Explore Weavers Guild History Online

By Stephanie Hess, MDL Digital Curator
The Minnesota Digital Library (MDL) contains digitized content from Minnesota’s cultural heritage organizations in a single website. Over 200 participating organizations, including the Weavers Guild of Minnesota, have contributed photographs, documents, maps, recordings, and more to its free searchable online database.
To get started, visit MDL’s website at mndigital.org. You can browse or search through more than 59,000 items on the website. You can also view the Weavers Guild digital collection by using the “Browse by Contributor” button on the homepage.
Explore these Highlights:
Newsletters published by the Weavers Guild, from the first “Threadbenders” of 1968 to an issue of the “Minnesota Weaver” from 1998.
Weavers Guild meeting minutes, event calendars, instructional materials, correspondence, and several flyers, posters, and other administrative documents.
Photographs of the Guild’s weaving demonstrations and exhibits.
Hilma Berglund’s weaving swatches and documents, including greeting cards and a history of the Weavers Guild from 1955-1960.
Additionally, MDL staff have curated online resources for students, teachers, and the public to use. These primary source sets, maps, timelines, and online exhibits provide the stories behind historic materials from contributors across the state. You may be interested in our newest primary source set about Hilma Berglund, a weaver, teacher, and founding member of the Weavers Guild of Minnesota.
The Minnesota Digital Library is pleased to offer access to these wonderful examples of local history. We hope you enjoy digging deeper into the past through this website!
Pictured: Class members at the 1954 Summer Weaving Institute with instructor Mary Meigs Atwater. Find out more here: https://collection.mndigital.org/catalog/p16022coll41:1
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Thank you, digitization volunteers!

A BIG thanks to the small-but-mighty team of members who recently completed compiling metadata for the Guild’s remaining print newsletters and all digital newsletters through June 2022! Volunteers for this round of metadata entry include: Anna Turk, Deb Jensen, Garneth Peterson, Karen Hovermale, and Lynne Schneider. Special thanks to Lynne Schneider for training volunteers, proof-reading metadata, and leading this mega-effort!
From here, Minnesota Digital Library staff will match the metadata to the individual newsletters before uploading to their website. Stay tuned for more exciting finds from the WGM archives!