Ramsey County History podcast
The podcast that highlights the history of St. Paul and Ramsey County Minnesota and keeps you up to date on the work of the Ramsey County Historical Society.
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #35: Albert Harold Quie
04/10/2024
March of the Governors, Governor #35: Albert Harold Quie
Albert H. Quie (1923-2023) left a safe seat in Congress after twenty years to run for governor in 1978. In that, his timing was good. He rode around the “Minnesota Massacre” and into office as the state’s thirty-fifth governor along with fellow Republicans Dave Durenberger and Rudy Boschwitz, who were elected to the US Senate. But in another respect, his timing could not have been worse. A successful first year of tax cuts was followed by an unwelcome recession that slashed state revenues and triggered a three-year budget crisis requiring six special legislative sessions and making most of the governor’s political agenda impossible to achieve. Quie did not seek reelection, moving, instead, into a long career of public service, most notably in prison ministry.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/30768833
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #34: Rudy Perpich
03/06/2024
March of the Governors, Governor #34: Rudy Perpich
March of the Governors, Governor #34 Rudy Perpich Series Podcast #37 Rudy Perpich (1928-1995) served as Minnesota's thirty-fourth governor in the years 1977 and 1978. He got there by succession when Wendell Anderson resigned. Perpich then appointed Anderson to the US Senate—the first event leading to the Minnesota Massacre of 1978. Perpich was the first Iron Ranger, the first dentist, and first Roman Catholic to serve as governor and, maybe, the last to have grown up in poverty. His term was marked by the national energy crisis, controversies over electric power lines, and Reserve Mining Corporation, and the death of Hubert Humphrey. It ended with his crushing defeat by Al Quie in 1978. But he would be back
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/30257843
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #33: Wendell Anderson
02/01/2024
March of the Governors, Governor #33: Wendell Anderson
March of the Governors, Governor #33 Wendell Anderson (Series Podcast #35) Before an ignominious electoral end, Wendell “Wendy” Anderson was one of Minnesota’s most significant and popular governors. Born and raised on St. Paul’s East Side, he had been an Olympic hockey player and a twelve-year legislative veteran when elected governor in 1970 at the age of thirty-seven. In his first term, Anderson successfully encouraged legislative passage of landmark open government, environmental, labor and other forward-looking laws. Most importantly, he campaigned and got passed a sweeping change in how K-12 education in the state was funded—later termed the “Minnesota Miracle.” For his efforts, Anderson was reelected in 1974 with 63 percent of the vote, carrying every county in the state. However, four years later, as a consequence of his self-appointment to that body, voters chose rival Rudy Boschwitz over him for the US Senate by a 56-40-percent margin, effectively ending his political career. Anderson later practiced law, was a television political commentator and served on the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents. He died in 2016.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/29751888
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #32: Harold Levander
01/02/2024
March of the Governors, Governor #32: Harold Levander
March of the Governors, Governor #32 Harold Levander (Series Podcast #35) Harold Levander (1910-1982) ran for political office once in his long life, in 1966. He defeated incumbent governor Karl Rolvaag, served four years, and never ran for office again. He had been a star athlete in college, in football and track, and a national champion orator. He practiced law in Harold Stassen's firm, where he represented rural electric power cooperatives and the South St. Paul stockyards. As a Republican governor, he helped enact a remarkably progressive agenda that included creation of the sales tax, the Metropolitan Council, and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/29307173
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #31: Karl Fritjof Rolvaag
12/04/2023
March of the Governors, Governor #31: Karl Fritjof Rolvaag
March of the Governors, Governor #31 Karl Fritjof Rolvaag (Series Podcast #34) Karl Fritjof Rolvaag (1913-1990) grew up in Northfield, the son of acclaimed novelist Ole Rolvaag. Upon his father’s untimely death in 1931, Rolvaag roamed the West for five years, working in the fields and forests and allying himself with that most radical of unions—Industrial Workers of the World. He graduated from St. Olaf College in 1942. He then began six years in the US Army that included combat service as a tank commander. After graduate work at the University of Minnesota, he became an organizer and frequent candidate for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. He won election as lieutenant governor four times. In the 1962 election, Rolvaag defeated incumbent Governor Elmer L. Andersen by ninety-one votes. As governor, he pushed for a modern community college system, helped reapportion Minnesota’s legislative districts, oversaw the passage of a taconite amendment for the Iron Range, supported notable reforms in mental health, and protected the environment. In 1966, he lost his bid for reelection to Harold Levander. Rolvaag later served two years as ambassador to Iceland and as chair of the Minnesota Public Service Commission. He resigned to fight his alcoholism and spent the rest of his life lecturing and counseling others about the importance of treatment.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/28918643
