What we need is a Wikipedia for Minnesota History

From: Ray Marshall [raymarsh@mninter.net]

Sent: Friday, January 20, 2006 12:19 PM

To: britta.bloomberg@mnhs.org

Subject: What we need is a Wikipedia for Minnesota History

Good (another warm) Day!

Yesterday, by accident, I came across something called "The Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History." http://www.historylink.org/this_week/index.cfm

It looks interesting. But as I've been only in Vancouver, Washington, I'm not particularly interested in scouring that site, but it looks pretty interesting.

But immediately, I thought to myself, "Why doesn't Minnesota have something like that?" (In addition to the MHS's great site).

What I immediately thought of was people such as myself, genealogists and amateurs, who have been collecting all kinds of interesting stuff over the years, and have no place to put it. And one of these days, I'm gong to BE no longer. And if nobody in my family is interested, my work will vaporize.

No doubt you recently read of the recent comparison by somebody of the Encyclopedia Britannica and the all-volunteer-generated Wikipedia, where the Wikipedia effort was deemed to be remarkably accurate.

Why couldn't we start something like that in Minnesota. With the MHS as the coordinator and web page site, all the myriad links to local history sites and library and archive collections in Minnesota could be placed in one location, and people such as myself who have collected a lot of information, much of it from newspapers and obscure sources, would have a place where it could be deposited. There must be thousands of oral history items and interesting photographs that could be placed there. Volunteers would be responsible for "editing" the contributions. Just like with the Wikipedia.

In my case, most of my research pertains to Duluth and St Louis County, but being that my ancestors were not movers and shakers, I don't have much about mayors and magnates. What I do have is a lot on saloons, on the American Protective Association, on recreation in the 1890s, on the people and scandals covered by the original Rip-Saw, on fights in the Catholic Church between the Poles and their Bishop, on the excesses of the Minnesota Commission on Public Safety in 1918, and etc. And I'd feel less guilty about using all those great photos that I have swiped from your Photography Collection .

I would bet that there would be a lot of us who would be willing to contribute our information. A real "People's History of Minnesota."

I wouldn't be surprised but that the Wiki software might not be available for free or a very nominal contribution. Other than computer space and time, once up and running, I wouldn't think that a project like this would cost much in terms of personnel.

And it could/would be a tremendous contribution to the unwritten/uncollected history of Minnesota. And an example for the rest of the country.

I didn't know who to send this to, so I just chose you (going to the top ). Please send it on to the most appropriate person in the MHS organization.

Ray Marshall
Minneapolis

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