Minnesota Experience - Season 4

In the 1970s, young people in Minnesota radicalized by the Vietnam War created a unique alternative economy featuring dozens of food cooperatives, but a shadowy revolutionary group used conflicts over class and race to try to seize the movement. The ensuing clash pitted friends and comrades in a sometimes violent conflict over the future of the counterculture.

We'll remember a World War I-era shipyard that once employed thousands in western Duluth's Riverside neighborhood. Along the way you'll learn what a carriage step is and why you can no longer find them in the city; delve in to Duluth's advertising legacy; and remember the grand pavilion that once served as the social center of the city.

The Baldies were a Minneapolis skinhead crew that fought racists in the 1980s and beyond.

Before high speed internet, telephones and even Highway 61, Minnesota's North Shore was connected by water--specifically a fleet of sailing vessels and steamers that hauled mail, fish, freight and passengers to communities up and down the remote coastline. The Steamer America was a star in the early 1900s, with her speed and relative luxury she became a vital lifeline and a friend to many.

Cemeteries are hallowed places right in our midst. But they also reflect the community, and have evolved dramatically over time, constantly adapting to meet our ever-changing views and values. Minneapolis' own Lakewood Cemetery is a mirror of the city: its remarkable origins, its rich history, its complex people, and its unwritten future. A TPT co-production with Lakewood Cemetery.

Celebrate the days when the Foshay Tower was the tallest building in town; when visitors viewed the bizarre attractions of Wonderland Amusement Park on East Lake Street; when St Anthony Falls was rough and unharnessed, with enough raw energy to create the greatest milling district in history; and when eagles soared above now-vanished Spirit Island.

This program showcases the unique body of work of one of the most significant American artists of the 19th century, and takes viewers back vividly to the period and explores Eastman's complex relationship with his subjects. Eastman recorded a culture he thought would disappear, while he carried out the government's Indian removal policies. To the Dakota he was a friend, an enemy and a relative.

See how four key places: the lower landing, Merriam Park, Summit Avenue, and Rondo, helped shape and define St Paul's past and present. The program also introduces some fascinating people, whose names would eventually be connected with famous novels, historic landmarks, and St Paul streets.

In the early 1970s, a group of young artists started a film program for teens in the Twin Cities. Film in the Cities would go on to become a groundbreaking media arts and education organization. This retrospective is told through and reflections from founders and former students and features rare and revealing super 8 student films from a half century ago.

An affectionate trip down memory lane that looks at: the car culture of the '50s, when University Avenue was a drag strip and Porky's a fabulous drive-in pit stop, the ultra-luxurious Stratocruiser, the first plane to offer in-flight beverage service, the burning of Swede Hollow, the big-band ballrooms of the 50s and the early days of Twin Cities TV including "Axel and His Dog".

News and culture features from an old Twin Cities PBS current affairs program offer a unique flashback to Minnesota at the dawn of the 80s. Electric-Chronicle or Electronicle creatively and critically probed the politics, people, and soul of the state. Writer Steve Marsh provides a contemporary twist on then and now.