Did you know May 30 – July 4 is the first-ever Northfield History Month? Learn more about the events here.

Every weekday this Northfield History Month, come on over to the Northfield History Collaborative to learn a little more about one of the newest additions to our online collection of materials that help tell Northfield’s history.

• Day 1: 259 photographs of World War II era servicemen and women
• Day 2: 22 new Northfield Arts Guild theater programs
• Day 3: Grand Army of the Republic minutes

Northfield had a really unique organization in the 1970s and 80s called HATPIN: Housewives Alert to Pollution in Northfield (later “Households”). Here is how one St. Olaf student described them (and you can also find her research in the Collaborative!):

Led by a group of local women, the organization sought to preserve a marsh and prairie near an elementary school on the east side of town [Sibley] for the benefit of local students. They recognized the advant- ages of direct observational learning and advocated within the community for the marsh’s preservation. The women led fundraisers, wrote editorials for the local newspaper and gained community support from Carleton, St. Olaf, and Northfield High School educators, as well as the Northfield students themselves. HATPIN wanted to use the marsh to increase students’ scientific understanding, but they also wanted to foster an environmental engagement within the Northfield youth that would go beyond the classroom.

The Collaborative recently added 22 of HATPIN’s newsletters from 1971 to 1973. These newsletters, titled “PIN-Point,” and much of HATPIN’s records reside at the Northfield Historical Society.

In addition to chronicling the meetings and goings-on of the environmental organization, these newsletters (which are full-text searchable) are also a window on what was going on in Northfield, or even what didn’t go on in Northfield.

• In September 1971, glass recycling in Northfield was being handled by a schoolteacher and her students, until collection was turned over to a private gentleman. Northfielders would bring their glass to collection points at grocery stores, after removing any metal from the bottles, and sorting their glass by color.
• In May 1973, HATPIN was lobbying the City of Northfield to take over can recycling. The group estimated that in the previous 18 months, it had prevented 20 tons of cans and 135 tons of glass from taking up space in the local landfill.
• In April 1972, there was talk of Northern States Power constructing underground gas domes beneath Northfield Township.
• The October 1972 newsletter says that an NSP representative will field questions about a proposed fossil-fuel power plant in Rice County.
• The September 1971 newsletter outlines a history of pollution-prevention steps at Schjeldahl (later Sheldahl, now Multek).

Did you know May 30 – July 4 is the first-ever Northfield History Month? Learn more about the events here.

Every weekday this Northfield History Month, come on over to the Northfield History Collaborative to learn a little more about one of the newest additions to our online collection of materials that help tell Northfield’s history.

• Day 1: 259 photographs of World War II era servicemen and women
• Day 2: 22 new Northfield Arts Guild theater programs

In today’s spotlight collection, we are reminded of what makes the Northfield History Collaborative so useful:

• Items that are originally handwritten become full-text searchable
• Items kept in one location become accessible to researchers at all of our partner organizations and around the world
• Original items that are fragile don’t need to be handled as much once they are scanned and available online

The 1884 – 1892 minutes of the local Grand Army of the Republic post, along with several later books, reside in Faribault with the Rice County Historical Society. The nearly 200 pages are handwritten, and that’s an awful lot to wade through if you’re looking for one particular name or event. Now that the book has been digitized and transcribed, it is fully searchable. It’s also available to you whether you can get to Faribault or not; and even if you were in Faribault, the staff could point you online in order to minimize contact with the 130-year-old book.

Most of us aren’t familiar with the Grand Army of the Republic, or the GAR. That’s natural – it was a fraternal organization for those who had served in the Civil War, and, well, the war ended 149 years ago. Its objectives were “To preserve and strengthen those kind and fraternal feelings which bind together the soldiers sailors and Marines who united to suppress the late Rebellion and to perpetuate the memory and the history of the dead,” and to aid comrades in need, as well as their widows and orphans.

The local post, named for Joseph Lee Heywood (a Civil War veteran as well as a local hero), was established in 1884. Its membership was nearly gone by the 1920s.

I’m hard-pressed to summarize 200 pages into a brief blog post. It’s such a significant organization and book that I’ll be slightly less brief than usual. Here are some highlights:

