New Seedswomen exhibit will be traveling Minnesota

Carrie Lippincott, Emma White, and Jessie Prior all owned seed-selling businesses in Minneapolis at the turn of the 20th century. The businesses had national influence and inspired many competitors at a time when not many companies were woman-owned. Today, their stories are preserved in the collections of the Andersen Horticultural Library (AHL), which is located at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska.

The AHL has a number of the women's printed seed catalogs and other related items in their collection and they were interested in making them known to a larger audience. The Minnesota Digital Library (MDL) received a University Libraries' Strategic Initiatives Award in partnership with the AHL to create a traveling exhibit featuring some of these historic materials. The result is three colorful banners highlighting the stories of these impactful Minnesota women and their businesses.

The Seedswomen pop-up exhibit banners were created using digitized copies of the original materials, and are available for loan to cultural heritage organizations in Minnesota such as libraries and history museums. Interested borrowers can display the banners at their sites, either on their own or as a supplement to an already-planned exhibit. There is no cost to borrow them, and they are available for periods of up to three months. 

The banners are already installed at their first venue, the Maple Grove Historical Preservation Society (see accompanying photos) and can be viewed there during museum hours through August. After that, they will travel to the Duluth Public Library, Metro State University, and the Rochester Public Library. Interested in borrowing them for your organization? Please reach out to me at mollyh@umn.edu to reserve a spot on the calendar.

Thank you to Jocelyn Mehle at the AHL for being a great partner in creating this exhibit, and to Dean Lisa German of the University of Minnesota Libraries for awarding the funds that made it possible.