Minnesota's Greatest Generation Oral History Project: Part II: Interview with Carl N. Platou

Titles: Minnesota's Greatest Generation Oral History Project: Part II: Interview with Carl N. Platou (Supplied title)

Description: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Carl N. Platou was born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the University of Minnesota for a short time before enlisting in the Army. He joined a paratroop unit and ended up fighting the Japanese on New Guinea. He participated in the American occupation of Japan at Yokohama before returning to the United States to finish his education. Platou went to graduate school for hospital administration and became a national leader in health care delivery as head of the Fairview Hospital system. He married, raised a family, and at the time of the interview served as Senior Advisor to the Dean of the University of Minnesota Medical School. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Childhood activities: kick the can, track meets, varsity wrestling, acting as president of his class; social climate of the 1930s; life during the Depression; holiday celebrations: birthday, Christmas, 4th of July; American political consciousness of pre-World War II Europe; coping with mother's day and father being overseas in the Navy; moving to Minnesota; attending the University of Minnesota; paratroop training experiences; attending demolition school; encounters with the Japanese; conditions on a military transport ship; Banzai attacks; fighting in New Guinea, Leyte, and Okinawa; occupying Yokohama; returning home, getting married, and starting a family; finishing his education at the University of Minnesota; establishing Fairview as a multi-unit hospital; the revolutionary idea of a multi-unit hospital; interviewing to be the head of Johns Hopkins Medical School and declining the position; teaming with the Dayton Corporation at Southdale; establishing various affiliates; creating global hospital systems in Saudi Arabia and Cairo; role of health insurance and HMOs; development of a "Com-university" at the University of Minnesota Medical Center; meeting the King of Norway; serving as Senior Advisor to the Dean of the Medical School.

Dates

• 07/13/2007 - 09/05/2007 (Creation)

Creation

• interviewer: Bekke, Douglas
• interviewee: Platou, Carl Nicolai
• interviewer: Fogerty, James E.

Identifiers

• Library Call Number: OH 115
• Accession Number: AV2008.26.29

Holding Type: Oral History - Interview

Project

• Oral History - Project, MHS Collection, project: 'Minnesota's Greatest Generation Oral History Project: Part II' <OH 115>

Quantity: 5 hours sound cassettes 127 pages transcript

Format

• Content Category: sound recordings
• Content Category: text

Measurements

• 300 minutes length

Subjects

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