Politics | MNopedia

Uusi Kotimaa

The Finnish-language newspaper Uusi Kotimaa (New Homeland) reached readers for more than fifty years, from the 1880s until 1934. For all but five of those years, its headquarters was the town of New York Mills, Minnesota—one of the largest Finnish American immigrant communities in the state. The paper changed its politics multiple times, evolving from a conservative editorial stance in its first decades to an explicitly communist one. By the heyday of the Farmer–Labor Party in the 1920s, it was one of the leading Finnish-language newspapers in the United States.

Front page of Uusi Kotimaa, July 7, 1922

The front page of Uusi Kotimaa printed on July 7, 1922. The banner headline reports the election of Lynn Frazier (a Republican from North Dakota and the state’s former governor) to the US Senate. From the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub.

Lucius F. Hubbard

Lucius F. Hubbard, ca. 1875.

Willis A. Gorman

Willis A. Gorman, the second governor of Minnesota Territory, in 1865.

Nineteenth-century governors of Minnesota

Nine of Minnesota’s nineteenth-century governors: Horace Austin, Cushman K. Davis, Willis A. Gorman, Lucius F. Hubbard, William R. Marshall, A. R. McGill, Stephen A. Miller, Knute Nelson, and Henry H. Sibley. Photographs by Charles A. Zimmerman, ca. 1895.

Governorship of Jesse Ventura

In November 1998 Jesse Ventura, a former professional wrestler and sometime movie actor, was elected governor of Minnesota after defeating the much better-known and better-financed candidates of the two traditional major parties. He won with the lowest plurality of any Minnesota governor, 37 percent of the vote, on the ticket of the Reform Party, a tiny organization with no track record of victory. His single term was one of controversy, and media reports focused more on his pursuits of money and celebrity than on his policies, which were mostly mainstream.

Governor Jesse Ventura at the Great Wall of China

Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura speaks to reporters at the Great Wall of China on June 9, 2002. Photo by John Currie.

Jesse Ventura speaking

Jesse Ventura speaking to the Minnesota YMCA Youth In Government Model Assembly, 2000. The assembly met on the House floor inside the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul. Photo by Wikimedia Commons user venturaYIG. CC BY-SA 2.0

Jesse Ventura St. Patrick’s Day card

St. Patrick’s Day card with a cartoon of Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, ca. 1999/2000. The text reads, on the front side, “After a glass of St. Patrick’s Day cheer…” and finishes on the inside, “...the streets of St. Paul become perfectly clear!” Ventura had appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman in 1999 and commented that the streets of St. Paul must have been laid out by drunken Irishmen.

Governor Jesse Ventura with Tech. Sgt. Byron Todd

Governor Jesse Ventura (center left) greets Tech. Sgt. Byron Todd of the Minnesota Air National Guard as he prepares to deploy to Ramstein Air Base in Germany on April 13, 1999.

Gale Family Library