Minnesota Historical Society

The Minnesota Historical Society is a private, non-profit educational and cultural institution dedicated to the preservation of the history of the State of Minnesota is dedicated to. It was launched in 1849 and today has the largest archives, collections and libraries on the history of Minnesota.

The organization was in 1849 - nine years before the founding of the state - from about 100 citizens, including Alexander Ramsey founded, and has set itself the goal to keep historical objects and documents of the past and present and to pass the knowledge on to future generations. Today it maintains in addition to several museums and many historical sites. The collections of the Historical Society have 500,000 books, 37,000 maps, 250,000 photographs, 5,500 drawings, prints and paintings, 165,000 historical artifacts, 800,000 archaeological objects and numerous papers and documents. Since 1992, most of these objects are on display in the newly built for $ 76.4 million History Center in St. Paul.

The Minnesota Historical Society currently has around 16,000 members.