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #30: Elmer L. Andersen
11/02/2023
March of the Governors, Governor #30: Elmer L. Andersen
March of the Governors, Governor #30 Elmer L. Andersen (Series Podcast #33) For Elmer L. Andersen, his single term as governor (1961-1963) marked a brief episode in a life of remarkable accomplishment. From modest beginnings in Muskegon, Michigan, Andersen rose from salesman for HB Fuller Co. to the leader who made the company a giant. He served with distinction in the state legislature, then defeated the popular and effective governor Orville Freeman in 1960. His great accomplishment as governor was reform of taconite taxation. He was a Republican far to the left of his party. In 1962, he lost the closest election in Minnesota history. He moved on to a career in philanthropy and a very long life.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/28497260
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #29: Orville Lothrop Freeman
10/10/2023
March of the Governors, Governor #29: Orville Lothrop Freeman
March of the Governors, Governor #29 Orville Lothrop Freeman (Series Podcast #32) Orville Lothrop Freeman (1918-2003) was, like governors Floyd Olson and Luther Youngdahl before him, a product of the streets and schools of Minneapolis: His parents ran a clothing store on Lake Street. He attended the University of Minnesota, where he played football under the legendary Bernie Bierman, served as student council president, and was a champion debater. College was interrupted by World War II; he enlisted in the US Marines, where his one week in combat at Guadalcanal ended in a firefight and a bullet to the jaw. He returned to Minneapolis. There, his college debate partner, Hubert Humphrey, got him into DFL politics. Freeman proved to be a superb organizer. He ran for attorney general in 1950 and lost; he ran for governor in 1952 and lost. In 1954, he defeated incumbent governor C. Elmer Anderson and became Minnesota's first DFL governor. He spent the next six years modernizing and enlarging state government, largely in response to the postwar baby boom. He was a key figure in creating the modern, liberal Minnesota state government. In 1960, Freeman narrowly lost his try for an unprecedented fourth term, in part, due to his handling of a meatpackers' strike in Albert Lea. He served the next eight years as Secretary of Agriculture under presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He proved to be a superb organizer, helping build the new party statewide and expelling the far-left elements of the old Farmer-Labor party.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/28280585
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #28: C. Elmer Anderson
09/07/2023
March of the Governors, Governor #28: C. Elmer Anderson
March of the Governors, Governor #28 C. Elmer Anderson (Series Podcast #31) Minnesota's twenty-eighth governor, C. Elmer Anderson (1912-1998), mostly aspired to be lieutenant governor, and at that he succeeded—elected six times in seven tries. He rose to governor in September 1951 with the resignation of Luther Youngdahl. Anderson won the governorship on his own in 1952, riding the ample coattails of Dwight Eisenhower. In this role, he tried to carry out Youngdahl's progressive policies, but the stars and the Minnesota senate were against him. He had beaten DFL candidate Orville Freeman handily in 1952; Freeman whipped him in their 1954 rematch, where Anderson's lifelong motto, "silence is golden," helped bring him down. He later served four years as mayor of Nisswa and ten years as mayor of his hometown, Brainerd.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/27973245
info_outline
March of the Governors Special Edition: Billy Williams
08/09/2023
March of the Governors Special Edition: Billy Williams
March of the Governors Special Edition: Billy Williams March of the Governors Series Podcast #30 William F. (Billy) Williams never served as Minnesota's governor, but he served more Minnesota governors than any public servant in our state's history. He caught the eye of Governor John A. Johnson as a baseball player at the turn of the twentieth century. Johnson invited him to work at the capitol as his aide and messenger. Johnson died, but Williams stayed on, through the next thirteen governors—Eberhart, Hammond, Burnquist, Preus, Christianson, Olson, Petersen, Benson, Stassen, Thye, Youngdahl, Anderson, and Freeman—over fifty years. No one saw more of Minnesota government from the inside than did Billy Williams.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/27707304
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #27: Luther Youngdahl
06/30/2023
March of the Governors, Governor #27: Luther Youngdahl
