Dorothy McIntyre, 88, tucked a vintage basketball under her arm on Thursday as she walked through the Minnesota portion of a new exhibit about girls at the Minnesota History Center.

“Wow!” McIntyre said as she gazed at the photos, uniforms and ephemera that illustrate the history of girls basketball in our state.

McIntyre — a longtime advocate for girls and women in sports — is part of that sports history, as visitors will learn in this corner of “Girlhood (It’s complicated),” an exhibit created by the Smithsonian that is now making a stop in Minnesota.

The exhibit kicks off on Saturday with a grand opening celebration that includes crafts, music and sports.

Thousands of students are expected to attend the exhibit during the 2024-25 academic year; it wraps up on June 1.

Here are 5 things worth noting:

Origins

The exhibit has a connection with women’s suffrage, which is especially timely with the pending presidential election: “Girlhood” was created to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees the right of women to vote.

Because that anniversary was marked in 2020 — during the pandemic — this exhibit was initially a virtual one.

With interactive displays, media components and more than 100 objects from the Smithsonian collection and additional items from Minnesota, the exhibit explores how young women have continuously influenced politics, education, work, health and fashion through American history.

After the original exhibition ended in 2023, “Girlhood ” became a traveling exhibit with stops in Indiana and Ohio before its current installation in St. Paul.

Minnesota and basketball

A display of Minnesota girls basketball artifacts and stories in the exhibit “Girlhood (It’s complicated)” at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. Created by the National Museum of American History and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the exhibit examines issues related to being a girl in the United States and has local Minnesota girls basketball section featuring memorabilia and stories from Minnesota girls basketball players. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

— Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

It was 1976, the year that Barbara Walters became the first woman to co-anchor a national news program in prime time; the summer that Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci scored seven perfect scores of 10 in the Olympics (a first); and the year that “The Bionic Woman” starring Lindsay Wagner was a sci-fit hit on television.

It was also the year that the girls basketball team of St. Paul Central High School won the championship of the inaugural winter state tournament for girls basketball, Class AA.

In the Minnesota portion of the exhibit, McIntyre points out the display that includes photos and other memorabilia of this historic event for St. Paul.

It’s not just history to her, it’s a memory: McIntyre, a teacher, later served as associate director for 32 years at the Minnesota State High School League.

McIntyre is also the co-author of “Daughters of the Game: The First Era of Minnesota Girls High School Basketball, 1891-1942.” First published in 2005, more copies have been printed to serve as a companion to this exhibit (look for them in the museum store).

The oral histories and photos that her co-author, Marian Bemis Johnson, first sought out and compiled tell the story of how Minnesota girls once got to play the game — and why that was taken away from them in the mid-20th century.

(Girls actually played Minnesota’s first recorded basketball game in 1893, according to the exhibit materials.)

Now, these early photos and stories of young women’s basketball in Minnesota make up a portion of the Minnesota portion of “Girlhood.”

“It’s beyond belief that this would end up in the Smithsonian,” McIntyre says as she looks at the photos she and Johnson gathered so they would not be lost to time.

Many of those early athletes have now passed away, but their lives and stories are preserved here.

Perhaps the girls of today will be able to relate to the rules placed on the girls’ bodies: For example, McIntyre points out how the girls in one vintage team photo had scrunched up the mandatory bloomers they loathed to above their knees, so the fabric couldn’t be seen in the photos.

“They wanted to wear shorts,” McIntyre says. “There were a lot of different rules for girls.”

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There are modern athletes represented here, too — and their uniforms, including the Cedar-Riverside Lady Warriors’ uniform from 2015. The culturally appropriate sportswear was designed with the Muslim middle schoolers in mind, with the help of their coaches, the community and the University of Minnesota.

The ball was in Minnesota’s court when selecting the basketball theme for this exhibit.

“We asked, what could we add here in Minnesota to add to this story?” said Annie Johnson, the museum manager at the Minnesota History Center.

It made sense to pick this sport, she says.

“We had this great collection of objects that related to girls and basketball,” Johnson says.

Clothing

A exhibit of 1950’s girls fashion at the exhibit, “Girlhood (It’s complicated),” at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

On Thursday, Johnson stood with Kat Halpern, project director of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, looking at a gray dress that appears to have been handmade with care.

