WOMAN SUFFRAGE and ETHNICITY in RURAL MINNESOTA
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WOMAN SUFFRAGE and ETHNICITY in RURAL MINNESOTA Local Agitation in Pipestone and Lyon Counties Sara Egge ing a MWSA quarterly conference in ing.” While Stevens’s interlocuters southwestern Minnesota. Her letter did not elaborate on what had gone n June 26, 1916, Rene Ste- served as an evaluation of potential wrong with the previous gathering, Ovens, a field director for the sites. the Worthington suffragists also National American Woman Suffrage Lincoln County’s town of Ivanhoe quashed any future plans by declaring Association (NAWSA), sent a long was unfit, Stevens noted, because it that they could not possibly fund the letter to Ethel Briggs, office secretary was on a railroad stub and “practically conference. In Rock County, Luverne for the Minnesota Woman Suffrage unreachable.” Worthington, in Nobles was promising, but it had only one Association (MWSA), detailing the County, seemed an attractive location, hotel— and “not a good one”— which results of her recent trip to south- but a quick visit confirmed otherwise. meant that “practically everyone with western Minnesota. As an affiliate of The few local suffragists Stevens could a spare room would have to be inter- NAWSA, MWSA had hired Stevens find there told her how difficult it had ested enough to take a guest.” When in January to organize suffrage clubs been to organize a district conference Stevens approached Luverne’s Equal across the state. The work was slow earlier that year because the “spirit of going, prompting Stevens to concoct inhospitality was revolting as well as Above: Scandinavian women in national cos- a plan to drum up support by hold- deadening to the success of the meet- tume march for suffrage in Minneapolis, 1913. 116 MINNESOTA HISTORY Suffrage Society— a group she called German, Belgian, and French Cana- it would upend rigid gender notions a “band of old conservatives”— about dian immigrants who despised of women as wives, mothers, sisters, hosting the conference, they flatly woman suffrage, Lyon County was and daughters. In addition, many turned her down.1 not a hotbed of activity for the cause. Minnesotans opposed the cause Ultimately, Pipestone, a small Nonetheless, Randall convinced four because they associated it with tem- town on the border of South Dakota local women to lead suffrage efforts perance. For decades, the Woman’s and county seat of Pipestone County, there. By August the quartet was Christian Temperance Union had emerged as the best location. With working diligently, despite the odds, been a champion of woman suffrage, Pipestone accessible by rail, Stevens to collect signatures on a pro- suffrage and many suffragists belonged to this estimated that she could find enough petition and to secure support from national organization. Immigrants local support among ethnically and local organizations. Over the next whose ethnic customs embraced the religiously diverse women to pull off two months, all four women— Laura consumption of alcohol mistrusted the conference. Plans that drew in Lowe, Minnie Matthews, Harriet suffragists. Anti- temperance sen- locals whom MWSA assumed were Sanderson, and Tillie Deen— carried timent was especially high in Lyon unreservedly opposed to woman suf- out grueling schedules to complete County. frage actually revealed the opposite. Before the mid- 1910s, the suffrage The hardest-fought battles of woman suffrage in Minnesota cause had been unpopular in rural took place in counties like Pipestone and Lyon, where women areas in part because grassroots combated ignorance or apathy among their neighbors. organizing— in general as well as among ethnic groups— had been lim- ited. Stevens’s visit signaled MWSA’s the work for MWSA while also con- While Clara Ueland, Rene Stevens, new focus on outreach. As organizers tinuing their responsibilities to the Grace Randall, and their counterparts tapped into Pipestone and other rural Red Cross in supporting both an influ- deserve attention for their important enclaves, suffragists began to under- enza outbreak and US troops fighting work, local suffrage advocates also stand how Minnesota’s European in World War I.3 deserve credit for their critical role ethnic diversity and vibrant social How these four women came to in the overall success of MWSA’s and religious networks shaped local woman suffrage and achieved the efforts. The hardest- fought battles politics.2 success they did in the previously of woman suffrage in Minnesota Two years later, in July 1918, a unfertile territory of Lyon County took place in counties like Pipestone young MWSA field- worker named provides important insights into how and Lyon, where women like Lowe, Grace Randall visited Lyon County, the woman suffrage quest unfolded in Matthews, Sanderson, and Deen also in southwestern Minnesota. Minnesota and why the state lagged combated ignorance or apathy among Populated primarily by Norwegian, behind its neighbors in pro- suffrage their neighbors. Making woman activity until the mid- 1910s, when suffrage popular also meant divorc- new leadership and young talent ing it from