Arne Carlson, Minnesota’s thirty-seventh governor, was a Swede and a progressive Republican, like several before him, but unlike them, too. He grew up poor in New York City and had no connection to the dominant Harold Stassen political lineage. Carlson came to Minnesota for graduate school—then won election after election: Minneapolis City Council, he legislature, and three terms as state auditor.  He lost the 1990 GOP primary for governor but won the nomination anyway when John Grunseth flamed out. He ran the shortest election campaign in Minnesota history—five days—to defeat i ..read more

Following his gubernatorial defeat in 1978, Rudy Perpich (1928-1995) spent a few years in Vienna, Austria, working as a trade representative for Control Data Corporation, but it wasn’t long before he began planning another run for the state’s highest role. Voters remembered him fondly and ushered him back into office in 1982, making him the first (and only) governor of Minnesota to serve noncontinuous terms. Perpich returned to the governor’s seat with a new outlook on bringing economic health to Minnesota, working with and not against big business. No longer the slightly rumpled and lovable c ..read more

Growing up in Frogtown In 1941, young Wendy Ham’s Gumpa Guy Metzger built a dollhouse—a replica of the family home at 435 Charles Avenue in St. Paul. In 2023, Wendy Ham Rossi donated the “two-story,” six-room dollhouse complete with “indoor plumbing” to Ramsey County Historical Society, a gift for which we are grateful. She also penned a companion memoir about growing up on Charles and, later, at 554 Arundel Street surrounded by the love of her grandparents, parents, and little sister, Joyce. And she graciously recorded a reading, which you can hear online. The retired St. Paul public school t ..read more

Albert H. Quie (1923-2023) left a safe seat in Congress after twenty years to run for governor in 1978. In that, his timing was good. He rode around the “Minnesota Massacre” and into office as the state’s thirty-fifth governor along with fellow Republicans Dave Durenberger and Rudy Boschwitz, who were elected to the US Senate. But in another respect, his timing could not have been worse. A successful first year of tax cuts was followed by an unwelcome recession that slashed state revenues and triggered a three-year budget crisis requiring six special legislative sessions and making most of the ..read more

March of the Governors, Governor #34 Rudy Perpich Series Podcast #37 Rudy Perpich (1928-1995) served as Minnesota's thirty-fourth governor in the years 1977 and 1978. He got there by succession when Wendell Anderson resigned. Perpich then appointed Anderson to the US Senate—the first event leading to the Minnesota Massacre of 1978. Perpich was the first Iron Ranger, the first dentist, and first Roman Catholic to serve as governor and, maybe, the last to have grown up in poverty. His term was marked by the national energy crisis, controversies over electric power lines, and Reserve Mi ..read more

Andrew McGill (1840-1905), our tenth governor, served one tumultuous term in office after 13 years as state insurance commissioner. Because of divisions in the Republican Party and the strength of his main opponent, Alonzo Ames, he won by only 2600 votes in the election of 1886. After a moderately successful two years as governor, the Republican Party, doubting his ability to win, dumped him in 1888. This was the first time a sitting governor had been denied renomination. McGill’s post-governor career was more successful: He served four terms in the state senate and as postmaster of St. Paul ..read more

The US Dakota War of 1862 was a unique event in Minnesota history. In his recent book, Massacre in Minnesota, the eminent historian Gary Clayton Anderson calls it “the most violent ethnic conflict in American history.” It was a calamity that we Minnesotans are still trying to deal with today. One of the remarkable things about it is that all six of Minnesota’s first governors participated in it: Alexander Ramsey as sitting governor and the five others as army officers or emergency volunteers. To discuss the actions of these governors, we assembled a panel: Sydney Beane, a professor a ..read more

The second of four Minnesota governors from St. Peter, Horace Austin was the state’s first governor to directly confront the increased power of railroads, the state’s most powerful business force. Noted for being honest and straight forward, Austin succeeded in regulating their rates after being reelected in 1871 to a second term by promising to “Shake the railroads over hell”. Minnesota’s growth and prosperity during his administration was marred only near its’ end by the western Minnesota grasshopper plague and the Panic of 1873. A lawyer, Austin’s political career began as a judge after his ..read more

Stephen Miller moved to Minnesota in middle age from Pennsylvania, several years after his friend Alexander Ramsey had moved to the state. He immediately involved himself in politics in St. Cloud. With the outbreak of the Civil War, he was named lieutenant colonel of the First Minnesota Regiment. He distinguished himself in battle and upon returning to Minnesota, supervised the imprisonment of 303 Dakota men and the execution of thirty-eight who were condemned for their part in the US-Dakota War of 1862. With Ramsey’s support, he was elected governor in 1864. To learn more about the US Dakota ..read more

Alexander Ramsey did not have it easy. He was orphaned at age 10 and worked as a store clerk and a carpenter before finding his vocation in politics. He served two terms in Congress from Pennsylvania and for his service to the Whig Party was rewarded, if you call it that, with being sent to a cold place with hardly any people -- Minnesota. But he took to it, first as territorial governor (1849), then succeeding his rival Henry Sibley to become our second state governor. But his three years in office were nothing but crisis -- Depression, war, and war. The defining event of his administration w ..read more