March of the Governors, Governor #27 Luther Youngdahl (Series Podcast #29) From his youth, Luther Youngdahl (b. 1896) aspired to be a judge, and he succeeded: Minneapolis Municipal Court (1930-1936), Hennepin County District Court (1936-1942), Minnesota Supreme Court (1942-1946), and US District Court for the District of Columbia (1951-1978.) Along the way, he found time to serve as Minnesota’s twenty-seventh governor (1947-1951.) A deeply committed Christian, Youngdahl found his signature issue in pushing for reforms of the state’s mental hospitals. Elected three times, the Republican cut short his third term to accept an appointment by Democrat Harry Truman (an appointment instigated by Hubert Humphrey), as a federal court judge in Washington DC. Youngdahl was the son of Swedish immigrants, a Minneapolis city kid like his contemporary Floyd Olson, and a graduate of Gustavus Adolphus College. He died in 1978. Tom Beer, with host Paul Nelson.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/27334938
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #26: Edward John Thye
06/05/2023
March of the Governors, Governor #26: Edward John Thye
March of the Governors, Governor #26 Edward John Thye (Series Podcast #28) Edward John Thye (1896-1969) was called Minnesota’s “farmer-governor,” and aptly so. He was born on a farm in South Dakota, grew up on a farm near Northfield, maintained his own Dakota County farm during his political career, concentrated on farm issues during his twelve years in the US Senate, and retired to the farm when his political career ended. Thye was the son of Norwegian immigrants, served in France during World War I, sold tractors, farmed, and got into politics through his friend Harold Stassen, who appointed him assistant commissioner of agriculture in 1939. Stassen then effectively chose Thye to succeed him when he left the governorship for the Navy in 1943. Thye finished Stassen’s term, won election easily in 1944, then moved on to the Senate in 1946. Eugene McCarthy defeated him in 1958. Paul Nelson, with host Ken Peterson
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/27048042
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #25: Harold Stassen
05/01/2023
March of the Governors, Governor #25: Harold Stassen
March of the Governors – Harold Stassen, Governor #25 Podcast #27 Harold Stassen, Minnesota’s twenty-fifth governor, is among our most intriguing. He sprang to national attention as the state’s “Boy Governor,” elected in 1938 at the age of thirty-one. Stassen was very popular in his over four years as governor because of success with the legislature and in administering state government. He went on to be a US Navy commander in WWII; one of eight US delegates to the 1945 UN Charter Assembly; a top presidential candidate in 1948; president of the University of Pennsylvania; and a member of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s cabinet. Stassen also is credited by many with leading and inspiring a long line of progressive leaders in Minnesota’s Republican Party. Today, however, Stassen is sometimes remembered not for his political accomplishments but for the many unsuccessful runs for political office in his last three decades. As a result, Stassen has become a joke to some political observers instead of the multitalented politician and public policy thinker that he was.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/26710143
info_outline
March of the Governors #26: The Farmer-Labor Party
04/03/2023
March of the Governors #26: The Farmer-Labor Party
March of the Governors Podcast #26 The Farmer-Labor Party Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party was the most successful third party in American history. Between 1930 and 1938, the party far outpaced both traditional parties in vote-getting, including successfully electing three Farmer-Labor governors. For this special episode, we assembled a panel of historians to reflect on the terms of Floyd Olson, Hjalmar Peterson, and Elmer Benson and this unique interlude in Minnesota political history.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/26428578
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor # 24, Elmer Benson
02/27/2023
March of the Governors, Governor # 24, Elmer Benson
March of the Governors, Governor #24 Elmer Austin Benson (Series Podcast #25) We are unlikely to see a politician like Elmer Benson ever again. The small-town, left-wing banker served briefly as a US Senator before becoming governor. He was a genuine political radical who advocated replacing capitalism in Minnesota with a "cooperative commonwealth." The first time he ran for governor of Minnesota in 1936, he won by a landslide. The next time, in 1938, he lost by a landslide. In between, he battled with the legislature, filled state jobs with Farmer-Labor party workers, and once endorsed an occupation of the state senate chambers by Farmer-Laborites demanding action. Benson lived a long life (1895-1985) and never repented of anything.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/26067123
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #23: Hjalmar Petersen
02/06/2023
March of the Governors, Governor #23: Hjalmar Petersen
