Lessons from Menomonie, WI - 1905

The Visual Materials Archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society holds a most unusual photograph album that takes one back to the future — an imaginary future, that is. The album comprises 32 photographs taken in 1905 of graduates of Menomonie High School in Dunn County. It doesn't describe the students' extracurricular activities nor does it reveal their hopes, dreams and aspirations upon leaving high school. Instead, photographer Albert Hansen and "prophet" Sarah Ana Heller, both 1905 class members themselves, portrayed imaginary futures for their classmates in words and pictures.