History Center Museum Programs
The People's Theatre: Tales from the Territory
After Minnesota became a territory in 1849, the region's population boomed and the demand for
public entertainment exploded. St. Paul's People's Theatre and other local performance
halls hosted hundreds of popular shows during the years preceding statehood in 1858. From
Shakespeare's tragedies and the operas of Rossini to Signor Vito's Lilliputians and
the American Fire King, many of the same performances that delighted viewers in the East were
enjoyed by residents of the territory. The theatre helped to "Americanize" the West,
for it transplanted Eastern culture and provided new Minnesotans with a link to the society they had
left behind.
Using the style of popular entertainment in the 1850s, local playwrights have penned dramas that
illuminate the era's stories and history. Performed in the Tales of the Territory exhibit,
The People's Theatre features four short plays based
on materials from the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society:
To Gratify the Citizens of this Place by
Randy Sue Latimer. This play is an amusing look at the variety of entertainment featured in the Minnesota Territory. Audiences will, no doubt, be "gratified" by the scheduled fare, which includes everything from Miss Charlotte Crampton's rendition of Richard III to Dr. Fetter's amazing demonstration of the new science of phrenology, in which an analysis of the shape of a person's head revealed personality traits and intelligence.
The Raid on the Visiter by Anne
Welsbacher tells the story of Saint Cloud editor Jane Grey Swisshelm's struggle to publish
her abolitionist paper, the Visiter [sic]. Minnesota
Territory was created in a nation ravaged by the issue of slavery, and the fiery debates between
pro- and anti-slavery factions flourished even here, in the far North.
In the Fashion of the Country by Eric Ferguson.
This play explores the aftermath of complex kinship ties between whites and Indians during the fur trade era in an exchange between Minnesota's first state governor, Henry Sibley, and his half–Dakota Indian daughter, Helen.
New Voices in an Old Land by Craig Johnson is a readers' theater sampling of life in Minnesota
Territory. Pulled from diaries, letters and newspapers, this engaging production highlights
the lives of a farmer, a soldier, a missionary and a newspaper editor in the territory.
