Women's suffrage in Minnesota

The earliest recorded educational work for woman suffrage in Minnesota was in 1847, several years before the Civil War period, when Harriet Bishop, a teacher in Saint Paul, addressed small gatherings of women in the privacy of their parlors.

[1] In 1858, a lecture on "The Rights of Women" was given in Champlin by Mary Jackman Colburn, who, nine years later, assisted by Sarah Burger Stearns of Rochester, secured the first hearing before a committee of the Minnesota Legislature.

Those early bills received few votes and much ridicule, all of which spurred these women to make greater efforts in securing petitions, resolutions, hearings, and in organizing clubs.

Its first president was Sarah Burger Stearns, then of Duluth, and she was followed in two years by Dr. Martha Ripley, a pioneer woman physician of Minneapolis, a courageous figure, tremendously interested in the welfare of women and children.

Among those who were active in that campaign were Mrs. A. T. Anderson, Priscilla M. and Sanford Niles, Martha A. and C. W. Dorsett of Minneapolis, Mrs. Concheta F. Lutz of Redwood Falls, Mrs. T. F. Thurston of Albert Lea, and Mrs. Jessie Gray Cawley of Pipestone.

[1] In 1900, Maud Conkey Stockwell, 12th Ward Chairman of the Minneapolis Political Equality Club, was elected state president at the Stillwater Convention and served in that capacity for 10 years.

Farmer, moved to Saint Paul in 1903, and undertook the press work, carrying it on for 12 years, and winning most of the editors of the state to a liberal stand on the suffrage question.

Then followed Mrs. Alice Ames Hall of St. Paul, Mrs. P. L. De Voist of Duluth, and Mrs. A. H: Bright of Minneapolis, each of whom served one year as president and helped materially in creating favorable sentiment throughout the state.