On the occasion of Minnesota's 150th anniversary of statehood, over a hundred historians and other writers assembled to discuss the subjects they had been studying, thinking, and writing about. This book presents the best of that work, including nineteen essays on topics as varied as baseball at Native American boarding schools, nineteenth-century predictions for Minnesota's future, Native American tourist goods, the Kensington rune stone, and a memoir of growing up in Marshall. Bringing together some of the most recent and best thinking about Minnesotas past and its people, this book demonstrates the history of this place, in all its rich complexity, before and after statehood. Contributors include Melodie Andrews, Annette Atkins, Marge Barrett, Matt Callahan, Emily Ganzel, Linda LeGarde Grover, Louis Jenkins, David J. Laliberte, James Madison, J. Thomas Murphy, Nora Murphy, Traci M. Nathans-Kelly, Paula Nelson, Patrick Nunnally, Linda Schloff, Gregory Schroeder, Hamp Smith, Barbara W. Sommer, Tangi Villerbu, Howard J. Vogel, Steven Werle, Bill Wittenbreer, and Michael Zalar.

Renowned historian Annette Atkins presents a fresh understanding of how a complex and modern Minnesota came into being in "Creating Minnesota. "Each chapter of this innovative state history focuses on a telling detail, a revealing incident, or a meaningful issue that illuminates a larger event, social trends, or politics during a period in our past. A three-act play about Minnesota's statehood vividly depicts the competing interests of Natives, traders, and politicians who lived in the same territory but moved in different worlds. Oranges are the focal point of a chapter about railroads and transportation: how did a St. Paul family manage to celebrate their 1898 Christmas with fruit that grew no closer that 1,500 miles from their home? A photo essay brings to life three communities of the 1920s, seen through the lenses of local and itinerant photographers. The much-sought state fish helps to explain the new Minnesota, where pan-fried walleye and walleye quesadillas coexist on the same north woods menu. In "Creating Minnesota "Atkins invites readers to experience the texture of people's lives through the decades, offering a fascinating and unparalleled approach to the history of our state. Annette Atkins is a professor of history at St. John's University in Collegeville and the author of "Harvest of Grief: Grasshopper Plagues and Public Assistance in Minnesota, 1873-1878 "(MHS Press) and "We Grew Up Together: Brothers and Sisters in Nineteenth-Century America."

Atkins eloquently portrays the extreme hardships of Minnesota farmers during the grasshopper plagues of the 1870s. She examines local, state, and national relief efforts, which she reviews in the context of 19th-century social welfare philosophy.