A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Henry W. Babcock (1836-1901) [Athol, Spink County] signed on to be president of the Athol equal suffrage club organized after Emma Smith DeVoe‘s visit in March 1890 [“Page 27 : Among the Workers,” and “Page 28 : Organizations in Spink County,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. Babcock was married to Odessa Hess in 1897, was a merchant, and was active in the Republican party [Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), October 16, 1885, October 21, 1885, October 23, 1885; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), December 6, 1900, January 10, 1901; Stephen Babcock, The Babcock Genealogy (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1903), 172, “Hervey William Babcock, Sr,” FIndagrave.com]
Christian J. Bach (1858-1928) [Hurley, Turner County] was recording secretary of the suffrage club organized in Hurley in April 1890 [Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), April 10, 1890]. Bach was an implement merchant, born in Denmark, who was also involved with the Odd Fellows, and served in June 1890 as a judge of the local election board [“Christian Jacob ‘Gus’ Bach,” Findagrave.com; Daily Plainsman (Huron SD), May 19, 1893; Farm Implement News 42(40) (October 6, 1921), 20; Memorial and Biographical Record of Turner, Lincoln, Union and Clay Counties, South Dakota (Chicago, G. A. Ogle & Co., 1897), 257; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), June 19, 1890, January 23, 1913].
Mrs. Bachman [Wayne Township, Hanson County] was township vice-president at the organization of an equal suffrage association following an address by Susan B. Anthony in Alexandria [Mitchell Capital (SD), June 27, 1890].
Julia H. Bachman (1870-1949) [Kent Township, Edmunds County] signed on as secretary of the suffrage association formed at the visit of Emma Smith DeVoe to the Bachman school house on July 16, 1890 [“Page 44 : Entire Page,” Ipswich Gazette (SD), July 24, 1890, “Page 47 : Entire Page,” and “Page 48 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. Bachman married farmer Frederick John Walter in 1891 [“Julia A Bachman Walter,” Findagrave.com; state & federal census records on Ancestry.com].
Minnie Bachman (1835-1905) [Kent Township, Edmunds County] signed on as vice-president of the suffrage association formed at the visit of Emma Smith DeVoe to the Bachman school house on July 16, 1890 [“Page 44 : Entire Page,” and Ipswich Gazette (SD), July 24, 1890, “Page 47 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. Bachman was a German immigrant [“Minnie Bachman,” Findagrave.com].
Florence Bacon [Brookings, Brookings County] held a meeting in 1918 to gauge interest in the suffrage campaign locally, but–during World War I–did not find much active interest [ Pyle to county chairs, January 28, 1918, RD07614, and Bacon to Pyle, January 31, 1918, RD07630, correspondence 1918-01, Pyle papers USD]. Her husband, M.E. Bacon, was a milkman who was the Socialist party candidate for lieutenant governor in 1914 [Dewey County Advocate (Timber Lake SD), January 26, 1912; Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), October 23, 1914; Madison Daily Leader (Canton SD), January 9, 1914; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), January 15, 1914; Sisseton Weekly Standard (SD), January 16, 1914].
Rev. M.E. Bacon [Lebanon/Gettysburg, Potter County] signed on to be president of the Lebanon equal suffrage club organized after Emma Smith DeVoe‘s spoke at the Congregational church there in the spring of 1890 [Lebanon Observer, “Page 30 : Equal Suffrage,” and The Dakota Ruralist, May 3, 1890, “Page 34 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10].
Blanche Pentecost Bagley (1858-___) [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County] was a Unitarian minister–ordained and installed with her husband over All Souls’ Church in Sioux Falls in November 1889–who served as co-chair of the local equal suffrage association [Lisa R. Lindell, “Sowing the Seeds of Liberal Thought,” South Dakota History 38(2) (2008); Frances Willard and Mary Livermore, eds., American Women: Fifteen Hundred Biographies with over 1,400 Portraits, vol. 1 (New York: Mast, Crowell & Kirkpatrick, 1893), 43]. After the Bagleys returned to Massachusetts in 1890, she continued to support suffrage [Journal of the Senate, Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., 1899), 233]. Blanche Pentecost was born in England, and came to Chicago in 1882. She attended the Meadville Theological Seminary with James E. Bagley whom she married in 1889, just before they came to Sioux Falls [Willard and Livermore, eds., American Women, 43]. James died in 1899 in Wollaston, MA [Boston Globe (MA), March 2, 1899].
Catherine E. Bailey (1839-1919) [Faulkton, Faulk County] worked with Alice Pickler to arrange suffrage campaign events in Faulkton [Ann D. Gordon, ed., The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, vol. 5 (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 322]. Catherine Elizabeth Thayer was born in Pittsford, NY in 1839, married Harrison W. Bailey in 1857 in Rochester, and they homesteaded in Faulk County in 1886. She was the mother of Delia, Leslie H., and W.F. Bailey, included on this list as well. They moved to Bemidji, Minnesota in 1896, where she was very active in the Women’s Relief Corps [quoting Bemidji Daily Pioneer (MN), December 2, 1907, “Judge Harrison W. Bailey (1836-1911),” Bemidji History (December 22, 2014)].
Delia A. Bailey (Rathman) (1872-1947) [Faulkton, Faulk County] gave a recitation at the state suffrage convention in Mitchell in August 1890 [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), September 12, 1890; “Page 31 : Program from 1890 South Dakota Equal Suffrage Mass Convention,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. She married Franklin E. Rathman and lived in Jamestown ND. She was a daughter of Harrison and Catherine Bailey [Bemidji Daily Pioneer (MN), February 10, 1912; quoting Bemidji Daily Pioneer (MN), December 2, 1907, “Judge Harrison W. Bailey (1836-1911),” Bemidji History (December 22, 2014); “Delia Alice Bailey Rathman,” Findagrave.com].
Ida Ridenour Bailey (1862-1932) [Faulkton / Pierre] served with Alice Pickler and Mrs. W.V. Lucas as delegates to the 1894 NAWSA convention [Proceedings of the Twenty-sixth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, held in Washington, D.C., February 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20, 1894 (Washington DC, 1894), 91]. Ida Cordelia Ridenour was married to Leslie H. Bailey in Iowa in 1883. They later moved to D.C. and Bemidji MN. She was a school teacher in Iowa before her marriage, and taught again a few years in Bemidji. Later in life, she lived with her daughter’s family in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho [Bemidji Daily Pioneer (MN), March 15, 1905; “Ida Cordelia Ridenour Bailey,” Findagrave.com (photo)].
Leslie H. Bailey (1860-1905) [Faulkton / Pierre] served on the committee on Enrollment for and gave an address at the state suffrage convention held in Mitchell in August 1890 [Mitchell Capital (SD), August 29, 1890; Wessington Springs Herald (SD), September 5, 1890; “Page 31 : Program from 1890 South Dakota Equal Suffrage Mass Convention,” “Page 49 : Entire Page,” and “Page 50 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. Bailey was born in Iowa in 1860, and married Ida Cordelia Ridenour [Quoting Tipton Advertiser (IA), March 24, 1905, “Leslie Harrison Bailey,” Findagrave.com]. He came from Iowa to homestead in Faulkton, and he participated in the first organization of the county in 1884 [Ellis, History of Faulk County, 28, 84-85]. He was appointed Register for the Pierre Land Office in February 1890 and served until resigning in 1893 to take a position as the private secretary for Rep. John A. Pickler [Sully County Watchman (Onida SD), February 15, 1890, September 8, 1893, September 29, 1893, Mitchell Capital (SD), October 2, 1896; January 7, 1898]. While in Washington D.C., he also held a clerkship of the committee on invalid pensions. In 1898/1899, he moved to Bemidji, Minnesota and established a private law practice. He was a son of Harrison and Catherine Bailey [Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), March 2, 1899; Bemidji Daily Pioneer (MN), March 15, 1905; “Leslie Harrison Bailey,” Findagrave.com (photo)].
Mabel G. Bailey (1884-1937) [Huron, Beadle County] was treasurer of the Beadle County League of Women Voters in 1926 [The Discerning Voter 1(8) (April 1926), 2]. Mabel Grace Oakes was married to Claude L. Bailey, who worked for Standard Oil. They had also previously lived in Hartford and Deadwood [Evening Huronite (SD), September 2, 1936; Sioux City Journal (IA), July 23, 2004; “Mabel Grace Oaks Bailey,” Findagrave.com; Census and city directories on Ancestry.com].
Mary J. Bailey [Hudson, Lincoln County] was a delegate to the state convention at the courthouse in Mitchell in 1897 and participated in the oratory contest by speaking on “Why a Tax-paying Woman Believes in Equal Suffrage” [Mitchell Capital (SD), September 24, 1897 and October 1, 1897].
Maud Bailey (1884-1946) [Pierre, Hughes County] performed with Mabel Gleckler “their famous woman’s suffrage song and walk-around” at a women’s suffrage program in Pierre in September 1895 [Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), September 12, 1895]. The daughter of Leslie and Ida Bailey, she later married Albert Kimball Southworth and moved to Billings, Montana [Bemidji Daily Pioneer (MN), July 13, 1910, July 14, 1910, February 14, 1911; “Maude Anna Bailey Southworth,” Findagrave.com].
Theodore M. Bailey (1888-1949) [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County] was listed as vice-president of men’s club for female suffrage and spoke on “The Qualifications of a Voter” for a suffrage meeting at the city’s suffrage headquarters that October [Argus Leader (Sioux Falls SD), September 28, 1916, October 20, 1916]. Bailey was a partner in his father’s law firm Bailey & Voorhees, and served in both the state House and Senate in the 1920s [Mitchell Capital (SD), October 19, 1911; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 4 (1915), 218; “Theodore Mead Bailey,” SD LRC profile; “Theodore Mead Bailey,” Find-a-grave.com].
William F. Bailey (1858-1917) [Faulkton/Roanoke, Faulk County] was elected president of the Faulk County Equal Suffrage Club at the county convention held at the Methodist Episcopal church in May 1890 and also served as the Roanoke township suffrage club [Citing Faulk County Record, Thursday, May 22, 1890, in Faulk County Newspaper Excerpts]. He was elected secretary (a salaried position – $30/month) for the South Dakota Equal Suffrage Association upon its reorganization in July 1890, and worked from its headquarters in the Hills Block in Huron — “the right man in the right place.” From headquarters, he sent reports on the campaign to the national suffrage newspaper, and he distributed copies of J.H. DeVoe’s songbook and mottoes that could be printed by local clubs for their polling places. In August, he gave one of the addresses at the Mitchell convention. In September, he was on hand for the suffragists’ state fair appearances in Aberdeen [Wittmayer, The 1889-1890 Woman Suffrage Campaign, 218; The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), July 19, 1890, p.228, July 26, 1890, p.250, September 6, 1890, p.284, and October 18, 1890, p.332, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University; Wessington Springs Herald (SD), July 11, 1890, August 22, 1890, September 26, 1890; The Daily Plainsman (Huron, SD), July 10, 1890; “Page 31,” “Page 31 : Program from 1890 South Dakota Equal Suffrage Mass Convention,” Page 44 : The Convention, “Page 45 : Entire Page,” Woman’s Journal, September 13, 1890, “Page 52 : Entire Page,” and Dakota Ruralist, August 16, 1890, “Page 57 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), Box 10; Page 004 : Letter addressed to “Women of South Dakota,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1892-1894 (Scrapbook C), Box 9, WSL Manuscripts, MS 171; Notes, July 8, 1890, #2021-03-16-0012, Box 6675, Folder 20, WCTU Report to National Suffrage Convention – 1886, and Letter to “Friends of Equal Suffrage,” July 16, 1890, #2021-02-26-0071, Box 6674, Folder 42, WCTU Equal Suffrage Association Miscellaneous Flyers, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives].
“William F. Bailey, the new secretary of the South Dakota Woman Suffrage Association, has the true spirit of a reformer. He gives his services for a nominal salary, just enough to hire a man to carry on his farm. The friends in Huron contribute his board, two weeks in each family, thus making a little money pay for a great deal of earnest work. He is a good organizer, and will soon bring the suffrage forces into line.”
The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), August 2, 1890, p.241, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.Reports by Bailey to The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA) [Schlesinger Library, Harvard University]:
July 19, 1890, p.228
July 26, 1890, p.250
September 6, 1890, p.284
October 18, 1890, p.332
The son of Harrison and Catherine Bailey, he later relocated to Tacoma, Washington and was teacher and principal of the Parkland School [“Letter from W. Bailey to Emma DeVoe, 11/16/1910, page 1,” Correspondence, Authors by Surname: B, WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 5; quoting Bemidji Daily Pioneer, Dec 2, 1907, in “Judge Harrison W. Bailey (1836-1911),” Bemidji History (December 22, 2014); “William F Bailey,” Findagrave.com].
Stella C. Baisch (Parkston, Hutchinson County) was chair of the Parkston Woman Suffrage Campaign Committee for the 1918 campaign [Winter to Pyle, January 14, 1918, RD07567, correspondence 1918-01, and Winter to Pyle, December 4, 1918, RA12022, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, December, Pyle papers USD]. In the summer and fall of 1918, organizer Ida Stadie came to Parkston to work with Baisch and the local committee, holding meetings and hanging posters [Stadie to Pyle, November 3, 1918, RA11654-RA11655, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, November 1-7, Pyle Papers USD]. Stella Pfeiffer was married to Richard W. Baisch, who worked as division superintendent for lumber company, Thompson Yards Inc. [Richard’s WWI Draft Registration Card, via Ancestry.com; “Stella Pfeiffer Baisch,” Find-a-grave.com].
Mr. Baker [Florence Township, Potter County] signed on as secretary of a local suffrage club that formed after Emma Smith DeVoe’s visit to Holden on December 26, 1889 [“Page 25 : [news clipping: Emma Smith DeVoe lectures at Holden],” and “Page 10 : Holden News,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10].
J.M. Baker (c.1830-) [Bonilla, Beadle County] signed on to be president of the Bonilla equal suffrage club organized after Emma Smith DeVoe‘s spoke there in early 1890 [“Page 25 : Equal Suffrage: A Convention to be held in Huron on Friday, Feb. 28, 1890,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. I have found little about Baker, except a mention as attending a Farmers’ Alliance meeting in 1886, and being listed in the 1895 state census with his wife A.V. Baker [Mitchell capital., December 24, 1886; 1895 state census, Ancestry.com].
