Exhibit explores the growing pains of the suburban shift

Gwen Smith Ellis remembers the feeling of isolation growing up in a 1960s St. Paul suburb.

"In gym class and you need a partner, no one wants to hold your hand because, well, I heard comments 'it's going to come off on me,'" she recalled. "Just ignorance."

Ellis, an African-American, and her family are part of a new exhibit at the Minnesota History Center. "Suburbia" illustrates how suburban growth took off in a virtual ring around the Twin Cities after World War II. Some of that growth brought families like Ellis' from areas where they were a majority, like the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul, to places where they were suddenly made to feel uncomfortable.

Ellis' family, cash in hand, had to fight discrimination to buy property and build a home in Maplewood in 1963. Four generations later, her family still calls it home today.

Gwen Ellis said she had a hard time catching up in her Maplewood school. She missed the nurturing Rondo community that did not judge her by the color of her skin. But her suburban experience wasn't all negative.

"I did not feel victimized by the racism I was experiencing because I could see that it was happening all over the country," she said. "Looking back, it made me who I am today. Yes it was a struggle, but I'm better equipped to associate with any type of people because I had that experience."

Senior exhibit developer Kate Roberts says Ellis' transition from city to suburb is an example of the personal stories the exhibit illustrates.

"It's an interesting period to look back on because it's within public memory and yet so much has changed," Roberts said. "It's fun for younger generations to also look back and think about how they live and where they live and where they might want to live."

The exhibit walks visitors through the construction of a typical Twin Cities suburban home at a time when larger houses attracted young families, and it shows how living in those homes affected gender roles and family size. Video clips feature Mrs. Minnesota 1958 who won the competition for her ability to make donuts.

History Center curators point to Southdale Mall as the first, climate-controlled shopping center in the Twin Cities that drew middle class shoppers with disposable income soon after it opened in 1956. Those post-war consumers made up for years of scarcity by snapping up newly available electrical appliances and big cars like the 1956 Chevrolet Townsman station wagon on display.

The exhibit points out that Twin Cities suburban growth, as in other parts of the country, fit with a love of cars and more space to live.

But Roberts said she hopes it stirs even more discussions about where and how people want to live, "and get people talking and realizing that what they're seeing around them and what they're seeing happening is really the continuation of a conversation that's been going on for many, many years about how people want to live and how they can live outside the urban core."