Minnesota State Society   

Minnesota State Society Celebrates More than 80 Years!

Thursday, April 19, 2001 marked the Minnesota State Society's 80th anniversary. Formally organized in 1921, the Society bylaws stated that the purpose of the Society was to come together to "cultivate social inter-course among its members and to promote the best interests of Minnesotans."

In our eighty-year plus history, we have hosted such historical figures as Charles Lindbergh, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Vice President Walter Mondale, former Governor and Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman and Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland at dinners or receptions. Almost all of our former Governors have graced us with their presence at one of our gatherings. Former Chaplain of the House, Rev. James Ford, has given the invocation before some of our special dinners.

Minnesota has been well represented on the Supreme Court with Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justice Harry Blackmun both of whom, along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Jack Vessey, were honored at formal dinners here in DC as our "Minnesotan of the Year."

Here's a brief glimpse at the life and times of those pioneering members of the Minnesota State Society in 1921.

In 1921, Warren G. Harding became the first president to be broadcast on radio; he watched over a country of 108 million inhabitants - not even 40% of today's population; and implemented a federal budget of merely $5 billion compared with a whopping 2001 federal budget of nearly $2 trillion. Back then Minnesota State Society members were paying only 2 cents to mail their letters, spending 11 cents on a loaf of bread, 40 cents for a dozen eggs, and around 33 cents for milk. And a brand new 1921 Ford cost our founding members $535 - about the cost of floormats on a modern automobile.

In 1921, Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics. That year insulin was discovered, the polygraph lie detector was invented, and Johnson & Johnson created the band-aid brand bandage. 1921 also saw the first Miss America pageant held in Atlantic City, and some of those contestants no doubt were wearing the newly created Chanel No. 5 fragrance. And in 1921 an unknown World War I soldier was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The Minnesota State Society shares its April 19th birthday with such notables as: The Untouchable Elliot Ness; Get Smart's Don Adams; actors Jane Mansfield, Dick Sargent and Dudley Moore; and 1987 hero - Minnesota Twin Frank Viola. And on this date US actress Grace Kelly married Monaco's Prince Ranier III.