Judge Alfred W. Bangs (1830-1904) [Rapid City, Pennington County] spoke at the state Democratic Party convention as part of the suffrage committee with Sophia M. Harden in June 1890, and he and two other delegates unsuccessfully tried to propose a statement in favor of suffrage, getting into a “furious battle of words” with E.W. Miller of Elk Point [Vermillion Plain Talk (SD), July 4, 1894]. A biographer of Susan B. Anthony wrote that “Judge Bangs, a friend of suffrage, brought in a minority report in favor of a suffrage plank and supported it by a dignified speech, but it was voted down in the midst of great disorder” [Paul, 116]. As described in the Mitchell Capital (SD) on June 20, 1890: In giving a report in favor of suffrage, Bangs “was choked in his debate by Chairman Taylor. When finally permitted to speak, Bangs denounced the action of the chairman as undemocratic and ungentlemanly.” “[Bang’s] speech was eloquent but fell on barren soil, for E.W. Miller, who came near securing the nomination for congress, replied in an ungentlemanly speech that was conspicuous for coarseness and bigotry, insulting Mrs. Harden and the other ladies on the platform” [Citing Sentinel (Madison SD), June 12, 1890, Jennings, 401]
Sources: Brookings Register (SD), June 20, 1890; Nanette B. Paul, The Great Woman Statesman (New York: Hogan-Paulus Corp, 1925), 116; Chapter CII of “History of South Dakota” by Doane Robinson, Vol. I (1904), 597-604; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 4 (1915), 224; Jennings, “Lake County Woman Suffrage Campaign,” 401; Wittmayer, 214-215; “Alfred Walstein Bangs,” Findagrave.com].
More on the SDESA appeals to the 1890 party conventions.
Eva Hall Bangs (1882-1983) [Rapid City, Pennington County] participated in the Fortnightly Club’s debate on suffrage in October 1910 [Black Hills Union and Western Stock Review (BHUWSR) (Rapid City, SD), October 21, 1910]. Eva Gertrude Hall was a student at the South Dakota School of Mines when she married Stein Bangs (son of A.W. Bangs, above), who was then on the school’s faculty though he later became the city engineer for Rapid City [BHUWSR (Rapid City, SD), August 12, 1904, May 27, 1910]. In 1910, Eva worked as an engineering draftsman, presumably for her husband [1910 census, Rapid City, Pennington County]. The Bangs also lived in Omaha, Denver, and Montana before returning to Rapid City [“Ralph Walstein “Stein” Bangs,” Findagrave.com].
Mrs. Bannister [Milbank, Grant County] served on her county’s campaign committee in 1918 [Pyle to Olson, February 18, 1918, RD07887, correspondence 1918-02-09 to 1918-02-18, Pyle papers USD].
Daniel P. Bannister (1827-1908) [Doland, Spink County] signed on to be vice-president of the Doland equal suffrage club organized after Emma Smith DeVoe‘s spoke there in early 1890 [“Page 28 : Organizations in Spink County,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. Daniel Parker Bannister was born in August 1827 in New York and migrated to Cortland IL with his parents in 1842. He married Mary Elizabeth Viner in 1849. They moved to Doland in 1883 with his son D.M. Bannister. He claimed 160 acres as a homestead and another 160 acres under a 1855 Military Scrip Warrant claimed by his widowed mother Martha on his behalf for his father Daniel W. Bannister’s militia service in the War of 1812. In 1900, he worked as a grain buyer, as he had in Cortland IL before coming to Dakota. In 1907, D.P. returned to Illinois and died at his daughter Mrs. C.M. Conrad’s home in 1908 [True Republican (Sycamore IL), 2 May 1908; “Daniel Parker Bannister,” Findagrave.com; BLM-GLO Records; War of 1812 Pension Application Files Index, 1812-1815, and 1900 census for Doland, Ancestry.com].
Rev. R.L. Barackman [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County] gave one of the opening addresses of welcome at the state suffrage convention in Sioux Falls in November 1909 [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), November 3, 1909; Madison Daily Leader (SD), November 5, 1909]. Barackman was minister of the Presbyterian church in Sioux Falls from the fall of 1909 to the spring of 1911 [The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), October 11, 1906; Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), March 20, 1911].
Mrs. Barber [Onida, Sully County] participated in the Onida suffrage club in 1890-1891 [Sully County Watchman (Onida SD), November 1, 1890, January 24, 1891, June 13, 1891]. A Mrs. E. Barber was involved with the W.C.T.U. during that time, and an Ella Barber was listed in the 1900 census for Onida–I suspect that may the right woman, but I don’t know for sure… [Sully County Watchman (Onida SD), June 11, 1892; “Ella Barber,” Findagrave.com].
Blanche A. Barber [Sturgis, Meade County] was active in the 1914 campaign in the “northwest district” with Jean Taylor, Mrs. C.N. Cooper, and Susie Bird and was proposed by state president Mamie Pyle to be chair of the county campaign committee in January 1918 [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914, page 5; Pyle to county chairs, January 28, 1918, RD07614, correspondence 1918-01, Pyle papers USD]. Barber was a teacher in the Sturgis Public Schools [Forest City Press (SD), September 13, 1917].
IN HER OWN WORDS:
Blanche Barber of Chalkbutte (Meade County) quoted in the Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914, page 2 :
“Women suffrage will result in an increase of education. When women secure the responsibility of a share in the government under which they live they most become better educated, with more than an unrelated, incomplete, and impractical knowledge. Women are now ready to sacrifice much to secure political and property rights equal to men’s. Men’s unsuccessful attempt to idealize woman no longer satisfies or deceives her. She wishes to cease being parasitic, a creature of immunities and privileges. Women are rebelling against occupying a restricted, dependent position, and they are seeking an opportunity for growth. Man, too, will benefit in making a peer of woman, for she will then make a better companion and mother. Woman will develop intellectually when she assumes civic duties, for responsibility begets the power to meet and be worthy of it.”
Mattie A. Barber (1872-1918) [Mitchell, Davison County] and husband W.A. Barber () participated in a W.C.T.U. debate “entertainment” event at the courthouse in Mitchell in December 1902 on the question of whether women or “Indians and negroes” were “more eligible to vote” [Mitchell Capital (SD), December 12, 1902, pg. 1, pg. 4]. Martha “Mattie” Foster and William Barber had grown up in Mitchell and were married in 1898 [Mitchell Capital (SD), July 1, 1898, pg. 1, pg. 11]. They were involved in the Methodist church, and Mattie was involved in the WCTU, the Round Table Club, and Woman’s Library Association as well [Mitchell Capital (SD), September 13, 1889, December 30, 1898, May 25, 1900, February 13, 1903, April 15, 1904, June 21, 1907, October 4, 1907; “Mattie Foster Barber,” Findagrave.com].
Adele J. Barker (1854-1913) [Ipswich, Edmunds County] signed on to be secretary of the Edmunds County ESA at the visit of Emma Smith DeVoe in July 1890. In September, Henry Blackwell went through Ipswich and organized a suffrage league after his talk at the opera house; Adele Barker signed on as treasurer [Ipswich Gazette (SD), July 24, 1890, “Page 47 : Entire Page,” and “Page 49 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10; The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), October 18, 1890, p.332, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University]. Adele Jackson married Gilman J. Barker. Adele Barker was also involved with the library association in Ipswich, and with the Christian Science society in Ipswich as well as after moving to Madison, Wisconsin [Saint Paul Globe (MN), February 11, 1888; Christian Science Journal 21 (1903), xxii; 28 (1910), xlvi; “Adele A Jackson Barker,” Findagrave.com].
* Helen M. Barker (1834-1910) [Huron, Beadle County] legislative committee with WCTU Franchise Department 1887, president of Dakota Territory WCTU, presided at state suffrage convention in Huron October 1889, state lecturer and organizer of SD Equal Suffrage Association (ESA) 1889, executive committee of SD ESA 1890. More in link.
* Rev. M. Barker (1829-1911) [Huron, Beadle County] secretary (staff) of SD Equal Suffrage Association 1889-1890. More in link.
V.V. Barnes (1851-1924) [De Smet, Kingsbury County, and Yankton, Yankton County] was a territorial representative in the legislature in Bismarck and spoke in support of John Pickler’s suffrage bill in 1885 [Kimball Graphic (SD), February 20, 1885; Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), February 13, 1885]. For his support, he was mocked in the press with Blakemore and Pickler, and they were called Miss Belva Barnes, Elizabeth Cady Blakemore, and Miss Susan B. Pickler after Belva Lockwood, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony [Bismarck Weekly Tribune (ND), February 13, 1885, pg4, pg5].
“MISS BELVA BARNES made a very logical and entertaining address in favor of the passage of the bill. She said there were several classes who oppose the bill, the intelligent but prejudiced those whom the Lord bad not blessed with brains enough to grasp the question and those who were miss mated by being united with women of intelligence (Laughter.) Miss Belva was quite facetious at times and, as usual, made an excellent speech, which carried weight and conviction with it to the hearts of ail who heard him. Taxation without representation was, of course, the great back-bone of the argument in favor of the bill, and the speaker handled it to splendid advantage.”
Bismarck Weekly Tribune (ND), February 13, 1885, pg4, pg5.
He also gauged support for suffrage in Yankton and corresponded with Susan B. Anthony in advance of her November 1889 visits to that county [Egge, “When We Get to Voting,” thesis (2012), 115]. Barnes was also active in the temperance movement [For instance: Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), June 16, 1883, August 29, 1888, August 31, 1888, and March 20, 1889]. He moved to Yankton in 1887 and then to the Chicago area by 1897 where he ran for governor in 1900 on the Prohibition Party ticket [Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), November 12, 1887, November 23, 1887; Turner County Herald (SD), July 5, 1900, December 31, 1903; (more bio) Roger Walker Tuttle, ed., Biographies of Graduates of the Yale Law School, 1824-1899 (New Haven CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Co., 1911), 535; (more bio) Leaves of Healing 11(3) (May 10, 1902), 74; “Visscher Vere Barnes,” Findagrave.com].
Mrs. W.H. Barnhart [Plankinton, Aurora County] was a chair for organizing Aurora County in 1918. Barnhart had the eastern half of the county and Mary Maguire Thomas of White Lake had the west half [Pyle to Barnhart, March 13, 1918, RD08225, correspondence 1918-03-12 to 1918-03-17, Pyle papers USD; Reed, The Woman Suffrage Movement in South Dakota (1975), 122; Jones, “A Case Study,” MA thesis, UW-Milwaukee (2015), 107-108].
Lydia A. Barr (1868-1961) [Belle Fourche, Butte County] was vice-president of the suffrage campaign club that hosted field worker Ida Crouch-Hazlett during the 1898 campaign [Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), May 24, 1898]. Barr had come to Belle Fourche with her parents in 1888, worked as a teacher, married rancher Ami Zimmerman in 1900, and later moved to Montana, Oregon, and California [Jordan Wilms and Mary Buchholz, Belle Fourche (Charleston SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2008), 70; 1900 census, Belle Fourche; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), December 29, 1900; February 12, 1915; April 22, 1919; Queen City Mail (Spearfish, SD), June 4, 1942; “Lydia A. Zimmerman,” Findagrave.com].
Mr. and Mrs. Barrett [Wessington Springs] went to Woonsocket to meet Anthony and bring her to Springs for the Jerauld County Equal Suffrage Association’s convention in May 1890 [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), May 16, 1890].
Carrie Barrett [Franklin Twp., Lake County] was secretary of the Franklin No. 1 equal suffrage club in 1890 [Madison Daily Leader (SD), September 2, 1890].
Thomas Barrett [Franklin Twp., Lake County] was president of the Franklin No. 1 equal suffrage club in 1890 [Madison Daily Leader (SD), September 2, 1890]. He was a farmer, served at least once as election superintendent for his township, and also involved in many other local organizations like the Son of Union Veterans, the Republican party, and the Odd Fellows [Madison Daily Leader (SD), July 16, 1891, October 28, 1891, October 12, 1894, September 23, 1896, September 27, 1899; The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), May 25, 1911].
William Barrett [Franklin Twp./Madison, Lake County] served on the committee for campaign songs with John H. DeVoe and Mrs. Dr. I.N. Hughey at the 1890 Huron state convention [The Dakota Ruralist, July 19, 1890, Page 44 : The Convention, and “Page 45 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. Wm. Barnett was the father of Thomas (above), a veteran of the Civil War, and proved up a tree claim in Franklin Township [Madison Daily Leader (SD), July 3, 1890, September 26, 1891, March 1, 1892].
Fred R. Barthold [Coal Springs, Perkins County] supported Rose Bower’s suffrage campaign in 1914 [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914]. The Barthold brothers had a ranch near Thunder Butte, about 45 miles from Lemmon; and from indications in census and BLM-GLO records, Fred seems to have had extensive property in Perkins and Haakon Counties [Black Hills Union and Western Stock Review (Rapid City SD), July 2, 1909]
John B. Barthold [Coal Springs, Perkins County] supported Rose Bower’s suffrage campaign in 1914 [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914]. The Barthold brothers had a ranch near Thunder Butte, about 45 miles from Lemmon [Black Hills Union and Western Stock Review (Rapid City SD), July 2, 1909].
Mr. Bartlett [Cavour, Beadle County] was one of the men to speak at the suffrage meeting held with Emma Smith DeVoe on March 4, 1890 in Cavour [The Woman’s Tribune (Boston), March 15, 1890 in “Page 27 : Beadle County Convention,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10].
A.A. Bartlett (c1836-1905) [Madison, Lake County] was one of the “Three Graces,” a singing trio with E.B. Stacy and F.D. Gilbert, who performed an original song for a suffrage rally with Susan B. Anthony and Mary S. Howell in Madison in June 1890 [Madison Daily Leader (SD), June 28, 1890]. They also performed for a variety of social functions and political events, the latter including Independent Party rallies and Farmers’ Alliance events [Madison Daily Leader (SD), March 23, 1891, May 10, 1910, Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), October 28, 1892, March 27, 1908]. Bartlett and his wife later moved to Arkansas [Madison Daily Leader (SD), August 22, 1894, June 8, 1905, May 10, 1910].
