The Earl Bakken Legacy Collection

Reflections on the collection by Aly Skoglund, Earl Bakken Legacy Collection Cataloger:

After over 1,100 entries, the Earl Bakken Legacy Collection is complete. The many hours I spent working on sorting, organizing, and recording the materials in this collection flew by. I learned so much about Earl, especially semi-retired Earl, who couldn’t stop working to help people feel and be their best.

This collection is interesting because it is so eclectic. Honorary degrees sit next to homemade certificates from children — Frankenstein toys next to medical devices. Scientific articles about conditions I’ve never heard of, like Circadian Hyper-Amplitude-Tension and articles about whales, are represented here. Earl, with important doctors and decision-makers and world changers are filed with pictures of Earl with children who need a device to help them thrive as a kid. The collection really represents the man Earl, not just the businessman Earl Bakken.

Earl’s legacy isn’t just this collection, though. Or the Bakken Museum, Medtronic, or the North Hawaii Community Hospital. It’s the people whose lives he helped, and their families, the people who wrote him letters saying “thank you, because of a pacemaker I got more years with my parent/spouse/sibling/friend.” He had no plans to change the world when he designed his battery-operated pacemaker, but he did, and his legacy will continue to impact lives going forward. It was an exciting and interesting project, and I am privileged to have been a part of it.

Curator’s Note: The Earl Bakken Legacy Collection is now available to the public! You can find more information on the collection here, along with information about doing research in The Bakken’s Collections.