Minnesota History

12th October, 2011

Today autumn really arrived. As soon as I walked out of the house, it just started to rain. I ran across to the shop to get an umbrella. I was only waiting for the bus for about 3 minutes but my trousers were completely soaked (even with the umbrella). It was also very cold and I think it is just going to be downhill from here.

I went to the Historical Museum in St. Paul. I was actually here before. The last time I was here, I saw a number of exhibits but didn't buy a ticket. Since nobody asked me for a ticket, I assumed that these were free temporary exhibits and that there was another permanent one, which was better. So I bought a ticket, only to find out that I had already seen everything. But since I didn't spend a lot of time there the last time, I saw everything again and did get more out of it this time.

It is a strange history museum. It is not really that historical. It doesn't tell you much about the first settlers or why the cities grew etc. The exhibits are quite different. One (from the photo above) featured the Minnesota Top 150. This featured people, places and things from Minnesota. For example, Greyhound Bus, Bob Dylan and Prince. It was interesting to see important things and people from Minnesota that I didn't realise were from here. There was also an interactive quiz about Minnesota. The questions were very tough but I still managed to get 7/10.

Another exhibit was looking at ordinary tenants from a house in St. Paul over a period of time. They rebuilt the rooms and you could find out about the people who lived there. There were first Italians, then Irish, African American and Hmong. It was interesting to see the various immigrants that came to Minnesota. I learnt that half of Italians that came here returned home and that Minnesota has the highest number of Hmong in the USA. They came following the Vietnam war as they fought on the American side. It was tough for the Hmong people because they didn't want to come here but would be killed if they stayed in Laos and they weren't allowed to stay in Thailand.

I was going to go to a talk in the Cathedral afterwards but since my trousers were wet all day, I was feeling a little sick and cold so I went home and had a few cups of tea in the warm house.