We are excited to feature the first episode of the Saint Paul Public Library’s new podcast, SPPL Live. The first episode features Brent Olson, author of The Inadvertent Café and other books on life in southwestern Minnesota, serves up wit and wisdom from the prairie, and talks about his life as a writer, farmer, and owner of a small-town…

Seventy-five years ago, 29 unionists and working-class socialists were prosecuted and labeled as dangerous revolutionaries by President Franklin Roosevelt’s Justice Department under the newly passed anti-radical Smith Act. Most were members and officers of the militant Minneapolis Teamsters Union that lead the historic 1934 truckers strikes. In Trotskyists on Trial: Free Speech and Political Persecution…

Recorded on Tuesday, May 17, 2016 The Iron Range has always held a special place in Minnesota’s labor history and lore. Now the future of the Range seems uncertain. The authors of two recent books give us a great opportunity to grapple with the connections between past, present, and future. Megan Marsnik is the author of…

In his book, The Centralia Tragedy of 1919: Elmer Smith and the Wobblies, Tom Copeland, Macalester graduate and lawyer, tells the tale of Elmer Smith, also a Macalester graduate and lawyer. At the end of the Armistice Day Parade of 1919 in Centralia, Washington, Legionnaires, veterans, and others hostile to the Industrial Workers of the World,…

Catherine Madison closes the Fireside Series with a reading from The War Came Home with Him, which tells the stories of two survivors of one man’s war: a father who withstood a prison camp’s unspeakable inhumanity and a daughter who withstood the residual cruelty that came home with him. Doc Boysen died fifty years after…

Ojibwe historian and linguist Anton Treuer presents his latest work, Warrior Nation: A History of the Red Lake Ojibwe, a fascinating history which offers not only a chronicle of the Red Lake Nation but also a compelling perspective on a difficult piece of U.S. history. The Red Lake Nation has a unique and deeply important history.…

In the past fifty years, Asian Americans have helped change the face of America and are now the fastest growing group in the United States. But as award-winning historian Erika Lee reminds us, Asian Americans also have deep roots in the country. The Making of Asian America tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role…

In Winter’s Kitchen: Growing Roots and Breaking Bread in the Northern Heartland Coming from her native New Jersey, Beth Dooley had a lot of preconceptions about the Midwestern food scene. As she explored farmer’s markets and the burgeoning co-op scene in the Twin Cities, these assumptions faded and she eventually discovered a local food movement…

This behind-the-scenes, up-close-and-personal account relates how a handful of Minnesota rock bands erupted out of a small Midwest market and made it big, covering Augie Garcia and Bobby Vee to The Trashmen and the Castaways. Through interviews with many of the key musicians, combined with extensive research and a phenomenal cache of rare photographs, Everybody’s Heard…

Faith Sullivan returns to kick off the 22nd annual Fireside series with a reading from her new novel, Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse, which celebrates the strength and resourcefulness of independent women, the importance of community, and the transformative power of reading. Nell Stillman’s road is not easy. When her boorish husband dies soon after they move…