temperance in the minds flooded MWSA. Though woman of Minnesotans. It meant reaching suffrage activists continued to face out to ethnic groups with political difficulties, MWSA’s evolution, thanks connections. It meant crafting argu- to the organizing and fundraising ments that deradicalized the cause skills of its newly elected president, by promising that women would still Clara Ueland, made possible the maintain their cherished place in the cause’s striking transformation from family even with the ballot. Finally, one of Minnesota’s least desirable the charged political climate of World political causes to one of the most War I changed expectations for Min- fashionable. nesota’s immigrants. Local suffrage Most Minnesotans at the time leaders capitalized on the rising fear viewed suffrage as radical and dan- of foreign- born residents, champi- gerous. Public attacks, especially in oning their mobilization as patriotic • Lac Qui Parle County • Lyon County newspapers, revealed that Minneso- in a tactical move to win additional • Pipestone County tans feared women voting because political clout. FALL 2020 117 Development of Woman highest vote total cast in the election, tion, as the source of change in rural Suffrage in Minnesota not just on the amendment itself. An communities.” In Minnesota, this abstention was now the same as a resource remained untapped until the A group of 14 women from around “no” vote. Lobbying the legislature, mid- 1910s not because suffragists sud- the state had formed the MWSA the approach favored by MWSA, was denly recognized the extensive power decades earlier, in 1881, first led by no longer a viable option. Suffragists rural women wielded but because Sarah Burger Stearns. Its early efforts struggled to regroup.5 their state leaders finally had the largely targeted enfranchisement by Since its founding, MWSA had talent and financial support to move a state amendment. At every legisla- also struggled with a shortage of beyond Minnesota’s urban centers.7 tive session between 1881 and 1898, both resources and talent, which The dearth of local engagement MWSA submitted bills to secure helped explain why the organization made Minnesota an outlier among woman suffrage. Prominent individ- had stuck with a narrow strategy other states in the region. Local ual suffragists who lived mostly in St. focused on the state legislature in St. women throughout Wisconsin, Iowa, Paul or Minneapolis promoted these Paul. In addition, navigating ethnic and South Dakota had been partici- efforts, giving speeches or hosting communities in rural Minnesota pating in suffrage efforts for decades. meetings to drum up support, but the was complicated. Historian Barbara In Wisconsin, women had agitated work was infrequent and often lim- Stuhler characterizes MWSA’s early since the 1860s, largely through tem- ited to elite circles. In addition, a few attempts at rural advocacy as “less perance reform, and in 1912 voters field- workers attempted to organize ardent and less successful” than urban considered but ultimately rejected a suffrage clubs, including national efforts. A debate among scholars has suffrage referendum. Since the 1880s, organizers Laura Gregg and Helen emerged about what Stuhler calls Iowa had enjoyed a robust history of Kimber in 1899, but agitation was a “lack of commitment to suffrage local activism, which culminated in spotty and uneven. These local and from rural constituencies.” Some 1916 when Iowans voted for the first county clubs were usually short- lived, historians, like William Watts Folwell and only time on an (unsuccessful) lasting less than a year, and mostly and Stuhler, argue that traditional amendment to the state’s constitu- ineffective. attitudes about gender or suffrage tion. In fact, when Stevens came to Nineteenth- century suffragist opposition born from anti- prohibition southwestern Minnesota in mid- June Ethel Hurd wryly noted that she and sentiment “restrained” Minnesotans, 1916, she was returning from a dis- her cohort had “little honor or glory, especially rural people, from sup- appointing stint in Dubuque, Iowa, much less remuneration.” Prior to porting the cause. Other historians to support the campaign before the MWSA’s efforts, in 1875 women had point out how “practical hurdles of June 5 referendum. A stone’s throw to won the right to vote in school elec- farm chores and distance from town” the west from Pipestone, residents of tions, making them eligible to serve prevented rural dwellers from engag- South Dakota were experiencing their on school boards. In 1898, the state ing in the ways urban suffragists had sixth of seven amendment campaigns legislature passed a law that enfran- envisioned. In other words, everyday in 1916. Since 1890, suffragists there chised women in library elections. obstacles, not rigid convictions about had staged tenacious campaigns to While these were victories, they gender, obstructed advocacy in rural enfranchise South Dakota women, were rather small, and most bills Minnesota. While rural Minnesotans and the 1916 effort was the third in that extended women’s rights died in did largely oppose the cause, espe- a series since 1910.