March of the Governors, Governor #23: Hjalmar Petersen (Series Podcast #24) Hjalmar Petersen (1890-1968) holds many distinctions as a governor of Minnesota: our only Dane, our only Hjalmar, our last immigrant (so far), our only governor from Askov (so far), and the one who served the shortest term (four months.) He served two terms in the legislature, one term as lieutenant governor, and eighteen years as a warehouse and railroad commissioner. He ran for governor four more times—three with the Farmer-Labor Party, one as a Republican. His political career began in 1930 and ended in 1967. He became governor in August 1936 upon the death of Floyd B. Olson. Passed over as Farmer-Labor candidate for governor in the primaries later that year, Petersen nurtured a grudge against the party for years to come. In 1938, he nearly upset Governor Elmer Benson in a primary. He tried again in 1942 and 1946. In 1956, he managed Estes Kefauver’s Minnesota presidential primary win over Adlai Stevenson. He served once more on the railroad and warehouse commission from 1955 to 1967.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/25846212
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #22: Floyd B. Olson
01/04/2023
March of the Governors, Governor #22: Floyd B. Olson
March of the Governors, Governor #22 Floyd Bjornstjerne Olson (Series Podcast #23) By age thirty, Floyd Bjornstjerne Olson (1891-1936) had been a shabbos goy, a college dropout, a stevedore, and a Wobbly. By age forty, he had served ten years as Hennepin County attorney. In the next five years, he would become one of Minnesota’s most successful politicians – its first Farmer-Labor governor (elected three times), a powerful speaker, the force behind legislation to support suffering farmers and workers during the Depression, and the only Minnesota governor ever to proclaim, “I am a radical.” He toyed with the idea of leading a national Farmer-Labor Party and took aim at a seat in the US Senate in 1936. But it was not to be: Pancreatic cancer took him in his prime at age forty-four.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/25507647
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #21: Theodore Christianson
12/05/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #21: Theodore Christianson
March of the Governors, Governor #21 Theodore Christianson (Series Podcast #22) Theodore Christianson (1883-1948) was a farm boy from Lac Qui Parle County and a progressive Republican who proved eminently successful as a vote-getter and as a government reformer. He was the first man elected governor three times, knocking off three successful Farmer-Labor politicians—Floyd B. Olson (1924), Magnus Johnson (1926), and Ernest Lundeen (1928). In times of crisis in farm country, he declined direct help to farmers, choosing instead to concentrate on small, efficient state government. Farmers rewarded him with their votes. Before becoming governor, he ran a newspaper in Dawson, Minnesota. After his terms, he worked for trade associations in Chicago and wrote a five-volume history of Minnesota.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/25226187
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #20: Jacob A. O. Preus
11/01/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #20: Jacob A. O. Preus
March of the Governors, Governor #20 Jacob A. O. Preus (Series Podcast #21) By age forty-one, Jacob A. O. Preus had been Minnesota's insurance commissioner and state auditor and had served two successful terms as governor (1921-1925). On his watch, the Minnesota Republican Party enacted a considerable program of progressive legislation. But the long crisis in farm country and the rise of the Farmer-Labor Party brought him down. Now, decisively defeated by Magnus Johnson for the US Senate, Preus was finished with politics. However, he was far from done piling up accomplishments. He had a long and successful second career in insurance and is the only person in Minnesota history to serve as governor AND found a Fortune 500 company—in his case, Lutheran Brotherhood, now Thrivent, based in Minneapolis.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/24870495
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #19: Joseph Alfred Arner Burnquist
10/04/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #19: Joseph Alfred Arner Burnquist
March of the Governors, Governor #19 Joseph Alfred Arner Burnquist (Series Podcast #20) Joseph Alfred Arner Burnquist (1879-1961), born in Dayton, Iowa, was destined for leadership from an early age. A star student and orator at Carleton, he was in the legislature at age twenty-eight, lieutenant governor at thirty-one, and governor at thirty-six. He led, or at least presided over, Minnesota’s infamous Public Safety Commission, the author of the worst World War I-era state-sponsored repression in the United States. The voters then turned against him, and he was out of office and seemingly out of politics at age forty-one. However, he returned eighteen years later to serve four terms as Minnesota’s attorney general.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/24585450
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #18: Winfield Scott Hammond
09/01/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #18: Winfield Scott Hammond
March of the Governors, Governor #18 Winfield Scott Hammond (Series Podcast #19) Winfield Scott Hammond (1863-1915) was Minnesota’s eighteenth governor and the last of only four from the Democratic Party (decades before, by merger, it became the DFL.) He was the first unmarried governor and the man who served the shortest time in office. Hammond was also our first Ivy League governor (Dartmouth, class of 1884) and one of several with deep New England roots: two of his forebears fought at Lexington and Concord. A Democrat in deep Republican country, the studious Hammond proved an excellent vote-getter, elected to Congress in 1906. He enjoyed that job but was lured back to Minnesota by a Democratic Party desperate for a plausible gubernatorial candidate. He defeated Republican William Lee in 1914 and died during a visit to Louisiana eleven months later.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/24240018
