Business and Industry | Page 11

Big Minstrel Jubilee hosted by Elks Lodge No. 59 (1924)

Cover art of the pamphlet handed out at the charity minstrel show. It features minstrel drawings and a hat advertisement in the form of a minstrel skit. From the Minnesota Historical Society pamphlet collection, St. Paul.

Second Annual Minstrel Show (1920)

Front and back cover spread for a minstrel show featuring a Gold Medal Flour advertisement. This show was held at West High School auditorium in Minneapolis in an effort to raise money for the Fatherless Children of France. From the Minnesota Historical Society pamphlet collection, St. Paul.

Twin City Dye House ad (1910)

Advertisement in the Bankers in Burnt Cork pamphlet featuring blackface iconography. From the Minnesota Historical Society pamphlet collection, St. Paul.

Billy Broad in blackface (1910)

Page from the Bankers in Burnt Cork pamphlet. This show was a blackface minstrel production organized by the St. Paul chapter of the American Institute of Banking. From the Minnesota Historical Society pamphlet collection, St. Paul.

Blackface Minstrelsy in Minnesota

Blackface minstrelsy was born out of New England in the early nineteenth century and reached the peak of its national popularity in the mid-1800s. The performances put on by blackface actors electrified audiences across the country, who were typically white people. Their reception in Minnesota was no different.

Osmund Osmundson

Osmund Osmundson, ca. 1910

Osmundson, Osmund O. (1826–1914)

Osmund Osmundson, founder of Nerstrand, Minnesota, played a prominent role in a variety of local affairs, including business, civics, and education. He was one of several men who incorporated St. Olaf College in 1874. Built in 1880, his spacious brick house in Nerstrand was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Thorstein Veblen Farmstead

The Thorstein Veblen Farmstead is a historic landmark in Nerstrand, Minnesota. From 1866 until 1888, it was the primary home of Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), a son of Norwegian immigrants who would become a world-renowned economist and social scientist. His most famous work, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), introduced the term “conspicuous consumption.” The ten-acre farmstead was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and designated a National Historical Landmark in 1981.

Advertisement for the Minneapolis Foundation

Advertisement for the Minneapolis Foundation featuring Oscar Howard. Published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, page E3, November 8, 1995.

United Negro College Fund

Photo related to United Negro College Fund. Pictured are (left to right) Oscar and Virginia Howard, Minneapolis Mayor Donald Fraser, and Claudeth and Gene Washington, December 1984. Oscar C. Howard papers, 1945–1990 (P1842), personal papers (1945–1990), Manuscripts Collection, Minnesota Historical Society.

Gale Family Library