Caroline Julia Bartlett [Crane] (1858-1935) [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County] was the pastor of All Souls’ Unitarian Church in Sioux Falls from late 1886 to June 1889 [Bailey, History of Minnehaha County (1899), 352-353]. I don’t know much about her active work for suffrage in South Dakota, but she came to support suffrage after interviewing leaders during the 1885 national convention in Minneapolis while working as a journalist (before her ministerial career) [Lisa R. Lindell, “Sowing the Seeds of Liberal Thought,” South Dakota History 38(2) (2008), 162]. She also preached a sermon at the 1891 national suffrage convention. Caroline Bartlett was from Wisconsin and had graduated from Carthage College IL. She taught for two years and worked for the Minneapolis Tribune and a newspaper in Oshkosh WI for three years, before being placed at the church in Sioux Falls. In 1889, she moved to be pastor of an established congregation in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and she married Augustus Crane on December 31, 1896 [Willard and Livermore, eds., A Woman of the Century: Fourteen Hundred-seventy Biographical Sketches … (Buffalo NY: Charles Wells Moulton, 1893), 59; The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), September 29, 1894, p.306, and January 9, 1897, p.9, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University; “Caroline Julia Bartlett Crane, American Minister,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (also a photo); Dorothy May Emerson, June Edwards, and Helene Knox, Standing Before Us: Unitarian Universalist Women and Social Reform, 1776-1936 (2000), 128-129].
Rev. George S. Baskerville [Goodwill, Sisseton Reservation] was a white Presbyterian minister who was serving as superintendent of the Goodwill mission and school on the Sisseton reservation when he attended the 1897 state suffrage convention in Mitchell with “Indian preacher” Rev. Eastman (potentially Rev. John Eastman of Mdewakanton Dakota heritage). They were also both invited to speak to the convention [Mitchell Capital (SD), October 1, 1897]. Baskerville had been a preacher in North Dakota and an early president of Jamestown College before his posting at Goodwill in 1893 [Bismarck Weekly Tribune (ND), May 26, 1893; The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), May 26, 1899; Grand Forks Herald (ND), June 17, 1918; Jamestown Sun (ND), September 4, 2006]. In 1899, he left to superintend a farm college at Ashville NC, worked in Huron (potentially at Huron College?) (1906-1909), and was pastor for the churches at Wilmot SD (1909-1911) and Malcom IA (1911-1918 at least) [The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), July 28, 1899; The Public Ledger (Maysville, KY), March 26, 1906; The Charlotte News (NC), January 19, 1906, January 6, 1914; Presbyterian Banner 96 (October 28, 1909), 683; Sisseton Weekly Standard (SD), September 29, 1911; Grand Forks Herald (ND), June 17, 1918].
Mary/Mamie E. Batterberry (1870-1953) [Sisseton, Roberts County] signed on as one of three ward chairs for the Roberts County Suffrage Association organized in September 1916 [Sisseton Weekly Standard (SD), September 1, 1916]. Batterberry was also active in the Royal Neighbors, civic and child conservation leagues, and, during WWI, the Red Cross [Sisseton Weekly Standard (SD), December 13, 1907–December 3, 1920]. Born in Canada, she came to the U.S. as a child and eventually married Hugh D. Batterberry, who operated a grain elevator but also served as city alderman, polling clerk and judge, and city assessor [Sisseton Weekly Standard (SD), April 17, 1908–September 5, 1919; 1910-1940 censuses, Ancestry.com; “Mary Eleanor Egan Batterberry,” Findagrave.com].
L.F. (L. Frank) Baum (1856-1919) [Aberdeen, Brown County] was the first secretary of the Aberdeen Equal Suffrage club [Saturday News (Watertown SD), November 14, 1918]. As editor of the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer starting in January 1890, he frequently published material supportive of the suffrage movement, often using his sharp wit and not always without critique of the suffragists themselves, and rebutted anti-suffrage editorials in other papers [The Mitchell Capital (SD), January 31, 1890; Early History of Brown County, usgwarchives.net, p.181, 186; Nancy Tystad Koupal, “On the Road to Oz: L. Frank Baum as Western Editor.” South Dakota History 30(1) (2000), 49-106; Koupal, “The Wonderful Wizard of the West: L. Frank Baum in South Dakota, 1888-91.” Great Plains Quarterly 9 (Fall 1989), 203-215]. “The group that Baum considered capable of revitalizing American politics was women, and he supported the cause of woman suffrage at every opportunity” [Koupal, “The Wonderful Wizard,” 208]. His mother-in-law was national suffrage leader Matilda Joslyn Gage. She and Susan B. Anthony both stayed at the Baum house during the 1889-1890 campaign [Koupal, “The Wonderful Wizard,” 210]. See also “Family Parlor and Oz Room,” Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation.
John Bayer () [Terraville, Lawrence County] signed on as president of the suffrage club formed in Terraville after the visit of Emma Smith DeVoe in May 1890 [The Dakota Ruralist (Aberdeen SD), June 14, 1890, “Page 37 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. [Found a carpenter named John Boyer in Lead censuses and Findagrave].
Ellen J. Beach () [Britton, Marshall County] was treasurer for the South Dakota Equal Suffrage Association in 1894, spoke on franchise at state WCTU convention in 1895, was head of the WCTU franchise department in 1896, she spoke and served as judge of the oratory contest at the 1897 convention in Mitchell, and was part of the 1899 SDESA convention in Madison [The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), September 21, 1894, et al.; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), September 12, 1895; Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), September 18, 1896; Mitchell Capital (SD), September 24, 1897; October 1, 1897; Avery, ed., Proceedings of the Thirty-second Annual Convention of NAWSA, held at Washington, D.C., February 8-14, 1900 (Philadelphia: Alfred J. Ferris, 1900), 89]. Beach was a 1870 graduate of Oberlin College and active in the South Dakota W.C.T.U. [Oberlin College, Quinquennial catalogue of officers and graduates (1916), 250; Madison Daily Leader (SD), September 18, 1890, September 26, 1896 and September 24, 1898; Mitchell Capital (SD), September 30, 1898]. Her husband Rev. George L. Beach was a Presbyterian minister [“Rev George L Beach” Find-a-grave.com; Searching on Ancestry.com].
General William H.H. Beadle (1838-1915) [Madison, Lake County] was the first president of the Lake County Equal Suffrage Association, organized after an Anthony lecture in 1890 [Madison Daily Leader (SD), September 2, 1890; The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), November 30, 1889, p.377, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University; Jennings, “Lake County Woman Suffrage Campaign,” 391]. During the 1890 campaign, he spoke several times including at the Methodist church in Madison and several schools in the county [Madison Daily Leader (SD), October 16, 1890; Jennings, 400, 407; Ross-Nazzal, Winning the West for Women (2011), 53]. Beadle was also an influential legislator and president of the teacher’s college in Madison (now Dakota State University) from 1879 to 1885 [The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), November 19, 1915]. His wife Ellen Chapman Beadle was aware of the movement and generally supportive, but did not take an active role [Jennings, 394, 400-401 (page 401 includes photos of both)].
More:
“William Henry Harrison Beadle,” Wikipedia.
“Beadle, William H.H. (1838-1915),” Encyclopedia of the Great Plains.
“William Henry Harrison Beadle,” DSU Archives, Madison.
“Dakota Images: William H.H. Beadle,” South Dakota History 5(1) (1974).
“William H.H. Beadle,” from Robinson, vol. 1 (1904), 716-719, transcription via usgwarchives.net.
Edith M. Beaumont (1867-1933) [Madison, Lake County] served on the franchise committee for the local Civic and Child Welfare Club in Madison in the spring of 1916 and as vice-president of the Lake County Universal Franchise League when it formed in April 1916–working with colleague Alice Lorraine Daly [Madison Daily Leader (SD), March 30, 1916, April 5, 1916, June 10, 1916, October 28, 1916]. Beaumont came to South Dakota from Sibley, Iowa in 1902 to work in the schools in Sioux Falls. In 1904, she became principal of Whittier School. In 1907, she was appointed to head the training department of the State Normal School in Madison, and “the training school made rapid progress under Mrs. Beaumont’s supervision” [Madison Daily Leader (SD), December 9, 1916]. She specialized in the new field of kindergarten education, did a lot of summer institute training around the state, and was active in the S.D. Education Association. In late 1916, she was appointed to the faculty of the education department at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion [Madison Daily Leader (SD), July 27, 1907, December 9, 1916, November 28, 1919, February 23, 1921; Forest City Press (SD), November 2, 1911; Union County Courier (Elk Point SD), July 18, 1912; Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), August 14, 1914; Mitchell Capital (SD), January 10, 1908, March 29, 1917; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), January 11, 1917; USD Catalogue 1919-1920 Bulletin 20(1) (March 1920), 17]. In 1923, she ran for the state superintendent of public instruction [Lead Daily Call (SD), November 8, 1923]. In 1924-1927, she taught at the teachers’ college in Wayne, Nebraska [“Edith M. Fenton Beaumont,” Findagrave.com]. Her first husband James Trainer died in 1889 [“Edith M. Fenton Beaumont,” Findagrave.com]. Her second husband, Adelbert E. Beaumont, had been a newspaper editor in Sioux Falls, then in 1916 became (assistant) secretary of the state live stock board in Pierre [Madison Daily Leader (SD), September 16, 1907, November 28, 1913, June 18, 1915, January 7, 1916; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), November 18, 1909]. Later in life, they lived in Lead with their daughter, in Pierre, and in Sauk Centre, MN with their son [Lead Daily Call (SD), October 14, 1932; September 7, 1933; “Edith M. Fenton Beaumont,” Findagrave.com].
Miss Beck [Lake County] gave recitation at the county suffrage convention in 1897 [Madison Daily Leader (SD), November 12, 1897]. [Several young women named Beck were in Madison – Edna Beck of Madison / Wentworth, was the one who showed up in 1890s articles].
George Beck [Wentworth, Lake County] was part of the 1890 campaign as vice-president for the Wentworth equal suffrage club and one of the delegates to the state convention [The Madison daily leader (SD), September 2, 1890; Jennings, “Lake County Woman Suffrage Campaign,” 405, citing Sentinel, 1 July 1890]. In 1895, he and his wife moved to Madison, and he later operated a furniture store there [The Madison daily leader., January 19, 1895; Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), August 7, 1926].
Amelia Becker (c1881-) [Scotland, Bon Homme County] signed on as the poster committee for the Scotland franchise league organized by Ida Stadie and local chair Mrs. Guy Brown in July 1918 [The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), July 11, 1918]. Amelia Maywald married Adolph “Otto” Becker in October 1909, and had been married a time to O.P. Williams previously. In 1900, she had been working as a teacher. In 1920, the Beckers moved to Menno [The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), December 21, 1905, January 2, 1908, August 19, 1909, October 7, 1909, April 15, 1920; 1900-1920 Censuses, Ancestry.com].
Mrs. Beddows (Milbank) served on her county campaign committee in 1918 [Pyle to Olson, February 18, 1918, RD07887, correspondence 1918-02-09 to 1918-02-18, Pyle papers USD].
Alice Conklin Beebe (1880-1983) [Ipswich, Edmunds County] agreed to serve at treasurer of the county campaign committee in early 1918 [Stevens to Pyle, March 12, 1918, RD08213, correspondence 1918-03-12 to 1918-03-17, Pyle papers USD]. Alice was married to Marcus Plin Beebe, Jr. [“Alice May Conklin Beebe,” Find-a-Grave.com].
Lucy May Valentine Beebe (1889-1988) [Ipswich, Edmunds County] was a supporter of the suffrage movement, although also occupied with war and church work during World War I [Pyle to Beebe, March 5, 1918, RD08093, correspondence 1918-03-01 to 1918-03-11; and Stevens to Pyle, March 12, 1918, RD08214, correspondence 1918-03-12 to 1918-03-17, Pyle papers USD]. Lucy was married to Hiram E. Beebe [“Lucy May Beebe,” Find-a-Grave.com].
Marcus P. Beebe (1854-1914) [Ipswich, Edmunds County] signed on as vice-president of the Ipswich town suffrage association at the visit of Emma Smith DeVoe in July 1890. In September, Henry Blackwell went through Ipswich and (re?)organized a suffrage league after his talk at the opera house; Beebe signed on as vice-president again [Ipswich Gazette (SD), July 24, 1890, “Page 47 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10; The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), October 18, 1890, p.332, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University]. Marcus Beebe settled in Dakota Territory in 1882 and was married to Leota Fuller. A prominent banker and member of the SD Board of Regents, Beebe was also a temperance advocate [J.W. Parmley, “Marcus P. Beebe,” South Dakota Historical Collections 7 (1914), 514-526; “Marcus Plim Beebe Sr.,” Findagrave.com]. The Beebe House in Ipswich was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in December 1976.
Mary E.R. Behrens [Aberdeen, Brown County] and her husband Henry C. Behrens supported the suffrage campaign [Stevens to Pyle, March 9, 1918, RD08164, correspondence 1918-03-01 to 1918-03-11, Pyle papers USD].
Willis E. Benedict (1858-1917) [Canton / Hot Springs / Hermosa / Custer / Belle Fourche] signed on as a vice-president of the equal suffrage league that formed at the visit of Emma Smith DeVoe in May 1890 [Hot Springs Star (SD), May 30, 1890; The Dakota Ruralist (Aberdeen SD), June 14, 1890, “Page 37 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. Benedict was a teacher, lawyer, newspaper editor, and politician who was born in Wisconsin, came with his parents to Lincoln County in the early 1870s, married Lincoln County teacher Maud Ionia Druse, moved to Hot Springs to edit the Star in 1889, served in the state senate and house, was a state leader in the Odd Fellows, and subsequently practiced law living in Hermosa, Custer, then Belle Fourche [Canton Advocate (SD), March 6, 1879, May 1, 1879–January 4, 1883; Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), January 8, 1904; Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), April 14, 1882; Hot Springs Star (SD), April 19, 1889, June 28, 1889, March 14, 1890–May 18, 1906, October 17, 1890, July 17, 1891, May 13, 1892, May 26, 1893, September 28, 1894–November 16, 1894, December 30, 1898, December 30, 1904, (death notice/obituary) August 24, 1917; The State Democrat (Aberdeen SD), December 30, 1898; “Willis E Benedict,” Findagrave.com; Kingsbury/Smith, History of Dakota Territory (1915), 746-749].
Mrs. Benjamin [Deadwood, Lawrence County] was on the publicity committee in preparing for the suffrage school of methods held there in June 1918 [Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), June 12, 1918].
Mrs. H.E. Benjamin (_____) wrote the text for a poem/song about suffrage called “Home Protection” that she composed for her daughter Laura Huffman to sing to the tune of “Sweet Belle Mahone” “during Dakota’s first suffrage campaign” (so, 1890?) [Includes full text: RD06773 – RD06776, correspondence 1910-09 to 1910-10, Breeden papers USD].
