Last week I attended an LSAC meeting at the Beltrami County Historical Society in Bemidji, Minnesota. I’ve been with the LSAC for the past couple of years. When I first joined, I couldn’t seem to grasp what the LSAC was trying to do. It’s not a group with an easy-to-state mission. How did the LSAC arise? The Legacy Amendment In 2008, Minnesota voters passed a constitutional amendment to collect a sales tax to be dedicated…
Today is my birthday. That makes it a great time for a birthday history challenge! I can credit my birthday for nudging me toward history, specifically astrology. Yes, astrology. That unscientific load of hogwash** that aligns human personalities to the constellations. I’m a Libra and a proud one, at that. The symbol for Libra is the scales of justice and I’m all about fairness and justice and balance. It’s the only symbol within western astrology…
If you’ve ever served on a nonprofit board, you’ll know a little something about minutes. Perhaps you’ve even taken them. In short, minutes are the notes taken about what has transpired during a board meeting. But they are more than mere notes. Minutes are the official record of the business of the board of directors for an organization. They are part of the organization’s legal history. They are so critical to an organization’s operation that…
Pretty much every museum has them, unless they have a massive army of curators or registrars madly accessioning items as they come in the door. They are the dreaded . . . Collections Backlogs. [Cue the offstage scream.] The Museum Cataloging Process With the downsizing of the Silent Generation and retiring Baby Boomers, both of whom amassed a good many items during the post-World War II pro-consumerism era, museums are being flooded with items being…
When I put together my history bucket list on The Pragmatic Historian, I included as one of the items “Watch fabric dying and weaving within an old mill.” Well, I haven’t been able to watch the processes of weaving and dying fabric within a mill, but I did have an opportunity to take a tour of a woolen mill. Not far from where I live, in Randall, Minnesota, is a fiber arts mecca that started…