History of Minnesota course guide

We have lots of books and videos about Minnesota history in our collection. If you like to browse, most of these are shelved in the F601-615 call number range. Ask a librarian if you need help finding anything.

Here are just a few of our books about Minnesota history:

Behind the circulation desk we have our Course Resources collection. These are books and videos that instructors have asked us to reserve for certain classes. Books for The History of Minnesota include A Peculiar Imbalance : The Fall and Rise of Racial Equality in Early Minnesota and A Popular History of Minnesota. Both of these books are also available online; just click on the links! Books on reserve must be used in the Library, except with permission from your instructor to check them out overnight. Ask a librarian if you're looking for one of these.

Minnesota History is a quarterly publication of the Minnesota Historical Society. We keep print issues from the current year and five previous years.

How has farming changed (or stayed the same) in Minnesota since the time covered in Haymakers? Newspapers are an excellent source for this kind of information. Here's how to find relevant articles from two of our databases.

U.S. Newsstream

1. Open ProQuest U.S. Newsstream with this URL: https://login.dctproxy.mnpals.net/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/usnews.
2. Search for farmer.
3. Look at the left side of the screen. Your results should already be sorted by Relevance.
4. Under Source type, click on Newspapers. Now we'll only see newspaper articles.
5. Under Publication date, click on Enter a date range, type 2016 in the From box and 2026 in the To box, then click on the Update button. Now we'll only see articles after January 1, 2016.
6. Under Location, expand to see the different locations and click on More to see the full list. Scroll down and check the box to include Minnesota, then click the Apply button. Now we'll only see articles about Minnesota, but not necessarily published in Minnesota.
7. Under Publication title, expand to see the different newspapers and click on More to see the full list. Check the boxes to include these four newspapers: Star Tribune, Saint Paul Pioneer Press, MinnPost.com, and St. Cloud Times. Then click the Apply button. Now we'll only see articles published in Minnesota.

Newspaper Source

1. Open EBSCO Newspaper Source with this URL: https://login.dctproxy.mnpals.net/login?url=https://research.ebsco.com/c/gmlke?db=nfh.
2. Click on Advanced search.
3. Type farmer in the search box.
4. Type MN in the Publication box. Now we'll only see articles published in Minnesota.
5. Under Publication Date, select Past 10 years.
6. Click on the Search button.

ProQuest U.S. Newsstream and EBSCO Newspaper Source both include the Star Tribune, so there will be some overlap in results. The Saint Paul Pioneer Press is only available through ProQuest, while EBSCO is unique in offering newspapers from Rochester, Worthington, and Willmar, so you'll find different articles in each database.

One way to expand your search is to search for farm* instead of farmer. This will retrieve any article with words like farm, farmer, farming, farmland, etc. But it will also give you articles with the word Farmington.

To narrow your results, try adding keywords like drought, organic, soil, etc.

Here are just a few of the ebooks about Minnesota history you'll find in our EBSCO eBook Collection:

A Popular History of Minnesota
Norman K. Risjord, 2005

A Peculiar Imbalance: The Fall and Rise of Racial Equality in Early Minnesota
William D. Green, 2007

Haymakers: A Chronicle of Five Farm Families
Steven R. Hoffbeck, 2000

• Minnesota Digital Library
• Minnesota Discovery Center
• Minnesota Historical Society