History Day

Lincoln and Minnesota?

Surprising but true—there are a number of connections between Abraham Lincoln and Minnesota!

1. Lincoln was the first president Minnesotans could vote for, because we had become a state just two years before his election.
2. Lincoln was president during the Civil War, and the first troops that volunteered to serve were from Minnesota.
3. Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which encouraged settlement in Minnesota and other frontier states.

To honor the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, the Minnesota Historical Society has gathered information about this great president, his connections to Minnesota, and Minnesota during the Lincoln years on a special Lincoln Bicentennial webpage. 

Abraham Lincoln and one or all of his connections to Minnesota would make an excellent History Day topic for the theme “The Individual in History: Actions and Legacies.” 

For more information on President Lincoln and the Dakota Conflict in Minnesota, see the Minnesota History Topic on the Dakota War of 1862. Included is a digital image of the December 6, 1862, letter that President Lincoln wrote to Henry Sibley listing the names of the 39 Dakota Indians to be hanged in Mankato for their participation in the Conflict (in the Edward D. Neill and Family Papers).

1 Comment »

Students are invited to join History Day staff and staff of the Minnesota Historical Society Library for help in getting started on History Day projects. This year’s theme is “The Individual in History: Actions and Legacies.” Staff will be available for individual help in selecting a History Day topic, using the library, and locating primary sources for projects.

Saturday January 17, 2009 
9:00 a.m. to noon
Free

No Comments »

Still looking for a History Day topic for this year’s theme: The Individual in History?  Here’s another possibility.

Anne Bosano enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) in September, 1944. Sent sent letters home to her parents about her activities in the WAC, her course work and training as a medical technician, her social life inside and outside of her various posts, and her travel between assignments.

Those letters have been published as: One Woman’s War: Letters Home from the Women’s Army Corps, 1944-46, by Anne B. Green., St. Paul, Minn.: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1989; MHS call number: Reading Room D 807 .U6 G74 1989.   There was also an article in Minnesota History (vol. 51, no. 7, fall 1989, pp. 246-258) entitled “Private Bosanko Goes to Basic: A Minnesota Woman in World War II,” by Anne Bosanko Green, MHS call number: F 601.5 M66 v.51:7.

The original letters are in the Minnesota Historical Society Library. See the green Alpha Manuscripts Notebooks—filed under Green, Anne Bosanko—for more details and a locator number (there is 1 box of material).

See the Minnesota History Topics for more sources on Women in the Military During World War II.

No Comments »

As the U.S. drew close to joining World War II in 1941, a few military officers—notably Lt. Col. John Weckerling and Capt. Kai Rasmussen—realized that there would be a need for Japanese translators in the Pacific. Unfortunately, the military could only find a few soldiers already proficient in Japanese, so Weckerling and Rasmussen began to push for the creation of a language school to intensively train people to be military linguists.

Weckerling and Rasmussen put their jobs on the line and got the 4th Army Intelligence School opened in San Francisco on November 1, 1941, where John Aiso, Shigeya Kihara, Akira Oshida, and Tetsuo Imagawa taught fifty-eight Nisei and two Caucasians. A few months later President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 that forced the internment or relocation of Japanese families. Because the school was housing Nisei, it had to move or lose nearly all of its students. After a number of other mid-western states declined, Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota agreed to take in the school, so it moved to Camp Savage and changed its name to the Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS).

Within a couple of years, the school outgrew itself and moved again, this time to Fort Snelling in St. Paul. Eventually MISLS graduated more than 6,000 linguists. Its graduates broke codes, served on the front lines, and even became instructors themselves. Their service in the Pacific theater of World War II was so successful that it prompted Major General Charles Willoughby—General Douglas MacArthur’s Chief of Staff for Military Intelligence—to say, “The Nisei shortened the Pacific War by two years and saved possibly a million American lives and saved probably billions of dollars.”

The Minnesota Historical Society Library has a number of primary and secondary resources about this topic. Check it out in the Minnesota History Topics: Military Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling.

No Comments »

Bruce Laingen was the senior U.S. diplomat held in Tehran during the Iran Hostage Crisis from November 1979 to January 1981.