Edgar M. Bennett (1854-1924) [Big Stone City, Grant County] was a delegate with his wife to the Grant County E.S.A. convention on August 1, 1890. He also signed on as part of the executive committee for the county and for Big Stone City [The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), August 8, 1890]. Bennett was an attorney and married to Minnie Morrill. They came to Big Stone City in 1880. Bennett served a term as mayor, and was elected states attorney. After divorcing, Edgar moved to Sisseton and for a time to Lemmon in Perkins County [Stevens County Tribune (Morris MN), March 11, 1880; The Herald (Milbank SD), March 11, 1887, April 13, 1888; The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), January 15, 1892, January 25, 1895, February 4, 1898, October 6, 1905; Sisseton Weekly Standard (SD), December 6, 1907, February 3, 1911; “Edgar M. Bennett,” Findagrave.com (photo)].
Granville G. Bennett (1833-1910) [Deadwood, Lawrence County] took part in the discussion at a suffrage lecture by Emma Smith DeVoe at the Methodist church in Deadwood in 1890 [“Thirty Years Ago,” Weekly Pioneer-Times (Deadwood, SD), May 13, 1920]. Granville Gaylord Bennett was a Civil War veteran from Iowa, territorial supreme court judge in Yankton 1875-1878, territorial delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives 1878, and three-term Lawrence County judge 1902 (or 1892) [Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), January 30, 1883; Philip Weekly Review (SD), June 30, 1910; Travis Hull, “Dakota Images: Granville G. Bennett,” South Dakota History 33(4) (2003), 412-413; “Granville G. Bennett,” Wikipedia].
Harriett C. Bennett (1873-1940) [Yankton, Yankton County] led the Yankton County suffrage campaign during the 1918 petition drive. She also served as president of the Federated Woman’s Club [Egge, Woman Suffrage and Citizenship, 167]. After meeting Bennett, organizer McMahon reported to Mamie Pyle that Bennett’s “husband is postmaster and an ardent suffragist. Mrs. Bennett has been president of the Woman’s Club for two years and is now refusing reelection so she will be free. Mrs. Gunderson spoke very highly of her, as do all the people here.” [McMahon to Pyle, February 27, 1918, RD08013 and RD8014, correspondence 1918-02-19 to 1918-02-28, Pyle papers USD]. Harriet/Harriett Melissa Christy was married to Mark Morrow Bennett [“Harriet Melissa Christy Bennett,” Find-a-Grave.com (includes photos)]. Her husband, Mark M. Bennett, was editor of the Dakota Herald [Egge, Woman Suffrage and Citizenship, 167].
Marion L. Bennett (1836-1912) [Clark, Clark County] was involved with the suffrage work in the 1890 campaign, through temperance, and became state treasurer of the SDESA in 1898 [Letter to Mrs. Wardall from Mrs. Marion L. Bennett, September 8, 1890, #2021-01-20-0057, Box 6674, Folder 1, WCTU Suffrage Correspondence 1890: A-C, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives; Semi-Weekly Register (Brookings SD), December 2, 1898; Ellis, History of Faulk County (1909), 245; Breeden papers, USD, Box 1, Correspondence 1895 – 1898, 1907, RD06487; Avery, ed., Proceedings of the Thirtieth Annual Convention of NAWSA, Washington, D.C., February 13-19, 1898 (Washington DC, 1898), 111]. Bennett also served as treasurer for South Dakota’s World’s Fair women’s committee [Mitchell Capital (SD), December 25, 1891; Madison Daily Leader (SD), April 6, 1892; Hot Springs Weekly Star (SD), April 8, 1892]. In an 1893 profile, she was described as: “from early life Mrs. Bennett has shown a decided aptitude to financial management and has held responsible positions of public trust,” and “a progressive woman keeping pace with the studies of philanthropic enterprise, active in church work and a leader in temperance reform” [Campbell’s Illustrated Weekly 3 (1893), 273]. She was married to Civil War veteran and Supreme Court judge, John Emory Bennett [“Marium L. Kendall Bennett,” Find-a-Grave.com; “John Emory Bennett,” Find-a-Grave.com].
Minnie Bennett [Rainey] (1856-1926) [Big Stone City, Grant County] was a delegate with her husband to the Grant County E.S.A. convention on August 1, 1890. She also signed on to a committee to canvas the town that month [The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), August 8, 1890]. Arminda “Minnie” Morrill was married to Edgar M. Bennett. They came to Big Stone City in 1880. She was involved with the Methodist ladies’ aid and the WCTU. After divorcing, Minnie lived in Watertown and worked in dressmaking, and she later re-married to G.W. Rainey [Stevens County Tribune (Morris MN), March 11, 1880; The Herald (Milbank SD), October 1, 1886, September 23, 1887, March 16, 1888, June 21, 1889; The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), June 8, 1894, March 2, 1900, October 26, 1906, April 5, 1922; Sisseton Weekly Standard (SD), January 19, 1912; “Arminda Minnie Morris Bennett,” Findagrave.com].
William A. Bereman (1835-1926) [Winthrop, Beadle County] signed on as president of the local suffrage association at the visit of Emma Smith DeVoe to the Winthrop school house in the winter of 1890 [“Page 25 : Equal Suffrage: A Convention to be held in Huron on Friday, Feb. 28, 1890,” and “Page 26 : [fragment: Winthrop Letter],” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. A Civil War veteran from an Iowa cavalry company, Bereman and his second wife, Catherine “Kitty” Concklin, homesteaded at Winthrop in 1889 and added a timber culture claim in 1894. The Beremans moved to Bloomington, Illinois in about 1896 [1885-1895 censuses, the 1890 veterans schedule, and BLM-GLO records via Ancestry.com; National Tribune (DC), July 26, 1883; The Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), September 26, 1925, March 5, 1926; “Bereman, William A.” from Mt. Pleasant News, Bystander Notes, August 4, 1926; Reprinting a Quote taken from The Daily Pantagraph of Bloomington, Ills.; “William Allen Bereman,” Findagrave.com].
William F. Berens (1892-1944) [Worthing, Lincoln County] was publisher of the Worthing Enterprise and agreed to run plate material for the South Dakota Universal Franchise League in their 1918 campaign [Bevins to Pyle, February 1, 1918, RD07642, correspondence 1918-02-01 to 1918-02-08, Pyle papers USD]. Berens had grown up in Lennox and worked for the Enterprise before buying it in February 1910 at age 16 [Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), February 25, 1910; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory 4 (1915), 987-988]. He later went to the Lennox Independent [The Fourth Estate (October 28, 1922), 19; SD Legislative Manual 18 (1923), 228]. Berens married Laura Donahue in January 1913 but they later separated, William dying in Great Falls MT in 1944 and Laura in Sioux Falls in 1959 [Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), January 17, 1913; 1920-1930 census and WWII Registration on Ancestry.com; “William F Berens,” and “Laura Berens,” Findagrave.com].
H. Berg [Stockholm, Grant County] was on a township committee for the Grant County E.S.A. in August 1890 [The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), August 8, 1890]. [I could not find much about this person.]
Mrs. N.A. Berg [Stockholm, Grant County] was on a canvassing committee for the Grant County E.S.A. in August 1890 [The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), August 8, 1890]. [I could not find much about this person.]
Reverend William Berg told Emma Smith DeVoe in 1890 that he would “promote woman suffrage among German and Russian immigrants” [Jennifer Ross-Nazzal, “Emma Smith DeVoe and the South Dakota Suffrage Campaigns,” South Dakota History 33(3) (Fall 2003), 252].
I don’t know if this is the right man but a Rev. William Berg was hired by Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell to teach German in 1888. A Rev. William Berg of Mitchell was also pastor of a Methodist Episcopal church in 1889 [Mitchell Capital (SD), September 7, 1888, November 30, 1889].
A. Berguson? [Yale, Beadle County] was involved with the Weekly Yale Echo (perhaps publisher?) and responded to Pyle‘s request for press support that “the Echo and myself will do all in our power to aid in securing to the women of the country the right to an equal suffrage” [Berguson? to Pyle, February 9, 1917, RD07489, correspondence 1917, Pyle papers USD].
Julius Berkley [Yankton, Yankton County] was on the executive committee of Men’s Equal Suffrage League of Yankton in 1916 [image of stationary from the league in the permanent exhibit at the SD Cultural Heritage Center].
Fanny W. Bernhart (1874-1960) [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County], while living at No. 14 Grace Hotel, was on the committee that held a fundraising rummage sale for the Suffrage Campaign Headquarters in 1910 and so presumably part of the local suffrage association [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), September 30, 1910]. In 1916, she accompanied Alice Lorraine Daly to Baltic where Daly gave a set of readings and spoke at a Chautauqua event about suffrage [Madison Daily Leader (SD), June 29, 1916]. In 1919, she was elected recording secretary of the Minnehaha County franchise league and was involved with the county League of Women Voters into 1922 [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), January 9, 1919, February 18, 1922, September 15, 1923, March 30, 1927]. Bernhart was a Norwegian immigrant and married to druggist Petter K. Bernhart [“Fanny Westelius Bernhart,” Find-a-grave.com].
Petter K. Bernhart (1870-1957) [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County] was listed with the executive committee of men’s female suffrage club [Argus Leader (Sioux Falls SD), September 28, 1916]. Bernhart immigrated from Norway in 1903, having received a pharmacy degree from the University of Oslo, married Fanny Westelius Bernhart, and worked as a druggist in Watertown then Sioux Falls [South Dakota Journal of Medicine and Pharmacy (January 1957), 76; “Petter Bernhart,” Find-a-grave.com].
Carl Berry [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County] was listed on the executive committee of men’s female suffrage club [Argus Leader (Sioux Falls SD), September 28, 1916]. A man named Carl W. Berry of Sioux Falls had a reputation as an evangelistic singer and served as first lieutenant in the Army during World War II [Hot Springs Weekly Star (SD), March 20, 1914; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), April 20, 1916; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), November 16, 1916; Madison Daily Leader (SD), August 30, 1918].
Emma H. Berry (1863-1955) [Mitchell, Davison County] was involved with the Mitchell woman suffrage club in 1915-1916, named as one of their delegates to Federated Women’s Clubs meetings and a delegate to the state suffrage convention [Mitchell Capital (SD), March 18, 1915, April 8, 1915, March 23, 1916, March 30, 1916, June 15, 1916]. She was also named a department chair during the organization of the Davison County League of Women Voters in 1919 [The Woman Citizen 4 (August 23, 1919), 290]. She was also deeply involved with the W.C.T.U., part of a local art club, and did work with the Red Cross during WWI [Mitchell Capital (SD), August 10, 1900, May 8, 1903, August 12, 1909, April 16, 1914, July 23, 1914, October 11, 1917]. And “Emma Curtis Berry,” Findagrave.com.
Minnie Berry [Chamberlain, Brule County] served on county campaign committee in 1918 [Pidgeon to Pyle, March 5, 1918, RD08088, correspondence 1918-03-01 to 1918-03-11, Pyle papers USD]. She was married to Francis K. Berry [Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), September 6, 1912].
Nettie Louise Berry (1874-1941) [Tyndall, Bon Homme County] was chair of the local suffrage committee for the 1918 campaign [The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), March 28, 1918; McMahon to Pyle, December 6, RA12026-RA12034, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, December, Pyle Papers USD]. After meeting her, organizer McMahon commented that her husband is “every one’s family doctor and is much loved, so I am told. He stormed about her taking the office, but she stood firm.” Berry later mentioned in a letter to Mamie Pyle that “my husband was very much opposed to my adding it to my other efforts” and acknowledged that she “often regretted” taking on the chairmanship [McMahon to Pyle, March 1, 1918, RD08040, correspondence 1918-03-01 to 1918-03-11, and Berry to Pyle, December 7, 1918, RA12035, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, December, Pyle papers USD]. She was also mentioned in Dorinda Reed, The Woman Suffrage Movement in South Dakota, page 122. Berry was also involved in civic improvement efforts and several other community organizations including Woman’s Council National Defense in 1918 [The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), February 7, 1918; Maxine K. Schuurmans, One Hundred Years of Tyndall: A Centennial History. 1979 (includes memoir from her husband Dr. Berry)]. Nettie Barber was born in 1874, married Dr. S.G. Berry, and died in 1941 [“Nettie L Barber Berry,” Find-a-Grave.com].
Mrs. Berther [Madison, Lake County] was on a list of women called to a suffrage meeting at the Normal School to plan for circulating petitions [Madison Daily Leader (SD), March 8, 1918]. I couldn’t determine exactly which Mrs. Berther, but the one who came up most often in the Leader was Maggie (Mrs. Martin F.) Wadden Berther who was also involved with the city’s board of public charity, the Civic and Child Welfare Club, the Women’s Relief Corps, etc. 1872-1925, “Margaret F ‘Maggie’ Wadden Berther,” Findagrave.com.
Henry O. Besancon (1842-1910) [Harrold/Blunt, Hughes County] signed on as secretary for the suffrage association organized by Emma Smith DeVoe in April 1890 [Harrold Star (SD), April 17, 1890, “Page 29 : [news clipping: Emma Smith DeVoe at Harrold],” The Daily Capital, April 17, 1890 “Page 30 : [news clipping: Emma Smith DeVoe lectures 4-17],” and The Dakota Ruralist, May 3, 1890, “Page 34 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. Besancon was born in New York and came to Dakota Territory in 1883 and published the Harrold Star [Madison Daily Leader (SD), June 25, 1910; “Henry Oscar Besancon,” Findagrave.com]. His first wife Celeste died in 1883 and was buried in Harrold [“Celeste N. Besancon,” Findagrave.com]. In 1893, he moved to Blunt and edited the Blunt Advocate [Madison Daily Leader (SD), June 25, 1910]. His second wife Lucinda Helm died in 1904 and was buried in Blunt [“Lucinda Helm Besancon,” Findagrave.com]
Rev. H.R. Best (Sioux Falls), a Baptist minister at City Temple church, “gave a cordial address of welcome and came out strongly for suffrage” at the suffrage convention in Sioux Falls [Sisseton Weekly Standard (SD), November 12, 1909; Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), November 3, 1909, September 30, 1910; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 5 (1915), 1116; Ralph and Kathleen Tingley. Mission in Sioux Falls: The First Baptist Church, 1875-1975. 1975 (includes photograph)]. Rev. Best was also a temperance advocate [The Mitchell Capital (SD), October 2, 1908; Forest City Press (SD), August 22, 1912].