• Decoration Day [precursor to Memorial day] was one of the post’s biggest events every year. Their plans for 1888: “[The post] will meet at the new G. A. R. hall [the building where First National Bank is now?] at 12:30 P.M. sharp, march to the cemetery at 1 P. M., and after decorating the soldiers’ graves the members of the post will return to their hall. At 2:15 P. M. they will form a procession, together with the children of the public schools, and march to the park, where the program will be as follows: Music. Prayer by the post chaplain. Music. Remarks by Post Commander M. M. Clark. Address by Hon. W. S. Pattee. Music. Recitation by Miss Lillian Spencer, “The Drummer Boy’s Lament.” Remarks by the president of the Women’s Relief Corps, Mrs. J. A. Clifford. Music. Decoration of floral cross in memory of deceased soldiers. Music in which the audience will join. Benediction by the chaplain.”
• That particular year was a late spring: “The committee on flowers specially request that all our generous citizens who have flowers contribute the same for the occasion. The spring is so backward that flowers will be scarce, and it is therefore the more necessary that there be a general co-operation in furnishing them. They should be at the new G. A. R. hall, Nutting’s new block [current First National Bank?], by 10 o’clock A. M. Wednesday.”
• Northfielders responded en masse: “The G. A. R. comrades expressly thank the ladies of the W. C. T. U. [Women’s Christian Temperance Union] who so kindly furnished a bouquet of flowers and a card with a scripture passage or a couplet from a hymn, to every comrade on Decoration Day; and to the generous citizens who furnished such a profuse supply of all kinds of rare flowers, as well as the ladies of the woman’s relief corps, and the ladies of St. Olaf, for the beautiful floral anchor; and especially the committee who had this matter in charge and had such an abundant supply of bouquets to decorate the graves of the departed heroes.”
• Camp Fires were a type of event the post held occasionally that were both entertaining and educational. From the minutes of  Nov. 20, 1884: “Heywood Post, G. A. R., held its first Camp Fire at the opera house, on Thursday evening of last week, and the affair was in every respect a grand success Members of the Post, their wives, sisters, cousins and their aunts, and invited guests, in all numbering over two hundred, assembled at a seasonable hour. An ample amount of provisions was supplied by members of the Post and their families, and the hungry two hundred ate to their fill, and there were many baskets full of unbroken food left, which was taken in charge by the relief committee of the post and left where it would do the most good.” Members of the post shared war stories, and there were also patriotic readings and speeches.
• I found this curious, and find no other reference to it in this book: “The post unanimously declined the proposition to erect a tablet to the Memory of deceased Veterans in the proposed Mill square [park?] and the Commander instructed to notify the proper parties.” (May 20, 1886)
• I would love to know what happened to this after the Heywood Post was done with it! “After a short recess Commander Kelly on behalf of Miss May Haywood [sic] presented the Post with Portrait of J. L. Heywood for which a vote of thanks was tendered.  (April 2, 1891)
• In 1887, steps were taken towards organizing a Women’s Relief Corps (a ladies’ auxiliary); In 1890, a local Sons of Veterans chapter was formed.

Did you know May 30 – July 4 is the first-ever Northfield History Month? Learn more about the events here.

Every weekday this Northfield History Month, come on over to the Northfield History Collaborative to learn a little more about one of the newest additions to our online collection of materials that help tell Northfield’s history.

• Day 1: 259 photographs of World War II era servicemen and women

One of the Collaborative’s partner organizations, the Northfield Arts Guild, has a goal of digitizing all of its theater programs going back to 1959. They are now 22 programs closer to that goal! The bulk of the guild’s collection from 1959 to 1984 is now available online in its section of the Collaborative.

The new programs range from 1981 to 1984 and include the following:

• As You Like It
• Bye, Bye,  Birdie!
• Custer
• Famous Fables From Far Away
• Ghosts
• Hans Christian Andersen
• Heidi
• Here’s Love!
• Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit
• On Golden Pond
• Peter Pan
• Scrooge
• Snoopy
• Tennessee Williams’ Women
• The Crucible
• The Four of Us – A Musical Revue
• The Odd Couple
• The Passion of Dracula
• The Pied Piper and Androcles the Lion
• The Song of Norway
• Toad of Toad Hall
• Winnie-the-Pooh

Did you know May 30 – July 4 is the first-ever Northfield History Month? Learn more about the events here.

Every weekday this Northfield History Month, come on over to the Northfield History Collaborative to learn a little more about one of the newest additions to our online collection of materials that help tell Northfield’s history.

First up, we’re highlighting 259 photographs of Northfield-area veterans, most from World War II. This collection came to the Northfield Historical Society from the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post.

If you don’t read any further, please do stop and take a look at these three photographs. They came to us unidentified, and we’d love to know who they are.

Otherwise, I’ll point out for you a few of the photos that really struck me.

• This young man in the first photo, Curtis Samuels, is standing right on Bridge Square. That made quite an impact on me, as someone born several decades after World War II.
• This photo of LeRoy Pflaum is also touching, as just a young man joking around.
• Then there was this photo of Kenneth Tuma, wearing a whole lot of fire-power.
• Something that surprised me: One group of Northfield boys brought a live mascot, Dalmatian Jiggs Kump, when they went off to Camp Claibourne, Louisiana. Several tales about Jiggs and his grand adventure turn up in the scrapbooks of wartime columnist Nellie “Mom” Phillips.

