Our Programs

Before Minnesotans had bathtubs, they had Harriet Island. Every summer, from 1900 to 1918, thousands of area residents would come to the Island’s shores to bathe in the Mississippi River. MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us how one man’s obsession with cleanliness kept Saint Paulites fresh for nearly two decades. [Read Transcript...]

When Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, their daughter Marcia, and five others died in a plane crash on the Iron Range on October 25, 2002, then-Senator Wellstone was in a difficult race for re-election to a third term in the U.S. Senate. MN90 producer Marisa Helms takes a look at Wellstone before he was a famous politician, and what has become of his legacy. [Read Transcript...]

St. Paulite F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered one of America’s greatest authors. MN90 producer Marisa Helms speaks with Minnesota writer Patricia Hampl who says though Fitzgerald’s reputation was solidified in more glamorous places like New York and Europe, Fitzgerald always had a romance with the Midwest, and his Midwest was St. Paul. [Read Transcript...]

In 1968, Eugene McCarthy, a Democratic Senator from Minnesota, mobilized an army of anti-war youth to help him in his bid for president. Though Republican Richard M. Nixon won the election, MN90 producer Marisa Helms tells us McCarthy made political history by tapping into the growing opposition to the Vietnam war and bringing hippies into the mainstream of American politics. [Read Transcript...]