Minnesota

The largest of the Midwestern states, Minnesota was occupied by the Anishaabe and the Dakota tribes. The Minnesota Territory was created in 1849, and it was made a U.S. state in 1858. At the time, Minnesota's wealth came from its large supplies of iron ore in the northern Mesabi Range.

Currently, the state's birth rate is 14.2, only slightly more than the national average; and the fertility rate is 2.14 children per woman in the state, also a little higher than the U.S. average (2.10 children per woman). In Minnesota there are also 2.52 people per household—very close to the national average.

Because of the comparative affluence of Minnesota, compulsory education for children between the ages of 7 and 16 was introduced in 1885, which has resulted in high literacy rates and has helped with the high rates of education for both sexes on family planning and contraception, birthing, and maternity care. Minnesota has long had an excellent health care system, with hospitals and clinics throughout the state, most notably the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

In the same year that compulsory education started in Minnesota, Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951), the author of Main Street (1920), and the Nobel laureate for literature in 1930, was born in Sauk [Page 777]Centre. His mother died when he was 6 years old, but he was raised by a kind stepmother. In Main Street, Lewis describes the life of Carol, who was shocked by the provincialism and vulgarity of Sauk Centre; he challenges the small-town neighborliness that he felt his birthplace represented, although the social divides in society have changed considerably since the late 1910s.