The puffy-sleeved frock with stars and stripes — displayed behind glass in the education portion of the exhibit — belonged to Minnijean Brown, who was 16 years old in 1957 when she wore it as she walked into Little Rock Central High School. Brown was one of nine Black teenagers who integrated the school following the U.S. Supreme Court’s desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

The gray dress is one of three that Brown donated to the Smithsonian, Halpern says. Because textiles are particularly delicate to the passage of time, it is rare for this kind of history to travel and to be on display.

“Standing in front of it is so powerful,” Johnson said.

Halpern agreed.

There’s just something, she says, about “the power of objects.”

There is other clothing throughout the exhibit, from jeans to quinceanera dresses, as well as a coloring activity highlighting some of the featured clothing.

‘Talkback cards’

Before museum-goers leave, they can fill out cards that pose these questions based on the themes of the exhibition, including:

What did you learn in school about how to be a girl?

(One response displayed: “Hide your period products, they’re embarrassing.”)

Did you or anyone in your family work as a child?

(One response: “I had my first job at 13 in my dad’s store — 3 dollars an hour.”)

What do you tell the world through your clothes?

(One response: “What sports teams I like + what musicians/bands I like!”)

Has someone else ever made a decision that affected your body?

(One response: “I had no say in my summer haircut when summer ended until I rebelled.”)

What do politicians need to know about girls today?

(One response, apparently quoting Tim Walz: “Mind your own damn business!”)

“All the cards will be collected and will come back to the Smithsonian and become part of the archives,” Halpern says.

Eventually, the responses are expected to become part of a book.

Grand opening

It’s a good weekend to check out the exhibit.

On Saturday, the day the exhibit opens, a grand opening celebration will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Highlights include a variety of crafts and entertainment, live music, dance presentations and lacrosse and baseball demonstrations. The Cass Lake-Bena Girls Robotics team will also be there.

‘Girlhood (It’s complicated)’

What: An exhibition at the Minnesota History Center, created by the Smithsonian and now traveling the nation, exploring how young women have influenced politics, education, work, health and fashion over the last 200 years.

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Begin the weekend: Five free music events happening Thursday in St. Paul

Local highlight: A section on girls basketball in Minnesota.

When: The exhibit opens on Saturday and runs through June 1.

Grand opening: A celebration from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday includes activities, live music, dance presentations and baseball and lacrosse demonstrations and clinics.

Where: Minnesota History  Center, 345 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul.

Admission: General admission to the museum includes access to this exhibition. Admission ranges from $15 to $8 (children ages four and under get in free); museum members also pay no admission.

Info: Mnhs.org

After coming up short while blocking, tackling, rushing and passing last week in a one-sided loss to Division II Sioux Falls, the focus for the University of St. Thomas football team on Saturday at O’Shaughnessy Stadium will be rebounding.

And, after falling flat in the season opener in what was considered one of the more winnable games on the schedule, the Tommies will have to turn things around against its toughest opponent of the season in the Northern Iowa Panthers.

“Certainly, if you ever believed the biggest growth is between 1 and 2 — Week 1, Week 2, Year 1, Year 2 — we need to look in that direction now,” Tommies head coach Glenn Caruso said. “Week 1, there were many, many facets where … it’s not it.

“We played the worst opening game I’ve seen us play in nearly two decades.”

The biggest disappointment for Caruso was the offense’s inability to run the football. The Tommies rushed for 22 yards on 16 attempts. Caruso said the ineffectiveness was the result of physical as well as mental mistakes.

“It was five-yard penalties that put you in third and long instead of third and medium,” he said. “It was lack of consistent first-down productivity. And some of it was (having) new guys in new roles. But we had enough guys — three returning starters — where it shouldn’t have been that much of an issue. But it was.”

Caruso considers the offensive line to be the strength of the team, so the performance was “a shock.”

“We’ve had games in that past where if we hadn’t started well we were able to find a way to get that run game going,” he said.

Caruso said there will be a number of changes to the starting lineup this week. One of them could be at quarterback, where Tak Tateoka started but was replaced at halftime by Michael Rostberg. The quarterback play will have to improve if the Tommies are to pull off the upset.