Take a look through these! We didn’t acquire a whole lot of information about these servicemen and women — and no doubt some of the names are misspelled — so please comment or send us anything we should know.

Maggie Lee dries a collection of campaign buttons after a fire at the Northfield News in 1964.

“What is Maggie doing?” I asked myself when I first saw this image a year or two ago in the back room of the Northfield News. Yesterday I finally got my answer.

I did know that it was taken just after a fire had badly damaged the Northfield News and Independent offices on November 19, 1964. At that time, they were located in the 300 block of Division Street, where Division Street Dance and Jenkins Jewelers are now.

As I was flipping through the News issues of that time to learn more about the fire for this blog post, I found this same photo in the paper alongside Maggie’s regular column, “For Women Only.”

What was Maggie doing at 12:30 a.m. after the Big Fire? Polishing buttons.

You may remember that during the final weeks of the election campaign, we had a colorful collection of buttons of campaigns past in one of The News windows. It started with a little boxful of buttons that Carl had saved through the years and was augmented by interesting ones from three or four other Northfielders …

Well, when our “holocaust” was over, the office furniture had been moved to 321 Division, I had returned from a special dinner that I “covered” and had spent three hours wringing water out of various and sundry items, I suddenly remembered those intriguing buttons.

“Oh, they’ll just be all rusty,” said Carl. “Not if I dry them,” I retorted. He found them frozen to placard and window floor, pulled them loose and I was busy polishing as Rollie Finner, Carleton College staff photographer dropped in!

All this is to say that the Northfield History Collaborative has now added 70 negatives from the Northfield News fire of 1964. Even if fire fighters, fire, smoke, or the Northfield News don’t interest you, there are some great shots of downtown and half the town watching the event!

 

.. the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages has already rendered our large cities incapable of wise and self government; has burdened the whole land with enormous taxation for the criminals it has made and the pauperism it has caused and by the desolation it has wrought in the homes of the nation and the degradation of its citizens and voters …

Use and abuse of alcohol was of concern to Northfielders since the town’s inception in the 1850s. It was a topic of debates in the Lyceum Society, and their newsletter articles, too.

Temperance and prohibition have also been the goals of Northfield civic organizations. Among them are the Prohibition Club, which established this constitution in 1877, and the Northfield Prohibition League, formed in 1889. A minutes book, constitutions, and other assorted papers from these groups are now available through the Northfield History Collaborative. The originals reside at the Northfield Historical Society.

The minutes are fairly dry, to be honest – no pun intended. It seems that members would be stirred and active following a rousing speaker, then at other times they’d have trouble convincing anyone to be president. But isn’t that how organizations sometimes go today, too?

Researchers of specific individuals will find a list of 45 league members, 149 signatories of the Million Voters’ Agreement, and 42 who pledged financial support to a prohibition circular.

Interior of Holy Cross Church chapel in Dundas, decorated for Christmas, about 1890.

The Northfield History Collaborative invites you to take a look at our community’s past – at this time of year, particularly through some yuletide items.

• This postcard from First National Bank advises customers of 1909 that “the wisest Christmas gift you can make a youngster is to open an account for him.”
• Lucky Northfield invitees celebrated Christmas Eve 1880 at a ball held in the Lockwood Opera House. The ball, held by the Acme Hose Co., featured firemen in full uniform and cost $1 per ticket. Supper was extra at the Archer House. “Yourself and ladies respectfully invited.”
• Student newspaper writer Virginia Givens opined in a 1936 Christmas Periscope that “on the whole, fathers get the best time out of Christmas. Father does not need to obtain any Christmas presents for the children because that is his wife’s job … The one present he might have to purchase — Mother’s — he usually tells his secretary to get for him.”
• “‘What a wonderful Christmas we had,’ Alice’s mother told the workers of the Northfield Welfare board who were responsible for the basket and all the good things it contained.” Read more about this Great Depression-era story here.
• Soldier Walter Hughes wrote home to his parents in Northfield during World War II that great gifts for those serving overseas included shaving cream, razor blades, heavy cotton sweat socks, rounds of 50 cigarettes, a skating cap for under helmets, and candy bars and cookies if sealed into a tin can with scotch tape.

Finally — though you can see more Christmas at the Collaborative here! — is a solemn poem printed in the Northfield News on Christmas Eve 1942: “To The Fighting Men on Christmas Day” by St. Olaf professor George Weida Spohn.

You will not hear the bells on Christmas day,

Or see the glitter of the lighted trees,

Or join the loved ones in your families

In song and prayer, in festive cheer and play.

You only hear what thundering guns may say

And see their muzzles flash on lands and seas,

See blood and hear the shrieks of enemies,

The sights and sounds which mark this global fray.