Hannah V. Best (1854-1942) [Howard, Miner County] was active in the 1890 campaign, and in 1896, she signed the call to attend the 7th annual convention of the executive committee of South Dakota Equal Rights Association at Salem [Letter to Mr. Will F. Bailey from Mrs. Best, July 31, 1890, #2021-01-20-0201, Box 6674, Folder 1, WCTU Suffrage Correspondence 1890: A-C, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives; Hot Springs weekly star (SD), December 4, 1896; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 3 (1915), 790]. She also served as corresponding secretary and press superintendent for the SD Equal Suffrage Association in 1897-1899 [The Mitchell capital., September 24, 1897; Proceedings of the Conventions of NAWSA (1897), 124, (1898), 166, and (1900), 89; Ellis, History of Faulk County (1909), 245]. Earlier, in 1890, a “Mrs. Best of Carthage” was included as a good campaign speaker that year, and it may refer to Hannah… [Dakota Ruralist, June 28, 1890, “Page 42 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. Hannah was born in New York and married to Jacob H. Best [“Hannah V. Best,” Findagrave.com].
Florence Keets Bettelheim (1878-1956) [Spearfish, Lawrence County] was one of the vice-presidents of the Spearfish franchise league in 1914 [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914, page 5]. Florence Keets was raised in Spearfish, graduating from and teaching at the Normal School there until her marriage to Dr. Bernard Franklin Bettelheim in 1901/1902. They lived in Alliance, NE for eleven years but eventually moved to Spearfish, where Florence was active in women’s clubs [Alliance Herald (NE), August 19, 1904; Queen City Mail (Spearfish, SD), October 19, 1910; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), October 27, 1915; The Pioneer (Philip SD), May 23, 1918; Gunderson to Pyle, June 1, 1917, RA07492, Box 1, Correspondence, 1917, Janurary- December, and Gunderson to Pyle, February 13, 1918, RA07801, Box 1, Correspondence, 1918, February 9-18, Pyle Papers USD; Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), August 23, 1956, in Ralph Bettelheim Collection, archive.org, p.85; “Florence Keets Bettelheim,” Findagrave.com].
Dr. Hannah M. Betts (__-1936) [Franklin Township/Madison, Lake County] was vice-president of the Franklin ESA No.1 club [Madison Daily Leader (SD), September 2, 1890]. Betts was an osteopathic doctor trained in Iowa who had offices in Madison and specialized in diseases of women and children [Madison Daily Leader (SD), May 8, 1905 (includes advert) and April 29, 1911]. Also: “Hannah Betts,” Findagrave.com.
Margaret Betts (1849-1922) [Mitchell, Davison County] was elected by the Mitchell suffrage league as one of the delegates to the state convention in 1916 [Mitchell Capital (SD), June 15, 1916]. She and her husband Andrew H. Betts, a grain dealer, had moved to Mitchell from nearby Alexandria in 1901 [Mitchell Capital (SD), June 14, 1901]. Also: “Margaret Gingles Betts,” Findagrave.com.
Miss Beyer [Madison, Lake County] was on a list of women called to a suffrage meeting at the Normal School to plan for circulating petitions [Madison Daily Leader (SD), March 8, 1918]. I couldn’t determine exactly which Miss Beyer, but I think the most likely candidate is Ina L. Beyer who taught at the State Normal School and was involved with the Civic and Child Welfare Club [Madison Daily Leader (SD), March 30, 1916, April 19, 1916,. January 5, 1917, January 5, 1918, March 6, 1919; Argus Leader (Sioux Falls SD), August 19, 1915; Anemone (State Normal School yearbook), 1917, 1919].
Ida E. Bickelhaupt (1864-1921) [Aberdeen, Brown County] was president at the founding of the Brown County Equal Suffrage Association [Madison Daily Leader (SD), June 17, 1914; Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), June 26, 1914]. In 1914, she made the introduction when Dr. Anna Howard Shaw spoke at the opera house in Aberdeen [Lemmon Herald (SD), September 18, 1914, pg. 4, pg. 8]. In 1917, she was one of the women who organized a state board of the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage and served as the first vice-chair upon organization in Sioux Falls [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), January 8, 1917; The Suffragist (National Women’s Party) (January 24, 1917), 8, and 5(94) (November 10, 1917), 8; Argus Leader (Sioux Falls SD), November 1, 1917]. Bickelhaupt was also involved with the local Women’s Foreign Missionary Society, the Red Cross, and several other community organizations. She was of Welsh heritage, had a teaching degree, and was the first wife of W.G. (William George) Bickelhaupt. The Bickelhaupt House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 [Aberdeen Democrat (SD), April 24, 1908; An Honor Roll… Brown County, So. Dak. (St. Paul: Buckbee-Mears Co., 1919), 124; other Chronicling America newspaper results; 1900-1920 census records; Milton College Alumni Directory (1915), 37; “Ida Emma Owen Bickelhaupt,” Findagrave.com; Troy McQuillen, “The William Bickelhaupt House,” Aberdeen Magazine (November 5, 2019)].
W.G. Bickelhaupt (1865–1936) [Roscoe / Aberdeen] possibly agreed to be the president of the suffrage league organized at Roscoe in the fall of 1890 [the source said W.G. Bickelthorp, The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), October 18, 1890, p.332, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University]. Bickelhaupt was married to Ida Owen (above) and lived in Roscoe and Aberdeen. He owned several grain elevators for years and then worked many years as the secretary-treasurer of the Dakota Central Telephone Co. He was involved with the Masons, the Methodist Church, and other various booster efforts in Aberdeen. During WWI, he served as the fuel administrator for the S.D. Council on National Defense [For example: Mitchell Capital (SD), March 11, 1898; The State (Aberdeen) Democrat (Aberdeen SD), August 26, 1898, December 9, 1898, January 20, 1899, June 16, 1899, June 2, 1905; March 23, 1906, June 22, 1906, July 19, 1907, January 8, 1909; The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), September 9, 1904, July 5, 1918; Madison Daily Leader (SD), October 8, 1915, September 3, 1917, November 13, 1917, March 23, 1918; Troy McQuillen, “The William Bickelhaupt House,” Aberdeen Magazine (November 5, 2019); “William George Bickelhaupt,” Findagrave.com].
Lizzie D. Bidwell (c1862-__) [Mitchell, Davison County] was the corresponding secretary for the S.D.E.S.A. in 1899-1902. In 1904, she participated in the suffrage oratory contest at the WCTU state convention. She was on the state’s finance committee during the 1910 campaign and was active with Mitchell’s Political Economy Club. She entertained Anna Howard Shaw during her visit to Mitchell in 1914 and Mrs. William Jennings Bryan during her visit in 1916, and hosted at least two suffrage club meetings at her home at 405 W. Second Ave. in 1916-1917 [NAWSA Convention Proceedings (1900), 89, 117; (1901), 128; (1902), 116; (1903), 122; Program for the 16th Annual W.C.T.U. Convention in Beresford, September 29 and October 3, 1904, #2021-02-22-0016 to -0018, Box 6674, Folder 28, WCTU Suffrage Convention Programs, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives; RD06598, correspondence 1910, Breeden papers USD; Mitchell Capital (SD), September 10, 1914, April 8, 1915, March 30, 1916, May 18, 1916, October 12, 1916, September 13, 1917]. Bidwell was also deeply involved with the W.C.T.U. and married to Frank A. Bidwell [Mitchell Capital (SD), January 21, 1887; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), September 21, 1899; The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), September 27, 1906; The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), September 27, 1907]. The Bidwell House, built of concrete block, was designed by Sioux Falls architect Joseph Schwarz in 1908 and is still standing [Sanborn Fire Insurance Co., Mitchell, Davison County SD (March 1914), image 9; Improvement Bulletin 37 (September 12, 1908), 20].
Bidwell House (ignore the address in the corner):
Dr. Regina M. Bigler [Tracy] (1860-1937) [Mitchell, Davison County] joined the local 1890 suffrage campaign effort in Mitchell first organized at her sister Elizabeth Rathbun’s house in November 1889 while Susan B. Anthony was visiting. She also participated in the state suffrage convention at Mitchell in August 1890, and corresponded with SDESA officers about getting campaign literature and speakers to the county. After the disappointing election, the Mitchell Political Equality Club that organized to continue promoting civic engagement did so at her and S.L. Halvorsen’s offices/residence [Mitchell Capital (SD), November 22, 1889, December 12, 1890; The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), September 6, 1890, p.284, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University; Letter to Mr. W.F. Bailey from R.B. Tracy, October 16, 1890, #2021-02-03-0022, Box 6674, Folder 5, WCTU Suffrage Correspondence 1890: R-Z, and Letter to Mrs. Wardall from Regina B. Tracy, December 13, 1890, #2021-03-30-0089, January 31, 1891, #2021-03-31-0001, and March 5, 1891, #2021-03-31-0014, Box 6675, Folder 28, 1890 Campaign Folder 3, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives]. Regina May Bigler was born in Ohio to Swiss immigrants. She was in the 1860 census as Mary and then Jennie sometimes in later records. In 1885, she had moved to Shellsburg IA where she worked as a physician, and that year she married Millard F. Tracy in Shellsburg. However, by December, she had moved to Mitchell and had a medical practice with Susan Lovina Halverson with an office/residence over the Well Bros. store (according to an advertisement). Her husband stayed in Shellsburg, and they ultimately divorced (she returned to her Bigler name by the summer of 1891). In 1886-1889, she and Halvorsen were active with the district and state medical societies and she chaired a program committee on obstetrics and the diseases of women in 1888-1889. In 1889, she was appointed to a two-year term on the county’s board of insanity. In November 1891, Halvorsen left Mitchell to be a medical missionary for the United Brethren Church in Honam, Guangdong, Canton, China, and Bigler followed to join her in November 1892. Bigler worked as a physician missionary in Canton until her death there in 1937. There she had a clinic, dispensary, maternity hospital, and maybe also taught/trained physicians also (with the Hackett Medical College for Women?). During a few trips back to the U.S., she was a popular speaker for churches and ladies’ aid groups, especially around where her siblings lived: Elizabeth Rathbun in Mitchell and then San Jose CA, and John S. Bigler in Abilene KS. Her experience in China made the news when in 1894 she and Halvorsen were attacked by a mob while the area was suffering a plague for which Western doctors were blamed. Later in 1908, she brought an adopted daughter Jan Wan Way to start college in Ohio, and the news reported that Bigler had had to outbid others when the girl (at about the age of five) had been sold for father’s $12 debt. Halverson apparently left the mission field when she started a relationship with and ultimately, in 1899, married a local man [For instance: Mitchell Capital (SD), December 18, 1885, p5, p1, May 28, 1886, August 6, 1886, February 4, 1887, June 28, 1889, June 19, 1891, November 6, 1891, July 20, 1894, August 24, 1894, November 17, 1899, June 8, 1900, January 25, 1901, July 1, 1909; Kimball Graphic (SD), April 9, 1886, January 18, 1889; St. Paul Daily Globe (MN), April 9, 1887; Reporter and Farmer (Webster SD), November 10, 1892; Abilene Weekly Reflector (KS), March 28, 1901; San Francisco Call (CA), November 15, 1908; A History of the Woman’s Missionary Association of the United Brethren in Christ (Dayton OH: United Brethren Publishing House, 1902), 44, 46; 1860 and 1900 census, 1885 IA census, IA Marriage Records, US Consulate Records, US Passport Applications, California Arrivals and Crew Lists, and Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, via Ancestry.com; “3 19 19 ‘12’,” March 19, 2019, Family history blog, 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks: Shelly and Horn (has photos too)].
“Am pleased to know that the fight has not been given up. For my part I am not yet convinced that foreigners and Indians who can neither read not speak the English language are more capable of helping make the laws of a state & nation than women.”
Letter to Mrs. Wardall from Regina Bigler Tracy, November 15, 1890, #2021-03-30-0039, Pickler Papers.
Charles B. Billinghurst (1854-1938) [East Pierre, Hughes County] put up the funding to obtain the Weekly Messenger as a suffrage newspaper for the 1913-1914 campaign [Mitchell Capital (SD), July 10, 1913, September 4, 1913]. More bio in page for his wife May Billinghurst (linked below). His Findagrave.com page says they built the house at 219 S Tyler in Pierre, which is extant on the northwest corner of Tyler and Franklin [“Charles Bryan Billinghurst,” Findagrave.com]. One source I haven’t yet read, his 1936 article in SD Historical Review called “Spink County reminiscences with special reference to Ashton.”
* May B. Billinghurst (1863-1946) [East Pierre, Hughes County] served on the state legislative committee and as secretary of northeast district for SD Universal Franchise League (UFL) in 1913-1914, contributed to the suffrage publication South Dakota Messenger in 1913-1914, served on the advisory committee of SD UFL in 1915-1917, and held various offices in the Hughes County suffrage association from 1916-1918. More in link.
Mr. Bindford (Jerauld Co.) served on the constitution/bylaw committee for the Jerauld County Equal Suffrage Association [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), December 6, 1889]. {Possible match in a local history… L.S. Binford was superintendent of public instruction [Dunham, History of Jerauld County (1909), 147, 188]}.
Kate Boyles Bingham (Chamberlain) served as secretary for Brule County Equal Suffrage Committee and was described as “an ardent supporter of woman suffrage” [Pidgeon to Pyle, March 5, 1918, RD08088, correspondence 1918-03-01 to 1918-03-11; Bingham to Pyle, March 12, 1918, RD08189, correspondence 1918-03-12 to 1918-03-17, and Bingham to Pyle, November 7, 1918, RA11721, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, November 1-7, Pyle papers USD; Quote from Ruth Ann Alexander, “Fictionalizing South Dakota from a Feminist Point of View: The Western Novels of Virgil D. Boyles and Kate Boyles Bingham.” South Dakota History (1993), 252 (includes photos)]. At the time of organization, McMahon suspected that she “will push most, but could not accept chairmanship” [Pidgeon to Pyle, March 5, 1918, RD08088, Pyle papers USD]. Bingham started her career after graduating from Yankton College as a teacher but ended up co-writing several books of ‘romantic’ (in the literary sense) regional historical stories with her brother Virgil Boyles of Mitchell [Alexander, “Fictionalizing South Dakota,” 245; Saturday News (Watertown SD), April 7, 1911; “Kate Boyles Bingham,” Find-a-Grave.com].