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #17: Adolph Olson Eberhart
08/03/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #17: Adolph Olson Eberhart
(March of the Governors Podcast #18) Adolph Eberhart (1870-1944) was a penniless, immigrant child from Varmland, Sweden, who embraced the opportunities the United States offered. Despite minimal schooling, he was named valedictorian of his class at Gustavus Adolphus College. He later became a lawyer, state senator, lieutenant governor, and then, governor. As a Republican governor, Eberhart engineered one of the most productive legislative sessions in Minnesota history and signed into law a remarkable host of progressive measures. Despite these successes, he became the first incumbent governor unseated in a primary. Eberhart seems also to have led an exemplary personal life. In 1915, he published a song (performed in the podcast), “‘Tis Only You,” which he dedicated to his wife.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/23947263
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #16: John A. Johnson
06/29/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #16: John A. Johnson
John Albert Johnson (March of the Governors Series #17) Minnesota’s sixteenth governor, John Albert Johnson, was our fourth from St. Peter. He had a “rags-to-riches Horatio Alger life.” The son of Swedish immigrants, he quit school at age twelve to support his mother and siblings. Self-educated, he eventually became a newspaper editor, state legislator, and was elected governor three times. If he hadn’t died during his third term at the age of forty-seven, Johnson would have likely been a serious candidate for the presidency in 1912. His priorities in office were those of the Progressive Era—improved conservation, making the tax system more fair, better regulation of business, and protection for workers. Johnson unsuccessfully urged women’s suffrage, ending capital punishment, and direct election of US senators. One of our most popular governors, today, his statue stands in front of the state capitol.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/23581814
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #15: Samuel Van Sant
05/31/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #15: Samuel Van Sant
March of the Governors, Podcast #16 Samuel Van Sant Samuel Van Sant was Minnesota’s fifteenth governor—the first to serve in the twentieth century and the first to occupy the current capitol. After three years of combat duty in the Union cavalry (1861-1864), Van Sant joined the family steamboat business in LeClaire, Iowa. In 1883, he moved to Winona and soon went into politics. A Republican, he was elected to the legislature in 1892 and rose to speaker of the house just two years later. A gifted public speaker, he was elected governor in 1900 and reelected in 1902. In keeping with the spirit of the age, he championed such progressive measures as reform of the state's tax system, advocating for wilderness protection, and extending the use of the primaries to nominate candidates. In the decades following his retirement from political office, Van Sant became a national leader in Civil War veterans’ affairs and was a popular speaker at Republican gatherings throughout Minnesota. He died in 1936 at the age of ninety-two.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/23285531
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #14: John Lind
05/11/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #14: John Lind
Three-term US congressman John Lind, a traditional Republican with a stream of populism coursing through his veins, made a major political course change in 1894. Unhappy with Republican policies, Lind, the first Swedish-American elected to Congress, opted not to run for a fourth term and quit the party. Two years later a fusion of Democrats, Populists and left-leaning Republicans convinced him to run for governor. David Clough narrowly defeated him. In 1898, Lind returned for another gubernatorial run, this time cruising to a convincing victory. A self-described political orphan during his second run for governor, John Lind proved a zealous, highly-principled advocate for progressive ideals. This former Republican broke that party’s hold on the governorship that began in 1859 with Alexander Ramsey.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/23079083
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #13: David Marston Clough
04/06/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #13: David Marston Clough
David Marston Clough was a lumber baron and politician who served as Minnesota’s Republican governor from 1895 to 1899. Born in New Hampshire in 1846, he moved with his family to Spencer Brook Township, Minnesota, in 1857. He was successful in the lumber business and moved into politics, serving as a city council member in Minneapolis, state senator, and lieutenant governor before his elevation to the gubernatorial seat upon the election of Governor Knute Nelson to the US Senate. He was then elected in his own right and served one two-year term before declining to run for reelection (and controversially endorsing the Democratic candidate in the following election). Shortly thereafter, he moved to Everett, Washington, to continue in the lumber business until his death in 1924.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/22701047
