This online exhibition offers insights into how the nation’s founding documents were forged and the role that imagination and vision played in the unprecedented creative act of forming a self–governing country.

On December 3, 1818, Illinois entered the Union as the twenty-first state. Illinois was the third state formed from the Northwest Territory after Ohio in 1803 and Indiana in 1816.

Michigan entered the Union as the twenty-sixth state on January 26, 1837, the fourth state created from the Northwest Territory.

On May 29, 1848, Wisconsin became the thirtieth state admitted to the Union, the last state formed in its entirety from the Northwest Territory.

Minnesota became the thirty-second state admitted into the Union on May 11, 1858. The section of the state east of the Mississippi River was originally part of the Northwest Territory.