Mina Bintliff (1866-1952) [Mitchell, Davison County] was a participant in a suffrage oratory contest for the local WCTU in 1914 and was the suffrage superintendent for the Mitchell WCTU in 1916 [Mitchell Capital (SD), April 16, 1914, August 24, 1916]. Her son Charles Bintliff was a Dakota Wesleyan student and Army sergeant who eventually became a federal prohibition agent who was killed on a stakeout in Redfield in 1927 [Mitchell Capital (SD), September 9, 1915, November 1, 1917; Chuck Cecil, Prohibition in South Dakota: Astride the White Mule (Charleston SC: History Press, 2016), 87-88, 172-173].
Addie I. Bird (c1867-____) [Watertown, Codington County] was named chair for the second congressional district as part of the state board for the Congressional Union for Women’s Suffrage/National Woman’s Party [The Suffragist (National Women’s Party) 5(94) (November 10, 1917), 8; 6(23) (June 29, 1918), 4; Argus Leader (Sioux Falls SD), November 1, 1917]. Bird was also involved with the Women’s Relief Corps, the SD Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Sunshine Society (advocating for blind children), the National League for Woman’s Service during WWI, and the local Business and Professional Woman’s Club [Saturday News (SD), January 11, 1912, June 12, 1913, February 11, 1915, August 30, 1917, November 29, 1917; Madison Daily Leader (SD), June 7, 1913, May 5, 1919; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), October 5, 1916; Women’s Clubs in America 22 (1920), 25; “James E. Bird,” Findagrave.com].
Mary Bird [Clear Lake, Deuel County] was Deuel County chair for the S.D.U.F.L. during the 1918 campaign. She reported to the state president that the influenza crisis had hit hard and there was a large foreign-born population, but the newspapers had “done splendid work for us” [McMahon to Bird, February 18, 1918, RD07874, correspondence 1918-02-09 to 1918-02-18, Bird to Pyle, November 1, 1918, RA11615, Pyle to Bird, November 5, 1918, RA11690, Bird to Pyle, November 6, 1918, RA11702, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, November 1-7, and Bird to Pyle, December 20, 1918, RA12055, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, December, Pyle papers USD]. Mary was married to Rev. George W. Bird, a Baptist minister, and they had come to Elk Point in 1908, moving to Clear Lake in about 1912 [Union County Courier (Elk Point SD), July 9, 1908; Lead Daily Call (SD), September 29, 1915; Mitchell capital., October 12, 1916; The Standard 64 (December 30, 1916), 508].
*Susie Bird (1863-1943) [Sturgis / Belle Fourche] was northwest district president for SD Universal Franchise League (UFL) 1914 and served on the advisory committee of SD UFL in 1915. More in link.
Rev. George R. Bisby [Egan, Moody County] was a Baptist minister who served as president of the Egan woman suffrage club until resigning in October 1890 over the issue of having Emma Smith DeVoe speak on a Sunday (the Christian sabbath). He was against it, and faced criticism from suffrage supporters for being “over scrupulous in his religion” [Egan Express (SD), October 2, 1890, October 9, 1890, and Sioux Falls Press (SD), October 4, 1890, “Page 53 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10; Madison Daily Leader (SD), October 11, 1890]. Bisby later served in Hurley and Parker in Turner County in 1891-1893, and in Le Mars, Iowa in 1894-1895 [Sturgis Advertiser (SD), October 16, 1890; Madison Daily Leader (SD), April 9, 1891, April 11, 1891, November 18, 1892; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), May 21, 1891, May 28, 1891, May 11, 1893, May 25, 1893, July 25, 1895; The Baptist Home Mission Monthly 16 (December 1894), 487].
Miss Bishop [Madison, Lake County] was one of the suffrage workers called to a meeting about petition work [Madison Daily Leader (SD), March 8, 1918]. [Came across items for a Gertrude Bishop, a normal school student, and a Charlotte Bishop, who worked at the Chautauqua. I can’t determine who is referenced in this article].
Bessie T. Bishop (c.1875-__) [Mitchell, Davison County] was involved with the Mitchell suffrage club and one of three women on a local congressional committee to work in the district, as part of the Congressional Union for Woman’s Suffrage [Mitchell Capital (SD), February 15, 1917, November 8, 1917]. Bessie Tillotson was married to George H. Bishop [1910 census; Mitchell Capital (SD), August 20, 1914]. Her daughter Zulah Bishop performed a solo at a monthly local suffrage club meeting in 1916 and assisted Lizzie Bidwell in hostessing a suffrage meeting in 1917 [Mitchell Capital (SD), June 15, 1916, September 13, 1917]. Zulah died very young in late November 1918 [Lewis to Pyle, December 1918, RA12083, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, December, Pyle Papers USD; “Zulah Inez Bishop,” Findagrave.com].
Helen M. Bissell (Faulkton) was vice-president of the Faulkton suffrage club in 1890 [Citing Faulk County Record, Thursday, May 22, 1890, in Faulk County Newspaper Excerpts]. She was a teacher by profession and a charter member of the Women’s Relief Corps in Faulkton in 1888 [Ellis, History of Faulk County (1909), 54, 104, 206].
Rev. L.M. Blackman (Bonesteel) made connections with the Rosebud ministerial association for Rose Bower’s 1914 campaign [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914].
Mabel R. Blackstone (1848-1921) [Lead, Lawrence County] and her husband Richard (below) hosted a suffrage meeting & reception for the Flying Squadron suffrage speakers in Lead in November 1916 [Lead Daily Call (SD), November 2, 1916, November 4, 1916; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), November 4, 1916]. Mabel R. Noble was born in Pittsburg and married Richard Blackstone in Pittsburg in December 1871 [Robinson, History of South Dakota, v.2 (1904), 1024; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, v.4 (1915), 105; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), December 22, 1922; “Mabel R Noble Blackstone,” Findagrave.com].
Richard Blackstone (1843-1922) [Lead, Lawrence County] and his wife Mabel (above) hosted a suffrage meeting & reception for the Flying Squadron suffrage speakers in Lead in November 1916. Richard made an introduction for Elsie Benedict at one event; he was noted as the head “of the newly organized Men’s League for Woman Suffrage” and as saying “I believe the time has come when we should give the women of this country the ballot on equal terms with men” [Lead Daily Call (SD), November 2, 1916, November 4, 1916; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), November 4, 1916]. Richard Blackstone was born in Connellsville PA in 1843 and enlisted in Company C, 32nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry in 1861. He was mustered out in July 1865 with the rank of captain (Robinson and Kingsbury sources noted below have many details of his service). After the war, he studied engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy NY then went west working in Colorado and in Cheyenne WY. He married Mabel Noble in December 1871 in Pittsburg. In March 1878, he moved to the Black Hills and, in 1880, Blackstone joined the Homestake Mine Co., becoming its chief engineer and overseeing the construction of the Black Hills & Fort Pierre Railroad, the Spearfish hydro-electric generating plant, and numerous other company installations. He was made assistant superintendent of the Homestake in April 1903 and succeeded T.J. Grier as superintendent in October 1914. He was superintendent until resigning unexpectedly in December 1917. Blackstone was also a leader of the Black Hills Soldiers and Sailors Association and the Homestake Veterans Association, and served in 1893 to 1895 on the board of trustees for S.D. School of Mines [Robinson, History of South Dakota, v.2 (1904), 1023-1024; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, v.4 (1915), 103-105; Custer Weekly Chronicle (SD), July 5, 1890, May 23, 1891, March 18, 1893, April 4, 1903, October 3, 1914, October 31, 1914, December 22, 1917, February 16, 1918; Hot Springs Weekly Star (SD), July 1, 1892, September 2, 1904; Black Hills Union (Rapid City SD), August 30, 1895; The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), January 2, 1908; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), December 22, 1922; “Richard Blackstone,” Findagrave.com].
Mable L. Blackwell (Fruitdale, Butte County) made arrangements for a suffrage meeting during McCullough’s campaign tour in 1914, “where energetic Mrs. Charles Blackwell had gathered a good crowd” [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914]. In 1918, was one of the women recommended by Nina Pettigrew to head local suffrage committee [Pettigrew to Pyle, February 14, 1918, RD07820, correspondence 1918-02-09 to 1918-02-18, Pyle papers USD].
Benjamin P. Blair (1846/1850-1926) [Fairbanks, Sully County] signed on as treasurer of a suffrage club organized at the Lane school house in Pearl Township in June 1890 [Sully County Watchman (Onida SD), June 7, 1890]. Born under slavery in Tennessee, Benjamin Perry Blair and his brother homesteaded in Sully County in 1882. His family eventually accumulated about 11,000 acres and had successful agricultural and stockraising operations [Madison Daily Leader (SD), August 19, 1905; Michelle C. Saxman, “To Better Oneself: Sully County’s African-American ‘Colony,’” South Dakota History 34(4) (2005), 320-328 (photo on p.322)]. Blair had land in Pearl Township [Sully County Watchman (Onida SD), October 3, 1891]. For Fairbanks Township, Blair held positions as a school director and judge of election [Sully County Watchman (Onida SD), June 30, 1888, October 15, 1892]. He was active in the local Republican party in 1889, and in the Independent party in 1890 [Sully County Watchman (Onida SD), September 7, 1889, July 12, 1890, October 4, 1890]. In 1905-1906, Blair led efforts to recruit additional black families to homestead in western Sully County, and at points elsewhere in the state [Madison Daily Leader (SD), August 12, 1905, August 19, 1905, July 21, 1906, et al.]. See also: “Benjamin P Blair,” and “Norvel Blair” (his father), Findagrave.com
John T. Blakemore (1849-1916) [Highmore, Hyde County] supported Pickler’s 1885 suffrage bill at the territorial legislature: “Mr. Blackemore supported the measure, claimed that women, armed with the ballot, would close the saloons, wipe out the gambling hells and abolish the houses of prostitution that curse the land” [Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), February 13, 1885; (quote) Kimball Graphic (SD), February 20, 1885; Stephen Perry, We Are Yet Alive: United Methodists in the History of North Dakota and South Dakota [draft Chapters 1 & 2] (Anoka MN: February 2018), 78]. He was mocked in the press for his support. The Bismarck Tribune named him “Elizabeth Cady Blakemore” (after Elizabeth Cady Stanton) as they did with Barnes and Pickler [Bismarck Weekly Tribune (ND), February 13, 1885, pg4, pg5].
“ELIZABETH CADY BLAKEMORE, with a slight whisk of her bangs and readjustment of her bustle, was the next gentle defender of the bill, and with that earnestness of expression and force of diction for which all of her speeches are noted, declared that the bill was just and proper and should prevail. She contended that if the ballot were given women, the elections would no longer be controlled by the gambling hells and saloons and houses of prostitution. The Mike McDonalds and the Carter Harrisons and the hundreds and thousands of leaders of gamblers and whiskey-sellers would be compelled to loosen their grip from the throats of the people, and honest government would prevail.”
Bismarck Weekly Tribune (ND), February 13, 1885, pg4, pg5.
Blakemore was a lawyer and Methodist minister who had come to Highmore in about 1884 from Alabama (via Indiana) [John B. Perkins, History of Hyde County (1908), 54; SD Legislative Manual 17 (1920), 114]. He and his wife Maggie had returned to Alabama by 1895 [“John Thomas Blakemore,” Findagrave.com].
Julia A. Blank (1830-1914) [Alpena, Jerauld County] and her husband Moses were Alpena Township representatives to the county suffrage convention in May 1890 [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), May 16, 1890]. Blank was also involved in the W.C.T.U. and the Methodist church [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), June 29, 1888, July 25, 1890; “Julia Ann North Blank,” Findagrave.com].
LoElla H. Blank (1857-1926) [Wessington Springs, Jerauld County) was co-editor of the Wessington Springs Herald with her husband T. Linus Blank, and she promoted suffrage and “female entrepreneurship” in her editorial columns [Dunham, History of Jerauld County (1909), 189, 204, 223; About Wessington Springs Herald, Chronicling America-LOC; Wessington Springs Herald (SD), February 5, 1886; “Lo Ella Lamb Blank,” Find-a-Grave.com]. In 1885, she was elected superintendent of the Jerauld County Women’s Christian Temperance Union’s franchise department and was later the Media Township vice-president for the Jerauld County Equal Suffrage Association [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), August 21, 1885, December 18, 1885, March 18, 1887, December 7, 1888, and December 6, 1889]. In 1886, a discussion on effective methods for influencing the ballot on temperance was “opened by Mrs. L.H. Blank, who suggested the press, and efforts with those with whom we come in contact and the presence of the women and children at the polls and in the meantime do our utmost towards the speedy enfranchisement of our own sex” [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), May 28, 1886]. In June 1890, as vice-president of the Media Township E.S.A., she encouraged local women to vote in the upcoming school elections, concluding her call by writing: “Hoping to meet all the ladies of District No. 1 at Beech’s school house, I am, Yours for ‘Equality before the Law,’ Mrs. L.H. Blank, Vice-Pres. Media Township E.S.A.” [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), June 13, 1890]. In August 1890, she attended the Mitchell convention [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), August 29, 1890].
LoElla H. Lamb moved to Wessington Springs and married Thomas Linus Blank in 1885 [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), July 3, 1885]. In 1885-1886, she worked as a teacher at a nearby rural school [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), September 25, 1885, December 4, 1885, February 26, 1886]. She was active in the leadership of local and county W.C.T.U. organizations [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), April 2, 1886–October 12, 1888]. The Blanks also had an interest in the Farmers Alliance [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), February 5, 1886, July 6, 1888]. Her husband also worked as a railroad and civic engineer and was often away on projects for extended periods of time, during which, she managed the Herald [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), May 28, 1886, October 21, 1887, April 11, 1890, July 25, 1890]. In 1891, the Blanks moved to Nebraska and then to Iowa, living in Des Moines and Grinnell [1900-1940 census via Ancestry.com; Mitchell Capital (SD), December 9, 1898; Evening Times-Republican (Marshalltown IA), September 6, 1910, April 10, 1914, July 25, 1914, September 3, 1915; “LoElla Lamb Blank,” Findagrave.com].
Selection of her “Woman’s Realm” columns in the Herald: April 16, 1886; April 23, 1886, September 17, 1886; October 1, 1886; December 10, 1886; February 11, 1887; March 11, 1887; May 31, 1889; February 21, 1890, May 23, 1890; August 1, 1890; August 29, 1890; September 5, 1890; September 12, 1890; September 19, 1890; and October 3, 1890.