“When we’re at our best, we are balanced, and the pass game and run game are in unison,” Caruso said. “That’s the goal for this week. It’s a tall task against a really good football team.”

The Tommies’ confidence surely took a hit in the deflating loss. They won’t have a shot against the Panthers if they don’t get it back where it needs to be.

“It’s belief in being able to do those things routinely that we need to be good at,” Caruso said. “Although that was demonstrated fairly well throughout camp, it certainly was no demonstrated well last Thursday night.”

Prior to the season, the thought was that the Tommies would roll to a season-opening win before setting their sights on being more competitive against the Panthers than they were the first time the two teams met, a 44-3 Northern Iowa victory in 2021. The second part of the equation is still possible despite the opening loss.

“One of the benefits of (playing) this team that I really appreciate is that we’re playing them three years apart,” Caruso said. “Three years ago it was the best team that the University of St. Thomas had played to that point, ands they handled us very, very well.

“Now we get to see if there has been the growth that you expect there to be, and what that looks like.”

Northern Iowa opened its season with a 35-7 win over Valparaiso.

“All their guys can run really well, it doesn’t matter if they’re a 6-foot-2, 220-pound corner, a 6-3 wide receiver or a 6-6 defensive lineman, they can run,” Caruso said. “They’re supremely talented.”

Running back and offensive line are the Panthers’ strength on offense, Caruso said, and on defense he believes their linebacking group could be the best the Tommies have ever faced. Caruso is counting on his players being of sound body — and sound mind.

“Mentally, we have a pretty tough team, and that’s because of the culture over many, many years,” he said. “We’re fortunate to be able to withstand shortcomings and still have belief that if you do the right thing long enough, the right things happen.

“I’m proud of our guys; I think they’re focused. I think the fact that we have a great opponent coming in here is a good thing for us to see.”

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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

A federal judge on Friday gave the U.S. Justice Department until the end of the year to outline how Google should be punished for illegally monopolizing the internet search market and then prepare to present its case for imposing the penalties next spring.

The loose-ended timeline sketched out by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta came during the first court hearing since he branded Google as a ruthless monopolist in a landmark ruling issued last month.

Mehta’s decision triggered the need for another phase of the legal process to determine how Google should be penalized for years of misconduct and forced to make other changes to prevent potential future abuses by the dominant search engine that’s the foundation of its internet empire.

Attorneys for the Justice Department and Google were unable to reach a consensus on how the time frame for the penalty phase should unfold in the weeks leading up to Friday’s hearing in Washington D.C., prompting Mehta to steer them down the road that he hopes will result in a decision on the punishment before Labor Day next year.

To make that happen, Mehta indicated he would like the trial in the penalty phase to happen next spring. The judge said March and April look like the best months on his court calendar.

If Mehta’s timeline pans out, a ruling on Google’s antitrust penalties would come nearly five years after the Justice Department filed the lawsuit that led to a 10-week antitrust trial last autumn. That’s similar to the timeline Microsoft experienced in the late 1990s when regulators targeted them for its misconduct in the personal computer market.

The Justice Department hasn’t yet given any inkling on how severely Google should be punished. The most likely targets are the long-running deals that Google has lined up with Apple, Samsung, and other tech companies to make its search engine the default option on smartphones and web browsers.

In return for the guaranteed search traffic, Google has been paying its partners more than $25 billion annually — with most of that money going to Apple for the prized position on the iPhone.

In a more drastic scenario, the Justice Department could seek to force Google to surrender parts of its business, including the Chrome web browser and Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones because both of those also lock in search traffic.

In Friday’s hearing, Justice Department lawyers said they need ample time to come up with a comprehensive proposal that will also consider how Google has started to deploy artificial intelligence in its search results and how that technology could upend the market.

Google’s lawyers told the judge they hope the Justice Department proposes a realistic list of penalties that address the issues in the judge’s ruling rather than submit extreme measures that amount to “political grandstanding.”

Mehta gave the two sides until Sept. 13 to file a proposed timeline that includes the Justice Department disclosing its proposed punishment before 2025.