Minnesota History Center

Resources (38)

• Bill Brust papers (1937-1993)

  1.75 cubic feet (4 boxes and 1 oversize folder, unboxed). Papers documenting the life and career of a Minnesota Trotskyite and modern language scholar.Includes correspondence (1942-1989), articles, essays, notes, grade transcripts (1937-1968), diplomas (1953, 1968), passports, certificates of naturalization (1927-1928), photographs, newspaper clippings, newsletters (1948), and leaflets. Some of the correspondence is in German. Bill Brust became an active socialist at the age of 18, was a long-time member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), and a founding member and leader of the Workers League. The bulk of the papers reflect Brust's political activism, particularly his involvement with the labor movement in Minnesota, his writings for the party press, and his work with European socialists. Finding aid available: http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/P2143.xml

• Birdella M. Ross

  Collection, 1961–63, 2 folders. Family histories, including some Russians living in Minnesota.

• Central Labor Union of Minneapolis and Hennepin Co.

  Records, 1912–62, 61 boxes. Some of the materials concern Russia. Access is restricted; permission must be obtained in advance of visit. Unpublished inventory.

• Charles Augustus Lindbergh (1858-1924) and Family

  Papers, 1808–1971, 7.5 ft. Minnesota congressman. Some items relate to the 1917 Revolution. Access is restricted; permission must be obtained in advance of visit. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 65–672).

• Charles S. Bulkley

  Correspondence, 1865–67, 2 vols. and 1 item. Leader of the U.S.-Russian Telegraph Expedition. Copies of letters exchanged between members of the group, one of whom was George Kennan.

• Charles W. Brandborg (1847-1916) and Family

  Papers, 1887–1970, 1 box. Swedish-born member of the Minnesota Socialist Labor Party. 2 sons were also active in the party. Correspondence, reports, transcripts of speeches, and printed material, including newspaper articles commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 60–1033).

• Citizens Alliance of Minneapolis; Minneapolis, Minnesota

  Records, ca. 1903-present, 27 boxes. Information about the 1917 Russian Revolution included. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 70–1634).

• Clarence A. Hathaway (1894-1963)

  Papers, 1928–40, 1 box. Tool and die maker, member of the American Communist Party from 1921, and editor of the Daily Worker, 1934–39. He was in Moscow in 1928. Includes 15 transcripts of speeches he delivered in 1928–40 on socialism, communism, and world peace. Also a copy of his manuscript, "The American Negro and the Churches," written in Moscow, 1928, and subsequently published in Russian. Unpublished inventory.

• Francis Monroe Smith (1904-1951)

  Collection, 1936–51, 1 ft. Lawyer and political activist. Printed matter about communism, U.S.-Soviet relations since 1949, the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born, the Subversive Activities Control Act, the Committee for Free Political Advocacy, the Communist Party, and the Bill of Rights Conference in New York City. Unpublished inventory.

• Frank B. Kellogg (1856-1937)

  Papers, 1890–1942, 35 ft. on 54 microfilm rolls. Lawyer, ambassador, secretary of state, 1925–29, and judge on the Permanent Court of International Justice, 1930–35. Correspondence with Robert E. Olds discusses the Russian Revolution, 1917–23. Letters from 1925–29 refer to recognition of the USSR and the admission of communist aliens into the U.S. A 1927 report outlines the Soviet offer to sign a pact renouncing war, and an undated report is entitled "The Essential Factors Involved in Establishing Normal Relations with the Soviet Regime." Published guide (NUCMC 60–2030).

• Frank T. Heffelfinger (1869-1959)

  Papers, 1900, 1 vol. Grain trader. He and Charles F. Haglin traveled to Europe, January-April 1900, to determine the feasibility of building concrete grain elevators in Russia. He met with Russian leaders and discussed the plan, which broke down when the Russians insisted that they operate the storage facilities.