Moses D. Blank (1830-1914) [Alpena, Jerauld County] and his wife Julia were Alpena Township representatives to the county suffrage convention in May 1890 [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), May 16, 1890]. Blank was also involved in the Methodist church [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), October 28, 1887, July 25, 1890 , August 28, 1891; “Moses D Blank,” Findagrave.com].
Nellie Blank (1830-1914) [Alpena, Jerauld County] was one of the Alpena Township representatives to the county suffrage convention in May 1890 with her aunt and uncle, Moses and Julia [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), May 16, 1890]. Blank was also involved in the W.C.T.U., was a student of the Wessington Springs seminary, and was involved with the Methodist church [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), June 29, 1888].
T. Linus Blank (1855-1949) [Wessington Springs, Jerauld County] was co-editor of the Wessington Springs Herald with his wife LoElla H. Blank [Dunham, History of Jerauld County (1909), 189, 223; Wessington Springs Herald (SD), March 5, 1886; About Wessington Springs Herald, Chronicling America-LOC]. He participated in the 1890 state convention in Huron as part of the committee re-organizing the state Equal Suffrage Association during the leadership crisis [Page 44 : The Convention, Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10].
Blank had homesteaded in Alpena Township in 1883 with his sister Sadie. His parents were Moses and Julia. He also spent time serving as county clerk and register of deeds, was involved wtih attracting the Methodist college to be established in Wessington Springs, and worked as a surveyor/civil engineer/architect [Dunham, History of Jerauld County (1909), 54, (photo) 75; Wessington Springs Herald (SD), October 6, 1883, January 25, 1884, October 10, 1884, October 31, 1884, March 20, 1885, May 1, 1885, May 22, 1885]. LoElla H. Lamb moved to Wessington Springs and married Thomas Linus Blank in 1885 [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), July 3, 1885]. Blank was active with the Republican party and the statehood movement [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), September 17, 1886, July 20, 1888, May 10, 1889, May 10, 1889, September 5, 1890]. The Blanks also had an interest in the Farmers Alliance [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), February 5, 1886, July 6, 1888]. He also worked as a railroad and civic engineer and was often away on projects for extended periods of time, during which, LoElla managed the Herald [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), May 28, 1886, October 21, 1887, April 11, 1890, July 25, 1890]. He later worked in Nebraska and Iowa as a civil engineer, came back to Wessington Springs for a time, but ended his life living with his daughter in Iowa [Mitchell Capital (SD), December 9, 1898; Evening Times-Republican (Marshalltown IA), September 6, 1910, April 10, 1914, July 25, 1914, September 3, 1915; 1900-1940 census; “Thomas L. Blank,” Findagrave.com].
Mrs. Blement [Oelrichs, Fall River County] signed on as a vice-president of the Oelrichs suffrage club formed in 1890 [The Dakota Ruralist (Aberdeen SD), June 14, 1890, “Page 37 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. I can’t find much of anything else on her.
Mrs. A.J. Blevins [Parkston, Hutchinson County] served on the executive committee of Parkston Woman Suffrage Campaign Committee [Winter to Pyle, January 14, 1918, RD07567, correspondence 1918-01, and Winter to Pyle, December 4, 1918, RA12022, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, December, Pyle papers USD]. [Alternate spelling: Blevens, The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), March 30, 1916].
Porter Alonzo Bliss [Scotland, Bon Homme County] was editor and publisher of the Citizen-Republican newspaper. In a 1918 letter, Bliss described his support of previous suffrage campaigns and that he expected to continue to do so, saying: “In the enactment of good laws the question is more one of ability than of disposition, and on this point I consider the sexes about equal. My reason therefore, for favoring woman suffrage is purely on the grounds of justice. The women are equally interested in the manner in which our political affairs are conducted… they can vote just as intelligently as the men, so I feel that if they want the privileges and are willing to assume the responsibilities of enfranchisement in justice they should have it” [Bliss to Pyle, February 22, 1918, RD07961, correspondence 1918-02-19 to 1918-02-28, Pyle papers USD].
Bessie Viola Otis Blyman (c1877-) [Rapid City, Pennington County] was elected vice-president of the suffrage club organized in Rapid City in October 1909 after a talk by Helen La Reine Baker [Black Hills Union and Western Stock Review (SD), October 22, 1909]. Bessie V. Otis graduated from the Normal School at Oshkosh WI in 1898, taught and was principal of a school in Oshkosh, and married John Charles Blyman in 1902. They came to Rapid City in 1904 when her husband took a job as city school superintendent. He resigned for health reasons in 1910 and they took a homestead claim in Meade County, but he passed away in January 1911 [Oshkosh State Normal School Bulletin 2(5) (June 1905), 18; 1903 city directory for Oshkosh via Ancestry.com; Black Hills Union and Western Stock Review (SD), September 2, 1904, April 29, 1910, January 13, 1911]. One possible match for her later in life is “Bessie O. Covey” 1877-1944, buried in Oshkosh WI, on Findagrave.com .
Mrs. J.G. Boden [Brule County] was reported in 1918 to have served as a past county chair [Pidgeon to Pyle, February 25, 1918, RD07982, correspondence 1918-02-19 to 1918-02-28, Pyle papers USD].
Mrs. Bois [Madison, Lake County] was on a list of women called to a suffrage meeting at the Normal School to plan for circulating petitions [Madison Daily Leader (SD), March 8, 1918]. Searching for Mrs. Bois gave too many results (including boy and boys) to review.
C. Boison, J.M. Corbin, and Mary Hunt made remarks at the organizational meeting of the Marlar Township Equal Suffrage Society in May 1890 at the Lakeside (Corbin) School [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), June 13, 1890].
* Marietta M. Bones (1842-1901) [Webster, Day County] was the National Woman Suffrage Association’s vice-president for Dakota Territory, the primary advocate for suffrage at the 1883 statehood convention, and founded the first local suffrage association in the territory, but later turned against the movement. More in link.
S.D. Bonsey [Faulkton, Faulk County] made an address on suffrage and organized an equal suffrage club at the Center schoolhouse near Onida [Sully County Watchman (Onida SD), September 13, 1890, September 20, 1890]. Bonsey was also involved with the Prohibition Party in 1900-1901 [Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), April 6, 1900; Mitchell Capital (SD), June 7, 1901 and July 5, 1901].
Mary Cummings Bonham (Deadwood, Lawrence County) signed the call for a suffrage convention in July 1890 and served as its temporary assistant secretary during the reorganization [Dakota Beacon (SD), July 1, 1890, in Page 47 and The Dakota Ruralist, July 19, 1890, Page 44: The Convention, Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10; Madison Daily Leader (SD), June 24, 1890; Union County Courier (Elk Point SD), July 2, 1890; Kimball Graphic (SD), July 4, 1890; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory v.3 (1915), 787]. She was also one of the suffrage supporters who made a poorly-received (and therefore brave) appeal to the Democratic party’s state convention in Aberdeen in June 1890, where one of the anti-suffrage delegates “declared that no decent, respectable woman asked for the ballot” [Wessington Springs Herald (SD), July 25, 1890; “Constitutional Revision in South Dakota” (1957), 33 pt. 1, pt. 2, snippet view]. She was married to the editor of the Deadwood Pioneer, Willis H. Bonham, and was daughter of E.B. Cummings who edited the Dakota Ruralist [Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), March 25, 1885; “Constitutional Revision in South Dakota” (1957), 33, snippet view]. She and her husband eventually separated [The Daily Plainsman (Huron, SD), September 7, 1891].
More on the SDESA appeals to the 1890 party conventions.
Willis H. Bonham (1847-1927) [Deadwood, Lawrence County] wrote of his willingness to support suffrage with plate material and editorials in his newspaper, in working with Mabel Rewman, and planned to contribute financially to the campaign [Bonham to Pyle, February 9, 1918, RD07736, correspondence 1918-02-09 to 1918-02-18, Pyle papers USD; Rewman to Pyle, February 24, 1918, RD07977, correspondence 1918-02-19 to 1918-02-28, Pyle papers USD]. Bonham managed the Deadwood Pioneer (later Pioneer-Times) until 1927–having come to Deadwood in 1877, worked for the paper, and then bought it in 1883 or 1885. Bonham also participated in various business ventures and held several local political offices [Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), December 6, 1887; Hot Springs Star (SD), May 23, 1890; Black Hills Union (Rapid City SD), December 19, 1902; Aberdeen Democrat (SD), August 17, 1906; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 5 (1915), 22-25; Annie D. Tallent, The Black Hills, or, The last hunting ground of the Dakotahs (St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Print Co., 1899), 272, 500, 606; O.W. Coursey, Who’s Who in South Dakota, vol. 3 (Mitchell SD: Educator Supply Company, 1920), 18-25; Edward L. Senn, Ed., of John S. McClintock, Pioneer Days in the Black Hills: Accurate History and Facts Related… (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 2000 [1939]), 293; Mike Runge, Deadwood’s Mount Moriah Cemetery (Charleston SC: Acadia Publishing, 2017), 102 (includes photo); “Willis H. Bonham,” Find-a-grave.com].
Ruby Hine Booth (1873-1940) [Spearfish, Lawrence County] was first vice-president of the Spearfish franchise league organized in the 1914 campaign and attended the Jane Addams speech in Deadwood during the Federation of Women’s Clubs convention [Queen City Mail (Spearfish, SD), October 21, 1914; Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914, page 5]. Born in Michigan, Ruby Hine studied at the Detroit Conservatory of Music and the Thomas Normal Training School in Detroit, before coming to Spearfish in 1899 to join the faculty of the Spearfish Normal School (now Black Hills State University). In June 1901, she left the faculty and in September married DeWitt Clinton Booth, the superintendent of the federal fish hatchery in Spearfish. She rejoined the Normal School faculty in the Education “Training School” program in 1916/1917 and worked for the school until 1936. She was also active with the Treble Clef Club, the Black Hills Federation of Women’s Clubs, the P.E.O., and the women’s guild and music program of the Episcopal church [Weekly Pioneer Times Mining Review (Deadwood, SD), October 24, 1912; Queen City Mail (Spearfish, SD), February 19, 1913, June 6, 1940, March 7, 1984, July 2, 1988; Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), August 18, 1931, May 20, 1933, June 28, 1935, June 6, 1940; Weekly Pioneer-Times (Deadwood SD), May 12, 1932; Thirty-fifth Annual Catalog of the Spearfish Normal School, Vol. 13, No. 2 (March 1, 1920), 10; 1910-1930 census, Spearfish, Ancestry.com; “Ruby Hine Booth,” Findagrave.com]
Images of Booth from the University Archives, Black Hills State University:
Photograph of Ruby Booth with three other women, 1922.
“First Girls Orchestra, about 1899-1901. Ruby H. Booth, Leader,” 1900.
F.H. Borst (1879-1965) [Philip, Haakon County] spoke at a local suffrage meeting in May 1910 [Bad River News (Philip SD), May 26, 1910]. Borst was a dentist who had moved from Volga, S.D., to Philip in the spring of 1910, and later moved to Sioux Falls in 1912 [Bad River News (Philip SD), May 19, 1910; Philip Weekly Review and Bad River News (SD), October 3, 1912]. Also: “Dr Frederick Harvey Borst,” Findagrave.com.
Ezra Bovee (1866-1956) [Meade County] provided a quote of his opinion on suffrage for the Woman’s West of the River Suffrage issue of the Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914, page 2: “I believe that woman ought to have a right to vote help make laws so that she may have a chance to protect her home.”
* Rose Bower (1876-1965) [Rapid City, Pennington County] was a suffrage lecturer, columnist, lobbyist, and musician 1907-1917 including a position as secretary SD Equal Suffrage Association (ESA) from 1907 to 1909, state superintendent of Franchise Department of Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1908, and was part of Ohio campaign 1912 and New York State campaign with Carrie Chapman Catt 1915. More in link.
Willis C. Bower (1854-1915) [Central City, Lawrence County] signed up as secretary of the suffrage club organized in May 1890 after a lecture by Emma Smith DeVoe [Deadwood Pioneer (SD), May 13, 1890, “Page 34 : Mrs. DeVoe Lectures at Central City,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. He also provided a share of the expenses of the suffragists’ legislative committee in 1897 [Ellis, History of Faulk County (1909), 246; Harper et al., History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, 559]. Bower was an educator who served time as principal/superintendent of the school in Central City. He had come to Custer with his sister Lida to homestead land in 1886, and they taught in Custer during part of the week. He served on the board of trustees for the Spearfish Normal School. He was a relative of Rose Bower and Alice Bower Gossage. [Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), September 9, 1886;Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), May 24, 1889; Sturgis Advertiser (SD), April 3, 1890; Black Hills Union (SD), September 5, 1890; Hot Springs Star (SD), September 16, 1887, August 23, 1889, March 6, 1891, July 31, 1891; Mitchell Capital (SD), April 22, 1892; Van Nuys, The Family Band, 33, 104, 174; Lead Daily Call (SD), June 15, 1915;Weekly Pioneer-Times (Deadwood SD), June 17, 1915; “Willis Clay Bower,” Findagrave.com]. He also lectured at WCTU events [Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), October 23, 1886; Hot Springs Star (SD), September 13, 1889].
* Etta A. Estey Boyce (1862-1920) [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County] was a member of the legislative committee of the SD Universal Franchise League with Mamie Pyle and Mabel Rewman in 1915 and with Pyle, Rose Bower, Ruth Hipple, and Lydia Johnson in 1917 [Patricia O’Keefe Easton, “Woman Suffrage in South Dakota: The Final Decade, 1911-1920,” South Dakota History (1983), 215; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), January 4, 1917; Lemmon Herald (SD), January 17, 1917; Saturday News (Watertown SD), January 18, 1917; Nina Pettigrew to Pyle, January 13, 1917, RA07482, Box 1, Correspondence, 1917, Janurary- December, Pyle Papers, USD]. She was a Minnehaha County delegate to the state suffrage convention in 1916 and served with Pyle, Whiting, and Rewman as delegates to the national suffrage convention in D.C. in 1917 [Huron Daily Huronite (SD), December 9, 1916; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), November 29, 1917; Shuler, ed., The hand book of NAWSA and proceedings of the Forty-ninth Annual Convention, held at Washington, D.C., December 12-15, inclusive, 1917 (New York: NAWSA, 1917), 244]. In late 1918, she spent time in New York, and upon her return to Sioux Falls reported to the county franchise league about NYC’s “Schools for Women Voters [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), January 9, 1919]. She was a musician, taught harmony and vocal music, and was married to attorney Jesse W. Boyce [Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 5 (1915), 559-560].