He received a M.A. in International Relations from the University of Minnesota. During World War II Laingen served in the U.S. Navy, and in 1949 he joined the U.S. Foreign Service. He served until 1987 at posts in Germany, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. He was appointed ambassador to Malta in 1977. Laingen was then sent back to Iran as the U.S. chargé d’affaires, but within months of his arrival the U.S. embassy was overrun by student protesters. He and two other American officials were at the Iranian Foreign Ministry at the time of the assault and were trapped and held there for the next 14 months. After his ordeal, Laingen was awarded the State Department’s Award for Valor along with several other recognitions.

Ambassador Laingen’s papers are at the Minnesota Historical Society. They are a valuable resource for anyone interested in international relations, U.S.-Iran relations, diplomacy, the U.S. Foreign Service, and especially the Iran Hostage Crisis. The papers contain personal and official correspondence and photographs from his entire Foreign Service career, and papers from Laingen’s experience during the Iran hostage crisis. Highlights include appeals written by Laingen to Iranian government officials, letters written to Laingen by children, personal and official correspondence, pages from Laingen’s journal kept during the crisis, solitary confinement writings, and a map of the ministry rooms, drawn by Laingen, where he was kept hostage.

No Comments »

Who was Lawrence Taliaferro (pronounced “toll-i-ver”), you ask?

The United States gained control over the upper Mississippi Valley through the Revolutionary War with Great Britain and later the Louisiana Purchase from France. This vast territory, inhabited by fur traders and Indians still loyal to the British in Canada, lay well beyond American settlement. After the War of 1812, the government took physical possession of the valuable Northwest frontier by establishing a chain of Indian agencies and supporting forts from Lake Michigan to the Missouri River. The story of Fort Snelling is the story of the development of the U.S. Northwest.  

Near Fort Snelling, at the St. Peter’s Agency, Major Lawrence Taliaferro mediated disputes between Minnesota’s Dakota (Sioux) and Ojibwe (Chippewa or Anishinabe) Indians. He attempted to ease tensions between both tribes, the fur traders, and their new white neighbors.

Taliaferro presided over the drafting of a treaty in 1837. He brought Dakota leaders to Washington, D.C., and negotiated what he thought were fair terms for Dakota lands east of the Mississippi River. Unfortunately, the United States government was unable to keep up its end of the bargain. The Indians ended up debt-ridden and desperate for their means of survival, and Taliaferro became increasingly critical of the United States’ inability to make good on their promises. In poor health, he resigned his position.

Taliaferro was also, notably, the owner of a slave named Harriet Robinson, who would later marry Dred Scott. It is unknown exactly how Taliaferro came into ownership of Harriet, but what is known is that she worked as a servant to his wife. As Justice of the Peace in the territories, Taliferro would officiate the marriage of Dred and Harriet, a marriage which many historians believe gave additional credence to the Scotts’ claim to freedom.

Lawrence Taliaferro’s papers are in the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society Library, as well as other materials, including a painting of Major Taliaferro.

No Comments »

The theme for the upcoming 2009 National History Day competition is “The Individual in History: Actions and Legacies.”

Whether you are looking specifically for a Minnesota individual, or you’ve already picked an individual who just happens to be from Minnesota, you will find a wealth of information in the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society library and archives.

If you haven’t already checked it out, look at the Minnesota History Topics for both ideas and for sources. Many individuals are already listed under the category of “Famous Minnesotans,” such as Hubert H. Humphrey, Sister Elizabeth Kenny, and Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.

Other individuals are a bit buried inside other topics, such as Ernest C. Oberholtzer and Sigurd F. Olson in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Controversy history topic. Oberholtzer and Olson were major figures in the creation of the BWCA and the Minnesota Historical Society has the papers of both men.

Oberholtzer’s papers have been microfilmed, which means they are available for you to borrow on Interlibrary Loan and use right in your local library. Your local librarian can help you do that. Also, transcripts of oral histories that were conducted with Mr. Oberholtzer are available on the Internet.

These are just a few ideas. We will be blogging about other individuals in history over the coming weeks.

No Comments »