KFAI's MinneCulture

When freedom seekers stepped off the steamboat in St. Paul, local people of color met them at the landing. Underground Railroad agents worked as barbers, musicians, laundresses, steamboat stewards and cooks. Some of these residents had never been enslaved and grew up in eastern cities. Others fled the South to settle in Minnesota — a territory that was supposed to be free, yet tolerated slavery within its borders. Local sheriffs an...

The Mississippi River is one of the defining geographic features of our state. The river's headwaters begin up north in Lake Itasca and meander for 650 miles through the cities, bluffs, forests and iron ranges of Minnesota, before crossing the border into Wisconsin and Iowa. The River has long captured our imagination. And, for many, it has provided a home.

Boathouse communities, though less common today, have long formed up and dow...

The M.A. Gedney Pickling Company was established in Minneapolis in 1881 by a man named Matthias Gedney. The Gedney Company contracted with hundreds of Minnesota farmers to grow the cucumbers used for their pickle products. Many of the farmers, in turn, ended up paying their children to pick the cucumbers as part of their summer chores, using the money to pay for school clothes and other needed items for the family.

In the later 20t...

Chinese food is a staple of the American diet. But the story of how Chinese food became popular in the United States – and specifically in Minnesota – is a story of racism, mixed identity, adaptation, and cultural preservation. 

This story from producer Sheila Regan traces the history of Chinese cuisine in Minnesota — from the Canton Cafe in the 19th century to iconic establishments like the Nankin Cafe, from canned chow mein produc...

Tuberculosis is a highly contagious and infectious disease. As the Trump administration freezes foreign aid, tuberculosis is resurgent worldwide. In Minnesota, the numbers are falling with 21 Minnesota counties reporting a total of 160 new cases of active tuberculosis last year.

But those numbers are still chilling when you consider that there was a time when TB was the leading cause of death. Before antibiotics were discovered and...

Between 1925 and 1945, 2,204 people — 77% of whom were women — were eugenically sterilized in Minnesota. Minnesota's sterilization program targeted "sexually promiscuous" women and impoverished people. The intended goal of the program was to lessen poverty and welfare costs by ending the family lines of people deemed "immoral" or "feebleminded."

A woman named Rose DeChaine was sterilized by this program. But her sterilization didn'...

In the Mississippi River, between the Franklin Avenue and Lake Street/Marshall Avenue bridges, sits an abandoned ruin. The ruin is almost invisible from the river bank. You may never know it exists unless you’re paddling directly on top of it, or avoiding its edges in a motor boat. The ghostly structure was once a fully operational lock and dam, the very first built on the Upper Mississippi River: The Meeker Island Lock and Dam.

In ...

Season 9 of MinneCulture drops on March 27. This season features:

• lots of local food history
• stories about life and commerce along the Mississippi River
• a Minnesota woman who developed a new form of contact tracing for tuberculosis
• a barber and fiddler who helped run the Underground Railroad in Minnesota
• a haunting story about Minnesota's 20th century sterilization program
• a jingle for pickles that will get stuck in your head
• ....and ...

In the 1970s, lesbian and feminist organizations popped up in cities across the nation. Minneapolis and Saint Paul were no exception. Here in the Twin Cities, the Amazon Feminist Book Store, Lesbian Resource Center, and Lesbian Feminist Organizing Committee all provided space and community for newly out lesbians and queer women.

At the same time, a small network of transgender women started their own type of organizing, one that rel...

Take a dive into comedic history in this story about the beginnings of the Brave New Workshop. The Brave New Workshop was founded by a former circus former named Dudley Riggs. In the mid 20th century, a new kind of humor was taking the world by storm, and Riggs tapped into the zeitgeist of improvisation that had no limits. KFAI's Sheila Regan weaves together the voices of past and present company members, archival audio, and an int...

KSTP-AM is one of Minnesota’s oldest and formerly most successful radio stations. By the 90's, it had been mostly forgotten, as fans flocked to FM. While music fans enjoyed the stereophonic sounds on the other side of the dial, a new form of radio program began to emerge. Before long, talk radio flourished across the United States, and nowhere was it strong than at “The Talk Station.”

Fueled by a desire to shake up the radio landsc...

Minnesota was the first state to take Big Tobacco to trial in 1998. The biggest lawsuit in the state’s history forced the tobacco industry to take down cigarette billboards and release millions of internal documents that filled a Minneapolis warehouse.

When vaping e-cigarettes gained popularity among youth in the late 2010s, the Minnesota Attorney General’s office sued again, this time against market leader Juul Labs and the company...

Mike Sawyer fell in love with old folk music in his 20s, picking up the banjo and playing at festivals and jams around the state. But after a while, he began to wonder why nearly all the songs he and his fellow musicians were playing came from Appalachia and the South. What happened to early musical traditions from Minnesota?

Now, Mike’s on a mission to uncover the roots of Upper Midwest folk music and keep it alive for future gene...

Every year, people on a canoe trip to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) need to be rescued from a dangerous situation. In modern times, the call for help can come from a cell phone, a satellite phone, or an emergency beacon like a Garmin inReach. But it wasn't always this easy to help people who recreate across the canoe-country wilderness. In this story from KFAI producer Joe Friedrichs, we learn about the h...

Peter Jesperson is a music legend. Born in Minnesota, Jesperson was a seminal figure in the Minneapolis punk and new wave scene of the 1970's and 1980's. He co-founded Twin/Tone Records, worked at Oar Folkjokeopus record store and the Jay's Longhorn bar, and is credited with discovering the Replacements. He later served as the band's manager.

In "Lost in the Songs," producer Todd Melby interviews Jesperson about his love affair with...

MinneCulture is BACK for season 8! This season, we are bringing you 7 brand new audio documentaries about the people, places, and cultural phenomena that make Minnesota...well, Minnesota. Make sure you're subscribed to MinneCulture so you don't miss any of these fascinating stories about our state.

Season 8 is produced by Michelle Bruch, Joe Friedrichs, Britta Greene, Todd Melby, James Napoli, Sheila Regan, Kira Schukar, and Kyle S...