# Motordale *Former name of New Germany, Minnesota, used from 1917 to 1922.* Motordale was the name borne by the village of [[New Germany]], [[Minnesota]], from 1917 until 1922, when the village took back its earlier name.[^1][^2] The [[Carver County Historical Society]] places the renaming during World War I. It attributes the change to anti-German sentiment and states that the town adopted the new name "to distance itself from associations with Germany."[^1] St. Mark's Lutheran School in New Germany had been founded in 1914, three years before the renaming, according to the Minnesota Historical Society's MNopedia entry on private schools in Carver County.[^3] The project's at-issue record holds one pair on Motordale, AI-Carver-041. It sets the renaming beside the school and states that the German-language school ran throughout the years of the new name, so that "the town shed the label and kept the institution." That statement is the pair's own reading. The cited pages establish the school's founding year and the dates of the two name changes.[^1][^3] The pair is anchored to *Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity*, a presidential action posted by the White House in January 2025.[^4] The pair explains the anchor this way: "a symbolic act substituting for a structural one is the mechanism's oldest move." That explanation is the project's framing. It is not a finding of any court or agency.[^4] ## Where The Carver County Historical Society describes New Germany as a settlement dating from the 1850s and centered on the Great Northern depot. The society says the village was "named for its large German immigrant population."[^1] Both the society's page and the MNopedia entry place the village in Carver County.[^1][^3] The historical society records that the village was a lumber center from 1887 to 1895.[^1] Its post office opened in 1889 under the name "Purity."[^1] ## When - 1850s: settlement begins, according to the Carver County Historical Society.[^1] - 1887–1895: the village operates as a lumber center.[^1] - 1889: the post office is established, first under the name "Purity."[^1] - 1905: First State Bank is established.[^1] - 1914: St. Mark's Church is established, per the historical society.[^1] St. Mark's Lutheran School is founded the same year, per MNopedia.[^3] - 1917: during World War I, the village is renamed Motordale.[^1][^2] - 1922: the village restores the name New Germany.[^1][^2] ## In the at-issue record Pair AI-Carver-041, from the project's Carver package, opens a block of pairs titled *Motordale: The Gesture and the Delivery*. That block is numbered pairs 41–58, but this pack holds only pair 41. The pair lists two record sources, the county historical society and the Minnesota Historical Society.[^1][^3] The pair sets the renaming of 1917 and its reversal in 1922 beside the 1914 school. It reads the sequence as a village giving up a name while keeping an institution, a pattern it calls the "gesture-delivery gap." The pair describes the village as one "of a few hundred people." The sources in the pack establish three things: - the school's founding year;[^3] - the year of the renaming and the stated reason for it;[^1] - the year the original name was restored.[^1][^2] These sources do not themselves document the school's operation year by year between 1917 and 1922. The claim of uninterrupted operation rests on the pair's text.[^3] The pair links this local sequence to the federal anchor document of January 2025 as an illustration of a symbolic act standing in for a structural one. That link is the project's reading.[^4] ## Notes [^1]: Carver County Historical Society, *New Germany* (undated web page) — establishes settlement from the 1850s around the Great Northern depot, the village named for its German immigrant population, its lumber-center years of 1887–1895, the 1889 post office (originally "Purity"), First State Bank in 1905 and St. Mark's Church in 1914; also that the town "was renamed to Motordale in 1917 to distance itself from associations with Germany" and adopted "New Germany" again in 1922. https://www.carvercountyhistoricalsociety.org/new_germany.php [^2]: Wikipedia, *New Germany, Minnesota* (undated) — "In 1917 during World War I, the village changed its name to Motordale"; "restored the name New Germany in 1922." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Germany,_Minnesota [^3]: Minnesota Historical Society, MNopedia, *Private Schools in Carver County* (undated) — establishes St. Mark's Lutheran School, New Germany, founded 1914. https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/thing/private-schools-carver-county [^4]: The White House, *Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity* (presidential action, January 2025) — federal anchor document for at-issue pair AI-Carver-041. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/