• George Edward MacKinnon (b. 1906)

  Papers, 1933–60, ca. 34 ft. Lawyer, state legislator, and U.S. representative. Correspondence, speeches, reports, office files, and clippings concern communism, foreign aid, immigration, and the military. Access is restricted; permission must be obtained in advance of visit. Unpublished finding aid (NUCMC 76–2063).

• Grace Carlson

  Papers, 1929-1986, 1.75 cubic feet (2 boxes and 1 unboxed item). Biographical information, correspondence, newspaper clippings, speech transcripts, lecture notes, photographs, and miscellaneous materials relating largely to Carlson's activities in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) (1939-1949) and as a professor of psychology at St. Mary's Junior College, Minneapolis (1954-1986). Carlson resigned from the party in the early 1950s, and retired from St. Mary's in 1979, but remained on its faculty as a volunteer. Materials concerning Carlson's SWP involvement consist largely of correspondence (1939-1945). The 1943-1945 correspondence, during Carlson's imprisonment under sedition charges, consists of almost daily communications between Carlson and her family and friends, and contains detailed information on prison life; family concerns; political activities, particularly the merger of the Minnesota Democratic and Farmer-Labor parties; and World War II. Other SWP papers include a speech, "Women in Prison," which Carlson delivered throughout the U.S. after her release (June-November 1945), and speech transcripts, newspaper clippings, flyers, and other papers relating to the party's 1948 presidential campaign. Farrell Dobbs and Carlson were presidential and vice-presidential candidates. A few letters from former party colleagues (1980s) and an FBI report on Carlson (1945) are also included. Finding aid available: http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00215.xml

• Great Northern Railway Company

  Records, 1854–1970, ca. 5,000 ft. Office files of the president, vice-president-operating, treasurer, comptroller, law department, some branch lines, and related companies hold materials about Russian railroads, visits of Russians to the U.S. and of Americans to Russia, and the Russian Railway Service Corps. Includes some applications for employment with the Great Northern from Soviet citizens, 1930–31. Unpublished finding aids for catalogued portions of the records; microfilm index of the president's subject files. Access is restricted in part.

• Hamilton Fish (1808-1893)

  Typed copies of 4 items, 1873. American statesman. Material on Russians in the U.S. Originals in the Columbia University Butler Library.

• Hascal Russell Brill (1846-1922)

  Papers, 1805, 1849–1964, ca. 9 ft. Lawyer and judge. His nephew, William Hascal Brill, as a journalist covered the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Manuscripts, dispatches, diaries, scrapbooks, and photographs about the war. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 70–1633).

• Howard Yolen Williams (1889-1973)

  Papers, ca. 1924–70, 48 boxes. Congregational minister and social and political activist. Letter of 26 December 1928 advocates recognition of the USSR by the U.S., urging the League for Independent Political Action to adopt this position. Copies of letters by Sherwood Eddy and Jerome Davis recount their impressions of the USSR in 1929–33 and the effects of the Soviet regime on all aspects of Russian life. Letter from E. S. Davies to John Dewey, June 1931, encloses a manuscript, 33 pp., with Davies' views on world affairs, U.S.-Soviet relations, and similar subjects. Letter from A. F. Burdoin to Dewey, April 1932, includes a copy of an anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic pamphlet entitled Secret Nature of Peace Agitation, an expose of the financing of the 1917 Revolution. Letters of Williams while on a tour of Europe in 1947 stress the importance of American aid to Europe to prevent Russian dominance on the continent. In 1967 he took a trip to the Soviet Union, about which he wrote "A Visit Behind the Iron Curtain" (draft and reprint included). Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 61–2750).

• Joseph Alfred Arner Burnquist (1879-1961)

  Papers, ca. 1884–1960, ca. 12 ft., 14,000 items. Lawyer, attorney general, and governor of Minnesota, 1915–21. Includes a letter from Stanley Washburn, in the consular service in Russia, on Russian military service, 5 March 1916. Correspondence from November 1918 concerns the suppression of a demonstration marking the successful Russian October Revolution. Some letters of 1918–19 relate to Alexai Eustophiaoich (sic) of Minneapolis, an alleged Russian communist. Unpublished inventory. (NUCMC 69–1687)

• Lynn Haines (1876-1929)

  Papers, 1909–31, 61 boxes. Editor of Searchlight on Congress. He collected a few pamphlets on U.S.-Russian relations. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 60–1374).