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #12: Knute Nelson
03/01/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #12: Knute Nelson
Knute Nelson (1843-1923) spent two years as Governor of Minnesota on his way to becoming a representative in the US Senate, where he served for twenty-eight years. Nelson was the first prominent Scandinavian-American politician in Minnesota and in the United States. He immigrated from Voss, Norway, to Chicago as a six-year-old child and spent most of his upbringing in Norwegian-immigrant communities in Wisconsin. He made his way to Minnesota after serving in the Union Army during the Civil War and apprenticing to become a lawyer. As a politician, Nelson leveraged his dual identity as a Norwegian and war veteran to gain support from both Scandinavian and American-born populations. During Nelson’s long and accomplished career, he made what is arguably his longest-lasting mark as a US representative with the passage of the Nelson Act in 1888.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/22297835
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #11: William Merriam
02/07/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #11: William Merriam
Ramsey County Historical Society presents March of the Governors, Governor #11: William Merriam. William Merriam (1849-1931) was the first Minnesota governor born into wealth and the first to break an unwritten code of the Minnesota Republican Party when he wrested the party’s nomination from the incumbent governor, Andrew McGill, in 1888. He proved a much better vote-getter than McGill (that year, anyway), but still won his first election with only 51 percent of the vote. The next time around he did much worse—he was re-elected, yes, but with only 36 percent of the vote in a four-way contest. With his Republican Party fractured and the legislature divided, he was unable to get much done in office. He did not try for a third term. His second act, as director of the United States Census Bureau, was far more successful. When he took that job in 1897, he left Minnesota and never returned. He is known, to some, as the Father of the Modern US Census.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/22055414
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #10: Andrew McGill
01/05/2022
March of the Governors, Governor #10: Andrew McGill
Andrew McGill (1840-1905), our tenth governor, served one tumultuous term in office after 13 years as state insurance commissioner. Because of divisions in the Republican Party and the strength of his main opponent, Alonzo Ames, he won by only 2600 votes in the election of 1886. After a moderately successful two years as governor, the Republican Party, doubting his ability to win, dumped him in 1888. This was the first time a sitting governor had been denied renomination. McGill’s post-governor career was more successful: He served four terms in the state senate and as postmaster of St. Paul, and became a highly respected figure. His house on Langford Park still stands.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/21683492
info_outline
March of the Governors, Governor #8: John Pillsbury
12/02/2021
March of the Governors, Governor #8: John Pillsbury
John Pillsbury, a Republican, served three terms as governor of Minnesota, from January 1876 to January 1882. An immigrant from New Hampshire, Pillsbury made a fortune in the grain milling business, in the company that still carries his name. He also had a strong commitment to public life. Serving in the state senate from St. Anthony, Pillsbury was a major force in the establishment of the University of Minnesota. As governor he championed accountable and efficient government and struggled to find a humane response to the grasshopper plague that devastated thousands of farms in Western and West Central Minnesota. That response included opening his own purse. Pillsbury remained a widely admired public figure until his death in 1901 at the age of 74.
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/21356822
info_outline
The March of Governors, Governor #9: Lucius F. Hubbard
10/29/2021
The March of Governors, Governor #9: Lucius F. Hubbard
Possessing little more than a drive to be a success, 21-year-old Lucius F. Hubbard reached Red Wing in spring 1857. Unimposing in size and stature, the clean-shaven, boyish New York-born newcomer appeared a long shot to make it on the rugged Minnesota frontier. But by age 30, Hubbard was a celebrated American Civil War hero, rising from the rank of private in the Fifth Minnesota infantry to brevet Brigadier General, a thrice-wounded combat leader, and recognized hero in battles at Corinth and Nashville. Lucius Hubbard returned to Minnesota as the King Wheat Era blossomed, becoming a grain merchant and mill owner before shifting to the state’s booming railroad industry where he found more financial success. He was elected to the state senate in 1872 where he emerged as a Republican party leader. Voters elected Hubbard governor in 1881 by a wide margin and then gave him a second term in 1883. To learn more about Lucius Hubbard, including photos, see the brief MNopedia article,
/episode/index/show/ramseyhistory/id/20987435