As you gather together with family over the holidays, start a conversation about your family’s history. To help you get started with this process, the Society will have an eight-page pull-out section – highlighting the Minnesota’s Greatest Generation project – in the Star Tribune on Nov. 18. It will provide an in-depth look at this exciting new project, and will offer plenty of helpful tips and advice for preserving your family’s stories and special objects and heirlooms.
In honor of Minnesota veterans and Minnesota’s Greatest Generation, the Society will launch the Minnesota Veterans Graves Registration Index on Nov. 11. The new website provides a searchable index with more than 10,000 WWII veterans’ grave registrations. This is a perfect way to start learning more about your family’s history!
Now is a great time to support the Society’s capital budget request, including the exciting Fort Snelling project. During the 2006 legislative session, the Society will request funding for revitalization of Historic Fort Snelling. When completed, the fort will feature a year-round museum with state-of-the-art exhibits on the Frontier Era, the Civil War and World War II. The riverfront facility will have a large auditorium and new visitor amenities, including classrooms, archaeology labs, museum shop and food service. This project will restore Fort Snelling to its rightful place as one of Minnesota’s premier historic sites.
Your help is needed! Please contact the Governor and encourage him to include the Fort Snelling revitalization project in his capital budget recommendations, which will be submitted to the Legislature in early January. Learn about contacting your legislator.
 Head to Split Rock Lighthouse for this annual event, which commemorates the sinking of the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. Enjoy a film and tours of the lighthouse and fog signal building from noon to 6 p.m. This is your only chance during the year to see the lit beacon from inside the lighthouse.
Split Rock Lighthouse. Nov. 10, noon – 6 p.m. Fee is $4, free for children under 6.
 Exciting volunteer opportunities are available at the History Center and numerous historic sites. Volunteers can interact with schoolchildren and visitors in the upcoming “Daniel’s Story” exhibit (weekdays and weekends), work on entering data for the Birth Records Index (weekdays), or assist in reviewing and researching potential photo donations (weekdays).
Call 651-284-0434 or go online for an application today!
This year’s Stans Lecture looks at the role of photographs in our memory of historical events. Do we remember photographs and stories more than an event itself? Join Macalester College professor Michael Griffin as he explores some of the most famous photographs of the 20th century – those of Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalists – and discusses the impact of media images on our memory of war and world events.
This lecture is presented in conjunction with the History Center exhibit, “The Pulitzer Prize Photographs: Capture the Moment,” and is made possible by the Maurice Stans Lecture Endowment.
Minnesota History Center. Nov. 15, 7 p.m.
Society exhibit developer Kate Roberts writes, “Every time I look at this photo of the interior of a hardware store in Foley, I long to go back in time to that day in mid-December, 1952. Imagine this store, not in the pristine state captured by commercial photographers, but filled with hopeful shoppers and harried clerks. Imagine finding the perfect percolator for $2.45, then throwing in another dime for gift wrap. Imagine inspecting all of the streamlined 1950s goods – the same ones that now appear on eBay! To me, this photo speaks volumes.” Browse more than 117,000 additional historic images.
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