• Northern Pacific Railway Company

  Records, 1861–1970, 9,000 ft. Files of the Land Department, which among other functions was concerned with immigration and colonization, include correspondence about a Mennonite sect in Russia which wanted to emigrate, 1872–73. The president's subject files have records regarding locomotives and cars built for Russian use, the Elihu Root Russian Commission, steamship business between North America and Russia, and World War I. Access is restricted in part. Unpublished finding aids for catalogued portions of the collection.

• Oscar Ferdinand Hawkins (1872-1964)

  Papers, 1888–1963, 5 ft. Minneapolis teacher and politician. Includes material on the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship and on Russian war relief. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 69–1705).

• Otto Augustus Christensen (1851-1918) and Family

  Papers, 1854–1964, ca. 3 boxes. Teacher and farmer. Includes a copy of a speech by Maurice Jacobsen describing his visit to the USSR, October 1933; a 1952 printed booklet entitled The Diary of General Grow, purportedly the diary of a military attache at the U.S. embassy in Moscow telling of his espionage work in the Soviet Union; and a reprint, 1937, of Leon Trotskii's "I Stake My Life" speech, concerning the great show trials of the 1930s. (NUCMC 60–1242)

• Peter W. Copeland (1868-1930)

  Papers, 1905–39, 4 folders and 2 vols. Member of the Russian Railway Service Corps, a paramilitary group sent to restore order along the Trans-Siberian Railway after the Revolution. His diary, 1917–18, and letters to his sister discuss the trip from St. Paul to Vladivostok, Japan, and back to Vladivostok. Photos, reports, and clippings also relate to his trip. Unpublished inventory.

• Quetico-Superior Council, Minneapolis, Minnesota

  Records, 1906–64, 108 boxes. Some circular letters and other miscellanea, 1 folder, relate to Russian war relief in 1941–42. Access is restricted; permission must be obtained in advance of visit. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 67–844).

• Raphael Zon (1874-1956)

  Papers, 1887–1957, 6 ft. Born in Simbirsk, studied at Kazan University, specialist in comparative embryology, and forester. He emigrated with his wife, Anna Abramovna Puzyriskaya, in 1898. Includes information on his education in Vilna and Kazan, comparisons and observations about Russian forestry, and material on Russian-American relations. Zon also had an interest in Russian science and affairs. During World War II he worked on relief efforts for Jews and Russians. A letter sent to Louis Adamic concerns life as a Russian Jew. Unpublished inventory. (NUCMC 66–876)

• Russian Manuscripts

  10 items, 1886–1911. Includes the statute for an ecclesiastical teachers' school; stationery of the Pochayevo monastery; extract from a parish register relating to a Jewish girl converted to Orthodoxy, who married a peasant; statutes of the ecclesiastical school at Zhitomir, 1908; and a letter from the Uman Agricultural School to a prospective student, 1911. Unpublished inventory.

• Russian Orthodox Cemetery Association

  Certificate of organization of the body, dated 26 June 1900, Minneapolis, typed, 3 pp.

• Sam Royce, I promised mother: reminiscences (1953-1954)

  Photocopy of orginal. 262 pages (1 volume) : illustrations ; 28 cm. A detailed autobiography and family history written by Royce, owner and operator of several drug stores in Minneapolis and in other Minnesota cities. It opens with descriptions of his parents' emigration from Russia in 1882, removal to and life in Minneapolis in the 1890s, his father's tailoring business, and other Jewish families in north Minneapolis. The remainder concerns Royce and his career, with information on North Minneapolis friends, his schooling, operation of his drug stores (1913-1940s), and the development of discount drug stores in the 1930s, including Royce's own Thrifty Cut Rate Drug Company. There is also considerable information on Royce's children and grandchildren, his trip to Europe in 1937, and his many trips between Minnesota and California in the 1940s and 1950s.

