Bring Warm Clothes: Letters and Photos from Minnesota's Past

A celebration of the everyday lives of Minnesotans through the centuries–those who paused here on their way to someplace else and those who made the state their home.

The earliest European visitors to Minnesota marvel at the area's flora and fauna. A soldier at Fort Snelling contemplates deserting. Swedish settler Andrew Peterson makes a daily record of his haying schedule, dropping in, without comment, a note of his marriage. Sarah Christie pleads with her father in the 1880s for a chance to go to college. Turn-of-the-century accountant Walter T. Post keeps his family informed of his saving and spending habits. In the 1920s, the Pioneer Press publishes recommendations for young ladies seeking a spouse.

These stories and more emerge from select diary and journal entries, from published accounts and business records–the experiences of ordinary Minnesotans. Matched with drawings and photographs that capture a way of life at a particular moment, these impressions offer a telling history of the state in the words of its people.

Peg Meier, a longtime and award-winning reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, is the author of Too Hot, Went to Lake: Seasonal Photos from Minnesota's Past, Coffee Made Her Insane, and The Last of the Tearoom Ladies.