No Minnesotan has been elected to the US presidency, but several have sought the office, including two who served as vice president. Hubert Horatio Humphrey (b.South Dakota, 1911–78) was vice president under Lyndon Johnson and a serious contender for the presidency in 1960, 1968, and 1972. A onetime mayor of Minneapolis, the "Happy Warrior" entered the US Senate in 1949, winning recognition as a vigorous proponent of liberal causes; after he left the vice presidency, Humphrey won reelection to the Senate in 1970. Humphrey's protégé, Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (b.1928), a former state attorney general, was appointed to fill Humphrey's Senate seat in 1964, was elected to it twice, and after an unsuccessful try for the presidency, became Jimmy Carter's running mate in 1976; four years later, Mondale and Carter ran unsuccessfully for reelection, losing to Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and chose US Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York as his running mate, making her the first woman to be nominated by a major party for national office; they were overwhelmingly defeated by Reagan and Bush, winning only 41% of the popular vote and carrying only Minnesota and the District of Columbia. Warren Earl Burger (1907–95) of St. Paul was named chief justice of the US Supreme Court in 1969. Three other Minnesotans have served on the court: Pierce Butler (1866–1939), William O. Douglas (1898–1980), and Harry A. Blackmun (b.Illinois, 1908–97).
Senator Frank B. Kellogg (b.New York, 1856–1937), who as secretary of state helped to negotiate the Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy (for which he won the 1929 Nobel Peace Prize), also served on the Permanent Court of International Justice. Other political leaders who won national attention include Governors John A. Johnson (1861–1909), Floyd B. Olson (1891–1936), and Harold E. Stassen (1907–2001), a perennial presidential candidate since 1948 but a serious contender in his early races. Eugene J. McCarthy (b.1916), who served in the US Senate, was the central figure in a national protest movement against the Vietnam war and, in that role, unsuccessfully sought the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination won by Humphrey. McCarthy also ran for the presidency as an independent in 1976.
Several Minnesotans besides Kellogg have served in cabinet posts. Minnesota's first territorial governor, Alexander Ramsey (1815–1903), later served as a secretary of war, and Senator William Windom (1827–91) was also secretary of the treasury. Others serving in cabinet posts have included William DeWitt Mitchell (1874–1955), attorney general; Maurice H. Stans (b.1908), secretary of commerce; James D. Hodgson (b.1915), secretary of labor; and Orville Freeman (1918–2003) and Bob Bergland (b.1928), both secretaries of agriculture. The first woman ambassador in US history was Eugenie M. Anderson (Iowa, 1909–97), like Humphrey an architect of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
Notable members of Congress include Knute Nelson (b.Norway, 1843–1923), who served in the Senate from 1895 to his death; Henrik Shipstead (1881–1960), who evolved into a leading Republican isolationist during 24 years in the Senate; Representative Andrew J. Volstead (1860–1947), who sponsored the 1919 prohibition act that bears his name; and Representative Walter Judd (b.1898–1994), a prominent leader of the so-called China Lobby.
The Mayo Clinic was founded in Minnesota by Dr. William W. Mayo (b.England, 1819–1911) and developed through the efforts of his sons, Drs. William H. (1861–1939) and Charles H. (1865–1939) Mayo. Oil magnate J. Paul Getty (1892–1976) was a Minnesota native, as was Richard W. Sears (1863–1914), founder of Sears, Roebuck.
Prominent literary figures, besides Sinclair Lewis, include Ignatius Donnelly (b.Pennsylvania, 1831–1901), a writer, editor, and Populist Party crusader; F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940), well known for classic novels including The Great Gatsby; and Ole Edvart Rølvaag (b.Norway, 1876–1931), who conveyed the reality of the immigrant experience in his Giants in the Earth. The poet and critic Allen Tate (b.Kentucky, 1899–1979) taught for many years at the University of Minnesota.
Journalist Westbrook Pegler (1894–1969) and cartoonist Charles Schulz (1922–2000) were both born in Minnesota as was radio personality and author Garrison Keillor (b.1942), who gained nationwide fame playfully satirizing his home state through the fictitious town of Lake Wobegon. Architects LeRoy S. Buffington (1847–1937) and Cass Gilbert (b.Ohio, 1859–1934) and economist Thorstein Veblen (b.Wisconsin, 1857–1929) influenced their fields well beyond the state's borders, as did Minnesota artists Wanda Gag (1893–1946) and Adolph Dehn (1895–1968).
Minnesota born entertainers include Judy Garland (Frances Gumm, 1922–69) and Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman, b.1941). Football star William "Pudge" Heffelfinger (1867–1954) was a Minnesota native, and Bronislaw "Bronco" Nagurski (b.Canada, 1908–1990) played for the University of Minnesota.
Daniel Greysolon, Sieur Duluth (b.France, 1636–1710), Father Louis Hennepin (b.Flanders, 1640?–1701), and Jonathan Carver (b.Massachusetts, 1710–80) were among the early explorers and chroniclers of what is now the State of Minnesota. Fur trader Henry H. Sibley (b.Michigan, 1811–91) was a key political leader in the territorial period and became the state's first governor; he also put down the Sioux uprising of 1862. Railroad magnate James J. Hill (b.Canada, 1838–1916) built one of the greatest corporate empires of his time, and Oliver H. Kelley (b.Massachusetts, 1826–1913), a Minnesota farmer, organized the first National Grange. John Ireland (b.Ireland, 1838–1918) was the first Roman Catholic archbishop of St. Paul, while Henry B. Whipple (b.New York, 1822–1901), longtime Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, achieved particular recognition for his work among Indians in the region.
The first US citizen ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature was Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951), whose novel Main Street (1920) was modeled on life in his hometown of Sauk Centre. Philip S. Hench (b.Pennsylvania, 1896–1965) and Edward C. Kendall (b.Connecticut, 1886–1972), both of the Mayo Clinic, shared the 1950 Nobel Prize for medicine, and St. Paul native Melvin Calvin (1911–97) won the 1961 Nobel Prize for chemistry.