Edina Historical Society seeks $100,000 in city funding as it tries to boost programming

The Edina Historical Society is seeking $100,000 in city funding as it aims to revamp its programming to become more relevant to the community.

“When we went to the city, we knew that we kind of have to go big,” said Sarah Solsvig, president of the society’s board. “We want to better serve the needs of the community and want to grow some of the areas that we think need a little bit more attention.”

To land the funding — five times the amount the organization now receives — society leaders will need to convince council members who also are weighing requests from various city departments and trying to settle on a budget for next year. Some of them want the society to make stronger commitments to telling a more diverse set of stories before they will guarantee funding, promises society leaders say they’re willing to make.

Council Member Julie Risser said she respects the society’s work “but I feel like, at the moment, the way things are being messaged, it really doesn’t meet the standards that should be in place for 2024.”

Among other things, she wants to see a greater commitment to telling the stories of Black pioneers who also had a significant presence in the area. And she asked whether it might be time to add a council member to the group’s board.

The Edina Historical Society was founded in 1969 and runs a museum, the Cahill School, which was built in 1864 and was a fixture in the local Irish community, and the Minnehaha Grange Hall, which was built by farmers years later and served as a community meeting place.

The society hosts field trips, trick-or-treating and events focusing on topics like the fashions of World War II. Like other historical societies, it has been challenged in recent years by dwindling school budgets and cultural changes that have made it tougher to find volunteers or part-time workers.

Risser noted Edina leaders will have to weigh the historical society’s request against those from city departments. She noted that the police asked for $80,000 to obtain night vision goggles, an amount that would be equivalent to the increase the society is seeking.

“It should be an investment and you don’t want to pit things against each other,” she said, but the city has limited funds.

Solsvig said she hears the concerns from council members and also wants to make changes. The additional funding would allow the society to hire a full-time director and offer more programs. It would help get new technology to make it easier for people to access society records to learn more about the history of their homes.

And Solsvig said they hope to update exhibits to feature more diverse people and to give more attention to prominent Black settlers Beverly Claiborne “B.C.” Yancey and Ellen Yancey. The Yancey family helped establish the local Grange, and Ellen Yancey formed the city’s first parent-teacher association.

“I’m super optimistic about this increased stipend and really excited to see what we can do,” Solsvig said. “I think [there’s] a lot of opportunity to really make the historical society a place that people really want to come to, beyond just looking up information on their homes.”