For political junkies who have not yet overdosed on the 2016 elections, there's a fun little nonpartisan exhibit on display at the Hennepin History Museum in Minneapolis.
The exhibit, "Behind the Ballot Box," hearkens back to simpler, if no less intense, political times.
There's a big old clothes trunk that Farmer-Laborite Floyd B. Olson used to haul around when he toured the state as governor in the 1930s.
"He gave the trunk to the fellow who maintained his car, who gave it to his niece, who gave it to the museum," said Jack Kabrud, the museum curator.
And you can see a copy of a menu for a banquet at the Minneapolis Auditorium in 1909 where the guest speaker was President William Howard Taft and the entree was "Poulet à la Minnesota," also known as chicken.
Check out Mahala Pillsbury's gown from the 1876 gubernatorial inauguration of her husband, John Sargent Pillsbury, who co-founded the Pillsbury Co. The gown is the first thing you see when you walk into the exhibit room. She was an active philanthropist involved in social services to benefit destitute women and children, said Kabrud.
Opposite the gown is a lawn sign for Sharon Sayles Belton, Minneapolis' first and so far only black mayor.
"So often in political exhibits, you always see white men," said museum director Cedar Imboden Phillips, so the museum tried to even things up a little.
