston’s first forty-two years and her long struggle to obtain her freedom.