Bakken Museum

"The Bakken is a center for education and learning that furthers the understanding of the history, cultural context, and applications of electricity and magnetism in the life sciences and their benefits to contemporary society."

Located in a beautiful Tudor mansion in Minneapolis, it holds a research treasure of 11,000 rare books and 2,500 scientific instruments relating to the role of electricity in life. The Bakken was founded in 1975 by Earl E. Bakken, inventor of the first transistorized cardiac pacemaker.

The Bakken is an independent, nonprofit educational institution that collects archival materials related to the history of electricity and magnetism in medicine and the life sciences. We promote a broad humanistic understanding of science and its role in history. Our primary audiences are children, students, kids, teachers, scholars, researchers and the general public.