MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
345 Kellogg Boulevard W, Saint Paul, MN 55102 www.mnhs.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: Using the power of history to transform lives by preserving, sharing, and connecting. The Society preserves the evidence of the past and tells the stories of Minnesota's people. The Society provides opportunities for people of all ages to learn about the history of Minnesota, collects and cares for materials that document human life in Minnesota, makes them known and accessible to people in Minnesota and beyond, and encourages and executes research in Minnesota History.

Using the power of history to transform lives through educational initiatives, history exhibitions and programs, historic preservation, accessibility to a network of historic sites, publications of Minnesota historical content and archival services.

Historic Sites and Museums: Administers historic sites and museums throughout the state for public benefit through programming and exhibits, entertaining reenactments of key events and historical characters, and participation in living history programs about the people who lived and worked at these historic places; Includes museum programs, activities and services at the History Center and the museum shops, parking, food service, and building rental at all facilities. Provides preservation and construction services; operates the Capitol tour program; administers the State Historic Sites Act. In FY 19 attendance at our historic sites and the Minnesota History Center once again exceeded 1M visitors, including over 200,000 students and chaperones. FY 19 saw preparations get underway for major construction and revitalization of Historic Fort Snelling, including new tour programming and exhibits. Major construction should start in FY 20. In FY 19 our Historic Sites and Museums became part of the Blue Star Museums program, offering free general admission to activie military and their families during the summer at our museums.

Education, Outreach, and Content Development: Develops Minnesota history curriculum, provides teacher education and coordinates the Minnesota History Day program. Plans, fabricates and installs exhibits at Society interpretive facilities and museums throughout the state. Develops educational programming and outreach, including diversity and inclusion and Native American initiatives. Publishes books and other media related to Minnesota history. MNHS continues to be a leader in diversity and inclusion, engaging with traditionally underrepresented communities to ensure the diversity of Minnesota is reflected in all that we do, an example of which is having 18 college fellows and 28 interns being hosted by MNHS for career building opportunities. Native American Initiatives continued to work on on building relationships and being an advocate for Native peoples across Minnesota and beyond. History Day continues to be a signature program for MNHS. In FY 19 more than 27,000 of Minnesota's students participated in the program, in school, regional, state and national levels, garnering two medals at Nationals. The MNHS Press continued its success with selling over 120,000 print and ebooks, an 11% increase. Our Exhibits department continued to share dynamic stories through new and returning exhibits, including the very popular and successful First Avenue Exhibit as well as an exhibit on Somalis and Minnesota and construction of a Native American Gallery.

Library and Collections: Maintains and makes available to the public the MNHS' collection of books, newspapers, maps, objects, photographs, works of art, oral history recordings, private manuscripts and periodicals on Minnesota history; and catalogs, restores and digitizes documents and records to make them available for public use. This program includes the acquisition, preservation and cataloging of public records, as well as the Society's responsibilities as State Archivist. Conducts historic and archaeological surveys, as required by law. Program accomplishments are often measured by public usage. In FY 2019 the Gale Family Library at the History Center welcomed over 22,000 in-person and correspondence research requests, a number similar to last year. A new in-house digitization process allowed for 1.3 million pages to be added to the MN Digital Newspaper Hub bring the total page count to 3 million. Our collections continued to grow in FY 19, with the addition of more oral histories and over 2,400 new artifacts that were added to the collections. The Archaeology program completed a major project; survey and excavation work in connection with the Fort Snelling revitalization project.

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