Poor Farm Geographies of Minnesota
A public research project of Jesse McClelland
Top-left: The Ramsey County Almshouse residence, built in the late 1860s, was inherited by the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in 1885. This became the Administration Building and it was demolished in 1951. Photographer unknown, 1951. Courtesy of the Minnesota State Fair Archives.
Top-right: Fourth location of the Ramsey County Poor Farm in New Canada Township — now the Ramsey County Fairgrounds in Maplewood. From Hopkins’ “Atlas of St. Paul and Its Environs,” 1886.
Bottom-right: Threshing at the Hennepin County Poor Farm. Date and photographer unknown. Courtesy of the Hopkins Historical Society.
Bottom-left: The Hennepin County Poor Farm in the Village of West Minneapolis — now Hopkins. From Westby’s “Atlas of Hennepin County,” 1913.
Updates
July 2023
I recently took part in the second round of “Cultivating Food Access and Community Resiliency,” an ACM workshop hosted by Dan Trudeau, Bill Moseley and Paul Schadewald at Macalester College. Swapping stories and comparing practices with others was really inspiring. We are all developing chapters for an anthology; mine is on teaching poor farms. We hope the book will see daylight in 2024.
May 2023
Students Maura Haas, Leah Prinz, and Matthew Trager completed the second offering of my course, Unearthing the Poor Farm: Local geographies of land, labor and livelihood, with a public presentation at the Hopkins Public Library on May 7.
You can now find all student videos, bios and photos on this dedicated page. Beautiful Spring weather here in Minneapolis is giving me high hopes for more improvements soon.
With my contract at Macalester College complete, I can now start calling myself an Independent Scholar! Will try this on for size.
April 2023
My course this Spring was profiled by Macalester in a news story called Grounding the Poor Farm. Thank you to the writer Talia Bank and the photographer John Schoolmeesters for making this possible!
