2005 Annual Meeting: Welcome to Minneapolis!
Joel Shackelford
The 2005 co-located meetings of HSS and SHOT will be held at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Minneapolis, within easy walking distance of numerous fine restaurants, shopping venues, and cultural attractions. Members arriving at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport (MSP) can take the Super Shuttle (click link for discounted rate for HSS & SHOT) or a taxicab to the Hyatt, or use our new light rail connection (labeled Transit Station) to the Nicollet Mall Station (the second to the last) and then transfer to any city bus southbound on Nicollet for a short ride to the Hyatt at 13th St. Light rail/metro bus tickets are $1.25 ($1.75 during rush hours) and are valid for 2½ hours of travel, so hang onto the ticket!
Early November is a season in transition; the average temperature for October is 48.8 degrees Fahrenheit (average high is 58.6), but for November it is 32.5 (high 40.1), so check the latest forecasts and dress for change! The weather-averse can navigate much of the immediate downtown area indoors, at second story level, via the network of skyways connecting to the Hyatt. For those who prefer the open air, the hotel is placed at the south end of Nicollet Mall, a pedestrian mall running through the core of the downtown, and also at the end of a greenway funneling downtown strollers to nearby Loring Park and the adjacent sculpture garden and Walker Art Center. Unfortunately, there is no concert scheduled at Orchestra Hall for our meeting, but the Dakota, just a few blocks away, offers jazz, good food, and excellent local beers and ales on tap. Minneapolis also has a fairly vibrant theater scene, although early November is not the best season for it (The Guthrie, for example, is between plays during the HSS meeting). Fans should investigate the web for offerings; last minute and discount tickets are often available at the TC Tix outlet at Marshall Field’s on Nicollet Mall. For those who wish to wander further, the historic milling district along both sides of the Mississippi River beckons. On the near bank the Minnesota Historical Society’s new Mill City Museum preserves the remnants of one of the many flour mills that conferred the token “mill city” on Minneapolis and provides an instructive overview of the technology of milling. Several bridges cross the river at this point, overlooking the dam and lock complex that obscure St. Anthony Falls. The water power and barrier to upstream river traffic at these falls made “St. Anthony” an ideal place for the milling of wheat and lumber for shipment down river, and the burgeoning town was eventually renamed Minneapolis, a combination of Greek and Dakota meaning “City of the Waters.” If the weather is fine, cross the river on the graceful “stone arch bridge” built by railroad magnate J.J. Hill – now for pedestrians and bicycles – to St. Anthony Main, where more fine restaurants and bars occupy the machine shops that served the old Pillsbury mills. Or if you prefer not to walk, metro transit buses serving Minneapolis and its twin city, St. Paul, run down the middle of the pedestrian mall. A $6 transit pass is good for the whole day and affords relatively convenient access to Uptown, where the young, the artists, and the hip and aware congregate, to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, or to the University of Minnesota; Our new light rail connects downtown Minneapolis to the airport and further to the Mall of America, for those who enjoy extreme shopping, want to number among the 42.5 million annual visitors, or just have a yen to see what more than 500 stores, 70 restaurants, 14 movies screens, an aquarium, and an amusement park look like under one roof. But if you are like many academics, you will not want to waste the entirety of your trip on frivolity, conviviality, and entertainment, and will wish to supplement scholarly discussion with local research opportunities! The University of Minnesota, besides serving 50,000 students, houses several important collections that are accessible during normal hours on weekdays, so plan to do this on Thursday or Friday. Among these, of special interest to historians of science, technology, and medicine are the Wangensteen Library (medicine,biology), the James Ford Bell Library (exploration and colonization), Special Collections and Rare Books of the Wilson Library, the Charles Babbage Institute, and the Social Welfare History Archives. For holdings consult the University of Minnesota Libraries system catalogue, Lumina. Historians of electricity, electrotherapeutics, and related subjects will want to visit the Bakken Library and Museum.
