That’s Normal School as in teacher’s colleges. Many such schools across the country had newsletters and that includes those in Minnesota. These provide great insight into the school, curriculum, faculty, students, alumni, and education in general. In Minnesota most of these became state universities. Some of these school publications had literary offerings, ads from local businesses, famous quotations, community information and other details. These are great research resources.

Those from two of the state normal schools have been digitized and are available online for free.

• The Mankatonian: published monthly by students at the Mankato Normal School; 1891-1913 digitized.
   
• Normalia: published by the St. Cloud Normal School; 1892 – 1904 digitized.

Both newspapers are searchable by keyword but don’t neglect to do some browsing page by page to get a feel for the time period.

These are part of Minnesota Reflections which has nearly 62,000 images and documents shared by more than 120 cultural heritage organizations across the state. This site offers a variety of resources on Minnesota’s history for researchers, educators, students and the public.” The main page lists recent additions and upcoming digital images. The photographs on this site are phenomenal and give great insight into the state’s history and include images of the schools, faculty, and students.

Be ready to spend some time on the websites browsing through the collections. I keep finding things I missed previously or maybe they were just added!

The image above is from The Mankatonian, Volume 2, Issue 2, October 1892.

© 2011 – 2014, Paula Stuart-Warren. All rights reserved.