Beyond this fury lies a patch of earth,

Your home of yesterday, but fresh and clear

As of to-day. From it will drift to you

Sweet memories, almost as old as birth,

An unheard Voice which bids you have no fear,

An unseen Face which dooms the dismal view.

Carleton students who left school for military service during the Spanish-American War, in training with the 12th Minnesota Infantry at Chickamauga. Ernest Lundeen, center, also served with Northfield’s Company K. See the original at http://contentdm.carleton.edu/cdm/ref/collection/CCAP/id/1187.

On this Veterans Day, remember the service of Northfield-area men and women by looking through the documents and photographs at the Northfield History Collaborative that tell their stories.

Browse or search through to see some of our partners’ items from the Civil War, World War I, and other conflicts. Below, I’ll highlight some new items from the Spanish-American War and World War II.

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR

It’s been 115 years since the beginning of one of America’s lesser-known conflicts: The Spanish-American War.

Personally, I could remember from high school history that there was something about Cuba, something about the Philippines, and something about Teddy Roosevelt. If you want a quick primer, Wikipedia offers a good overview here. Their first sentences put the whole thing in a quick nutshell:

The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, the result of American intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. American attacks on Spain’s Pacific possessions led to involvement in the Philippine Revolution and ultimately to the Philippine–American War.

In this post you’ll see this fantastic photo from the Carleton College collection of five young men associated with the school: John Gleed Redding (1901), Frank Knapp, Ernest C. A. Lundeen (1901 – a member of Company K), Fred Charles Smith (1899), and George G. Larson (1901).

Northfield’s young men were eager to play their part in history back in 1898. As this roster, now online at the Northfield History Collaborative, shows, 90 men from the area volunteered when a National Guard unit was assembled: Company K, 4th Minnesota Infantry. A fun sidenote about this piece: It came to the Northfield Historical society framed. When staff went to unframe it for scanning this summer, there were two more pages inside! You’ll see them at the link as well.

A related item is also new to the Collaborative: An attendance roll book for Company K. It recently came to the Northfield Historical Society from the City of Northfield. It includes some details about promotions, discharges, and so forth.

From what I can tell, Company K itself never went overseas, though the attendance roll book does note the death of one man – a J. F. Severson.  He is not on the original roster noted here, and I’m afraid I don’t have any information about him.

A note at the bottom of the roster does mention the death of another man. Clarence Whitford was a tall 18-year-old, a student from New  London, Wis, according to the roster. From Company K, he enlisted in the 34th U. S. Infantry. The Northfield News of April 20, 1901 reports how he died in the Philippines of typhoid fever early in 1900. A funeral was held for him at All Saints Episcopal Church in 1901; he was  interred at Oaklawn Cemetery.

WORLD WAR II

Here’s a transition for you: That news article above says Clarence Whitford was the nephew of R. C. Phillips of Northfield. To my knowledge, R. C. Phillips was the father of  Nellie Phillips, also known as “Mom Phillips.” She wrote a Northfield News column during World War II to servicemen. So Clarence Whitford and Nellie Phillips were cousins.

The Northfield Historical Society holds about 25 scrapbooks full of Mom Phillips’ columns to servicemen, clippings about their letters home, and a few original photographs and documents. The Collaborative recently posted the first three scrapbooks online: 1, 2 and 3. These are a great way to understand more about what life was like for Northfielders on the homefront, eager for news from the local boys abroad. We plan to add more of the scrapbooks early next year, so be on the lookout for those.

Another collection to watch for: photographs of Northfield’s World War II servicemen and women from the local VFW post.

Barn constructed in 1906 near the current site of the Dittmann Center. The college farm is one of the topics discussed in the American Environmental History course papers now available in the Northfield Student Research Collection. Image courtesy of St. Olaf College Archives collection via the Northfield History Collaborative.

Once a month for the coming year, the Collaborative will host a guest blog from one of our board members. Today’s post comes from Kris MacPherson, Reference & Instruction Librarian and Professor of Asian Studies at St. Olaf College.

Who made up HATPIN and what wonderful locale are they credited with saving?

Which European explorers found huge stands of elm, sugar maple, and basswood trees and how is it that we can still enjoy them today in a selected location?

The answers to these and other questions can be found in one of the important sections of the Northfield History Collaborative collections, the Northfield Student Research Collection.  Many papers get written about Northfield – by sixth graders, by college students, and more – that add wonderful material to the formal histories that have been published.  We have just added contributions from St. Olaf’s American Environmental History course, taught last spring by Professor Megan Raby.  Detailed studies of the history of Sibley Marsh and HATPIN, Nerstrand Big Woods, Native Americans and the Cannon River, and the St. Olaf natural lands/agricultural lands/prairie, among others, are included.  Browse through the research from this class here.  Happy exploring!