NANCY OSBORN BRATAAS:

Nancy Osborn Brataas was born on January 19, 1928 in Minneapolis to Flora W. and John D. Osborn. She first became involved in Republican Party politics in 1956 as a volunteer for door-knocking campaigns to mobilize voters. She rose through the volunteer ranks, serving as chair of the Minnesota Republican Party (1963-1969), and chair of the Minnesota Republican Finance Committee (1969-1971). In 1972, she worked in Washington, D.C., on the Committee to Re-Elect the President, Richard M. Nixon.

Brataas was the first woman to be elected in her own right to the Minnesota Senate in 1975 and served until 1992. As a senator, she developed expertise in education, jobs and taxes. She made major contributions to workers' compensation law, Title IX opportunities for women in sports, flood control for Rochester, passage in 1983 of the Rochester local option sales tax, repurposing of the closed Rochester State Hospital into a federal facility, and the establishment of the University of Minnesota Rochester.

Brataas also started and ran a management and data-processing business, Nancy Brataas Associates, Inc. She specialized in strategically mobilizing voters through phone center voter ID and recruitment campaigns. Her patented system was successfully used throughout the country in non-profit fundraising and political campaigns from Ohio to Texas to Michigan, and in Minnesota.

Brataas retired from the Senate in 1992. She continued her political leadership in other organizations, focusing on higher education with the Minnesota State Colleges and University System, on lung health with Clearway Minnesota, and on preserving downtown Rochester's character, health and safety by working for an alternative to routing coal trains through the medical corridor.

Nancy married Mark Gerard ("Jerry") Brataas on November 27, 1948. The couple lived their married life in Rochester, Minnesota, where Mark was an administrator at the Mayo Clinic. The couple had two children, Mark and Anne. Nancy Brataas died of lung cancer on April 17, 2014.

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These documents are organized into the following sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Nancy Osborn Brataas Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 17,007

Processing Information:

Processed by: David B. Peterson, August 2015

Catalog ID number: 990083481780104294

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Legislators -- Minnesota.

Political campaigns.

Politicians -- Minnesota.

Women legislators -- Minnesota.

Organizations:

Nancy Brataas Associates, Inc., author.

Independent-Republicans of Minnesota.

Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- )

Places:

Minnesota -- Politics and government -- 1951-.

Rochester (Minn.)

Document Types:

Photographs.

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