We will gather for the monthly research meeting the first Tuesday in April, this coming Tuesday, April 1, from 10:00 a.m. to noon in the Publications offices’ Knight Research Suite.
If you can’t make the meeting but would like to send a message to the group (raising a question, asking for research help, making an announcement, or offering a suggestion), let Debbie know. We can even post your message on the blog, if you want, and you can receive “virtual” answers!
We look forward to hearing about your current and planned research projects.
Please let Debbie or Kathie know if you would like to remove your name from the monthly reminder list.
“Andersonville Prison and More” is the theme of this year’s Civil War Symposium on Saturday April 19 at the Fort Snelling History Center. Registration begins at 9:30 and the program runs from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Sessions include:
- “Andersonville Prison and Historic Site,” Fred Boyles, Superintendent of the Andersonville National Historic Site
- “The Andersonville Trial: A Reader’s Theater,” Mary Beth King
- “Minnesota’s Military at Statehood, 1858,” Stephen Osman
- “Prisoners of War in the 21st Century,” Colonel James Noll (ret.), 13th Psychological Operations Battalion
- “For Your Consideration: Minnesota’s Civil War Sesquicentennial.”
Registration is $15; $10 for MHS members; students free. Registration is due no later than March 31. Send checks payable to TCCWRT to Steve Cook, 2849 38th Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55406. You may also register at the door but advanced reservation is strongly recommended.
“Commemorating Discovery: Our Past and Our Future.”
The University of Minnesota is sponsoring four panel discussions in April to celebrate Minnesota’s Sesquicentennial:
- April 3 - The Arts and the Built Environment; Changes in Suburban Life
- April 10 - Agriculture and Forestry in the Natural World
- April 17 - Changing Demographics: Snapshots of a New Minnesota and a New America
- April 24 - A Changing World: Past and Present Threats to the Public’s Health.
These Sesquicentennial discussions are free, but reservations are required and will be accepted as long as space remains available, although Ann P. says they expect the sessions to be oversubscribed, so register early! Thursday evenings, 5:30-8:30 in the Campus Club (4th Floor Coffman Union).
For more information on the sessions, speakers, and to register, visit Minnesota’s 150 Birthday.
Mary B. found Camping with the Sioux: Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher, now digitized, available on the Internet.
The website explains: In the fall of 1881, Alice Fletcher traveled to Dakota Territory to live with Sioux women and record their way of life, accompanied by Susette La Flesche, an Omaha Indian, and journalist Thomas Henry Tibbles. Her trip was unprecedented. An unmarried woman of forty-three, Fletcher had no salary to speak of, no knowledge of Native American languages, and only informal anthropological training. Few people believed she could succeed.
Fletcher chronicled the trials and successes of her 1881 field trip in two journals accompanied by her drawings of the plains, reservations, and her many campsites throughout eastern Nebraska and southern South Dakota. Although they contain scant ethnographic information, Fletcher’s writings provide an important insight into the attitudes of many white scientists and administrators in the late nineteenth century with regard to what they termed “the Indian Question.”
Uprising, an Historical Novel About the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 Book Signing and Presentation, Sunday, March 16, 2:00 p.m.
Author and State Rep. Dean Urdahl will give a presentation and book signing for his new book. Steeped in the history and lore of the area in which he lives and knows well, Urdahl has given us an absorbing story about human tragedy, heroism, and survival by ordinary folks on a grand scale during a clash of cultures whose legacy still lives with us today.
Dean Urdahl taught American History for thirty-five years at New London-Spicer Middle School in New London, Minnesota. In 2002, he was elected as a member of the Minnesota State House of Representatives.
Pond House tours at 1:30 and 3:15 p.m.
