Welcome About The Bakken Museum One Saturday afternoon in the early 1930s, a young Earl Bakken saw the film Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein´s electricity not only sparked the creature to life, it sparked Bakken´s interest in combining electricity and medicine. Bakken´s passion for science, tempered by his pastor´s admonition to use science to help others, led to his life work using electricity to benefit humanity. Bakken grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota and received his electrical engineering degree from the University of Minnesota. He cofounded Medtronic in 1949. In 1957, Bakken developed the first wearable, battery-powered, transistorized cardiac pacemaker. In 1969, he began collecting "old electrical machines" and five years later created the only museum and library devoted to electricity and magnetism in the life sciences and medicine. The collection was housed at Medtronic until 1976 when it was moved to its current home at the beautiful West Winds mansion on the west shore of Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. Today, The Bakken Museum´s world-renowned collection consists of 11,000 books and 2,000 scientific instruments. Among its treasures are a 13th-century encyclopedia, Ben Franklin´s glass armonica and a first edition of Mary Shelley´s Frankenstein.
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