• Socialist Workers Party

  Records, 1914-1980, 7.5 cubic feet (7 boxes) and 1 microfilm reel. Printed booklets and pamphlets, including "Down with the Stalin-Hitler Pact! Down with the War!" (protesting the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact). Also newspaper clippings (on the Moscow purge trials of 1934–35, Albert Boldman's "Why We Defend the Soviet Union" from 29 March 1940, etc) and some Leon Trotskii pamphlets. Materials indicate the relations between the SWP, the USSR, and world communism. Finding aid available: http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00632.xml

• Stanley Washburn (1878-1950)

  Papers, 1890–1977, 6.5 ft. Journalist and diplomat. Scrapbooks and photos include information on the Russo-Japanese War and Russia in World War I. Typescript on Russia's role in World War I.

• Walter Henry Judd (b. 1898)

  Papers, 1939–62, 88.5 ft. U.S. representative from Minnesota, 1942–62. Some correspondence, reports, and office files concern his work on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs: State Department letters critical of Russian expansionism and occupation of Poland; letters about Alger Hiss; data on Nikita Khrushchev's 1959 visit to the U.S.; and letters revealing mistrust of Russia and fear of a Soviet attack on the U.S. Access is restricted; permission must be obtained in advance of visit. Unpublished inventory.

• Wilhelm Rosenberg

  Passport issued to him in Finland, 1890.

• William Blake Dean (1838-1922)

  Papers, 1806–1937, ca. 3 boxes. Merchant and Minnesota state senator. Some letters to him from his grandson, William Winter Dean, with the American Red Cross's Inter-Allied Commission, 1919, concern the repatriation of Russian prisoners of war in Germany. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 70–254; also 60–1043).

• William C Edgar (1856-1932)

  Papers, 1832–1949, 6 boxes, 7 vols., and 1 microfilm reel. Business manager and editor of the Minneapolis Northwestern Miller, 1882–1924. Letters, reports, and scrapbooks, 1891–94, concern his project to collect flour from U.S. millers and distribute it in Russia during the great famine of 1891–92 (Edgar himself visited Russia to help the work); 6 telegrams from Prince Cantacusene; 5 letters from Andre Bobrinskoy; and a menu autographed by the Grand Duke Alexander, 13 May 1839. Also autographed pictures of Bobrinskoy and Cantacusene. Letters of 12 February and 23 March 1894 describe construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and 1 from 16 April 1892, Moscow, details a Russian Easter celebration. Letters are on microfilm; originals are in the Minneapolis Public Library. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 62–4915).

• William Fuson Davidson (1825-1897) and Family

  Papers, 1817–1919, 134 ft. Grain elevator manufacturer and real estate operator. Various Russian companies corresponded with Davidson 1911–18 about settling on his land and about obtaining relief from the First World War. Letters are indexed in an unpublished inventory (NUCMC 61–2787).

• William Lochren (1832-1912) and Family

  Papers, 1852–1925, 5.5 ft., 4,000 items and 23 vols. Judge. Letters to the family from the David Mercer family, which visited Russia on a European tour (June-October 1899). Also information on the Russo-Japanese War. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 60–1039).

• William Windom (1827-1891)

  Papers, 1861–1943, 2 boxes and 2 vols. Minnesota congressman, senator, and U.S. secretary of the treasury, 1881, 1889–91. In 1888–90 he represented the U.S. in an arbitration case involving Russia, America, and the Alaska seal fisheries. Unpublished inventory (NUCMC 60–212).

• Works Project Administration, Minnesota

  Records, 1849–1942, 345 boxes. Body gathered some information about Minnesota residents, including some Russians. Unpublished inventory.