Rev. Orien E. Boyce (1872-1939) [Milbank, Grant County] gave an address on “The effect of the ballot in the hands of women” for the suffrage symposium arranged by Luella Ramsey for the 8th district WCTU convention, and also the address of welcome for the convention, that was held at his church, the Methodist Episcopal church in Milbank in 1909 [The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), June 18, 1909]. Orien E. Boyce was born in Ontario and immigrated to the U.S. in 1899. He graduated from the theological department of Northwestern University and married Ruth E. Wilder. A Methodist minister and temperance supporter, Boyce was assigned to South Dakota churches at least in Bristol (1900), Big Stone City (1902-1904), Milbank (1907-1909), Yankton (1909-1911), Watertown (1911-1916, where he worked as Methodist’s district superintendent), Huron (1916-1922), and Pierre (1922-). Boyce later went to Minnesota and Waukegan IL [The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), July 20, 1900, June 20, 1902, May 31, 1907, July 26, 1907, October 16, 1908, pg 1, pg 14, December 25, 1908, October 1, 1909, October 15, 1909, November 19, 1909, November 26, 1909, December 3, 1909, October 6, 1916; Madison Daily Leader (SD), January 19, 1911; Saturday News (Watertown SD), March 10, 1911, March 21, 1912, July 23, 1914; Northwestern Christian Advocate 70(50) (November 29, 1922), 1255; The Daily Plainsman (Huron, SD), June 29, 1931, May 24, 1964; “Rev Orien E. Boyce,” Findagrave.com; 1900-1920 census and 1916-1922 Huron city directories, Ancestry.com].
John Boyer [Lawrence County] was treasurer and an ex-officio vice-president of the Deadwood suffrage association that organized in August 1890 [Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), August 9, 1890; Queen City Mail (SD), August 13, 1890]. There was a carpenter named John Boyer in the Hills reported in Bear Butte, Hot Springs, Lead, and Deadwood [Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), September 27, 1885; Black Hills Daily Times (SD), November 4, 1893; Deadwood Evening Independent (SD), November 14, 1895, December 1, 1897; Hot Springs Weekly Star (SD), September 24, 1909].
* Mary A. Bradford (?-1896) [Ree Heights/Miller, Hand County] was active with the WCTU in 1884-1885, including speaking in Lake Preston and DeSmet to encourage those Unions to circulate petitions to the territorial legislature for the suffrage amendment. She was a noted organizer of suffrage associations, working in three-quarters of the townships of Potter County, Swan Creek in Walworth County, and Gowdyville and Hawley in Hyde County in June-July; was a guest of the WCTU at Pleasant Ridge (Davison Co.) in August 1890; and visiting Twin Lakes, Parsons, Protection, Wyatt, Rives, Lyonville, and Gann Valley for a Buffalo County convention in October. She wrote that she had about eighty-five audiences and visited twelve counties overall: Charles Mix, Douglas, Davison, Hanson, Sanborn, Jerauld, Aurora, and Brule, arriving home on November 7 — “All this time I donated gladly…. I furnished my own team driver… traveled 10,000 miles in 6 months” [DeSmet Leader (SD), December 27, 1884, January 10, 1885; Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), August 2, 1884, January 9, 1885; Mitchell Capital (SD), September 5, 1890; The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), October 25, 1890, p.340, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University; Letter to Mrs. E.M. Wardall from Mary A.S. Bradford, December 2, 1890, #2021-03-30-0097, 1890 Campaign Folder 3, Box 6675, Folder 28, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives, Pierre]. Mary Bradford was from Ohio and homesteaded properties about equidistant from Ree Heights and Miller. From 1885 to 1891, she taught in rural schools, including the “Southeast school house” and “in the Furman district.” She even wrote to Libbie Wardall with “6 boys at the blackboard now” and “while pupils play.” Upon her death from pneumonia in the winter of 1896, she was described as an “aged widow lady” who only had a young nephew in the area, and was buried in the G.A.R. cemetery with expenses for the funeral from the county poor fund [Hand County Press (Miller SD), April 30, 1885, August 26, 1886, March 17, 1887, September 8, 1887, April 19, 1888, June 11, 1891, August 6, 1891, September 15, 1892; Pioneer Press (Miller SD), January 23, 1896, April 2, 1896, April 16, 1896, January 7, 1897; BLM-GLO Records, Section 33, T114N, R69W; section 4, T111N, R69W; Letter to Wardall from Bradford, December 2, 1890, #2021-03-30-0097, Pickler Papers].
Elizabeth B. Bradley (1881-1967) [Colome, Tripp County] served as chair of the suffrage committee that was organized during Rose Bower’s campaign tour in 1914 [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914]. Beginning in 1912, E.B. Bradley worked as a real estate and insurance agent in Colome–selling lands on the newly-opened reservation lands that had been part of the Rosebud of the Great Sioux Reservation–and offering farm loans. When she retired and closed her office in 1951, she and long-time employee Fannie Zerbe moved to Longmont, Colorado [Val J. Fetzner, “Colome, Tripp County’s Best Business Town,” A Rosebud Review (1913), 62; Florence Hedlund, “Pioneer Career Women: Elizabeth Buddington Bradley,” genealogytrails.net; “Elizabeth Budington Bradley,” and “Fannie Mildred Zerbe,” Find-a-grave.com].
Nellie Hough Bradley (1871-1952) [Sturgis, Meade County] was vice-president of the Sturgis Equal Suffrage League in 1914 [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914, pg. 2-3]. Nellie M. Hough was a teacher in Sturgis in 1889-1891 and later in Lead in the early 1900s. She graduated from the Normal School at Spearfish in 1891. She ran for Meade County superintendent of schools on the Democrat ticket in 1892, served as such in 1894-1896, and was on the Democrat-Populist ticket for that position again in 1902. Her father L.M. Hough had been president of the state Board of Regents, and her sister Katherine also worked in education, running the training school at the Normal School in Springfield SD. In 1907, she married William E. Bradley who had been auditor and treasurer for Meade County and state senator in 1897-1898. After her husband’s death in 1915, she took over his duties as deputy county treasurer — “Mrs. Bradley is familiar with the work as she often assisted her husband when he was treasurer.” Nellie Hough Bradley was active with the literary society in Sturgis, the Black Hills Sunday School association, the Epworth League for the Black Hills, and the Parent Teachers association in Sturgis, and held executive offices in those organizations at various points [Sturgis Advertiser (SD), April 17, 1889, January 2, 1890, June 4, 1891, June 4, 1896; Queen City Mail (Spearfish, SD), October 5, 1892; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), June 23, 1896, August 24, 1899, November 7, 1907, March 11, 1928; Hot Springs Weekly Star (SD), June 25, 1897, July 5, 1901, November 26, 1915; Custer Weekly Chronicle (SD), June 25, 1898, May 16, 1908, July 9, 1910, November 27, 1915; Weekly Pioneer-Times (Deadwood, SD), June 6, 1907; Lead Daily Call (SD), January 17, 1900, October 20, 1914, December 11, 1915, January 6, 1945; Mitchell Daily Republican (SD), October 1, 1902; Sioux City Journal (IA), November 13, 1907; Forest City Press (SD), October 27, 1915; Second Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (Sioux Falls: Brown & Saenger, 1894), 126; Thirty-second Annual Catalog of the State Normal School, Spearfish 10(1) (June 1917), 140; “Nellie H. Bradley,” Findagrave.com].
In 1889, when Hough was a new teacher, 18 years old, she and two other women were discussed at the Meade County Republican convention for the office of county superintendent of schools. I wonder if the wording of the press item meant that the discussion was creepy and sexist… :
“In the nominating of the candidate for superintendent of schools, the first fun of the convention was had. The names of three ladies were placed before the convention, and the delegates insisted on knowing all about them before casting their ballots. The gallantry of the delegates broke out in great chunks as they declaimed on the various good points of their respective candidates.”
The three women were: Lulu Shell of Elk Creek, Nellie Hough of Sturgis, May Chase of Bear Butte, and the report said that the vote was: Shell 27, Hough 5, Chase 5.
Sturgis Advertiser (SD), April 17, 1889]
James Knox Breeden (1844-1937) [Pierre, Hughes County], the husband of Jane Breeden and father of Marjorie, both below, was mentioned in a NAWSA convention report as having worked with Jane on the department of legislative work created at the last state suffrage convention [Rachel Foster Avery, ed., Proceedings of the 28th Annual Convention of NAWSA, held in Washington, D.C., January 23d to 28th, 1896 (Washington DC, 1896), 158]. Born in Virginia, James K. Breeden was an attorney who also served at least a term as county judge, one as city alderman, and had a ranch in Stanley which grew alfalfa and raised hogs. When his daughter Marjorie graduated from law school in 1907, she joined his law firm [Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), January 21, 1904, April 21, 1904, December 8, 1904, April 12, 1906, October 18, 1906, March 19, 1908, June 4, 1908, February 9, 1911, March 16, 1911, June 1, 1911, April 3, 1913; Eureka Post (SD), March 8, 1907; 1900-1930 census, Pierre, via Ancestry.com; Lisa R. Lindell, “‘Awake to all the needs of our day’: Early Women Lawyers in South Dakota,” South Dakota History 42(3) (Fall 2012), 216-218; “James Knox Breeden,” Findagrave.com; Jane Rooker Smith Breeden papers, USD].
* Jane Rooker Breeden (1853-1955) [Pierre, Hughes County] auditor 1895, superintendent of literature, and press committee for SD Equal Suffrage Association (ESA) 1896-1900; auditor for SD ESA 1907-1909, legislative committee for SD ESA, president of Pierre Equal Suffrage Association, and secretary of the Hughes County Universal Franchise League 1916-1918.
Marjorie Breeden (1885-1977) [Pierre, Hughes County] was an advocate for suffrage and member of Pierre Political Equality Club. In January 1921, Breeden was elected secretary of the League of Women Voters chapter at its organization in Pierre [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), January 11, 1922; Schuler, Pierre since 1910, 219; Lisa R. Lindell, “‘Awake to all the needs of our day’: Early Women Lawyers in South Dakota,” South Dakota History 42(3) (Fall 2012), 216-218]. The daughter of James and Jane Rooker Breeden, Marjorie was the first female graduate from the state university law school in 1907 and joined her father’s practice in Pierre. In 1912, she was a candidate for clerk of the state supreme court but was not selected. Breeden also served as the state president for the national Woman’s National Rivers and Harbors Congress, which worked for the “development of the meritorious rivers and harbors, the non-pollution of streams, the preservation of forests, and the conservation of all the natural resources of the nation.” After her father’s death, she and her mother moved to California in 1938 [Mitchell Capital (SD), August 2, 1907; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), June 13, 1907, October 20, 1910, November 23, 1911, November 21, 1912, December 26, 1912; Forest City Press (SD), March 2, 1917; Daily Capitol Journal (Pierre SD), October 31, 1977; Mary M. North, “The Woman’s National Rivers and Harbors Congress,” in Mrs. John A. Logan, ed., The Part Taken by Women in American History (Wilmington DE: Perry-Nalle Publishing Co., 1912), 399; “Marjorie Breeden,” Find-a-grave.com].
In the 1907 ground-breaking ceremony for the new law building at USD (still extant):
“Dean Sterling directed that one spadeful of earth should be lifted in behalf of Miss Marjorie Breeden as a recognition of her being the first woman graduate of the state law school”
Black Hills Union and Western Stock Review (Rapid City SD), October 25, 1907.
Maude F. Briggs (Sioux Falls) represented the state suffrage association during Woman’s Day at the 1909 state fair in Huron, helped organize a rummage sale as a fundraiser for the suffrage headquarters in Sioux Falls, and served as second auditor for the SD Equal Suffrage Association in 1909-1910 [Argus Leader (Sioux Falls SD), September 18, 1909 and September 30, 1910; Pierre weekly free press., December 1, 1910; RD06574, correspondence 1909, Breeden papers USD]. In 1910, Briggs was nominated to be a member of the campaign committee and chair of the expenditure committee to take the place of McCrossan who was going to Europe [letter LB Johnson to campaign committee, RD06654, correspondence 1910-05, Breeden papers USD]. Later in the early 1920s, Briggs was involved with the Minnehaha County League of Women Voters [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), February 18, 1922, December 2, 1922, March 30, 1927]. Maude Finney Briggs lived from 1868 to 1960 and was married to Fred E. Briggs [Harriet Taylor Upton, A Twentieth Century History of Trumbull County, Ohio (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1909), 142; “Maude F. Briggs” Find-a-Grave.com; Sioux Falls city directories 1906-1940].
Mrs. (Lucy?) Brink (Meckling, Clay County) presented “a dissertation on the ‘Scourge of the Republic’” during the oratory contest at the state suffrage meeting at the courthouse in Mitchell in 1897 [The Mitchell Capital (SD), September 24, 1897 and October 1, 1897]. I found one possible match in general research in Bluff View Cemetery, Vermillion, 1846-1924, husband Elwin A Brink [“Lucy R. Edgerton Brink” Find-a-Grave.com].
Frances Hunter Brookman [Vermillion, Clay County] was on a list of contacts for the state suffrage association in 1898 (or 1890). She was elected the secretary of the Political Equality Club in Vermillion in August 1898 and supplied editorials to local newspapers during that campaign. She continued on in the role in December 1898 after the election and in February 1900 (maybe throughout that period?). In November 1909, she attended the state suffrage convention in Sioux Falls and served on its committee on resolutions. In 1910, she was elected to be an alternate state delegate to the national convention, gave a reading on suffrage at a meeting of a local Birthday Club, and spoke on suffrage during the county normal institute. In 1916, Edith Fitch was a guest speaker at a meeting of the Roundabout Birthday Club that Brookman hosted. In 1918, Brookman was treasurer of the Clay County Suffrage League and elected a delegate to the Mississippi Valley conference (though it ended up not being held) [Vermillion Plain Talk (SD), August 12, 1898, February 22, 1900, April 11, 1918; The Dakota Republican (Vermillion SD), October 13, 1898, November 3, 1898, p.5, p.7, December 29, 1898, November 11, 1909, August 25, 1910, September 1, 1910, July 13, 1916; Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), November 4, 1909, November 5, 1909; Philip Weekly Review (SD), April 28, 1910; Black Hills Union and Western Stock Review (Rapid City SD), April 29, 1910, May 6, 1910; The Woman Citizen 2 (May 25, 1918), 510; McMahon to Pyle, February 27, 1918, RD08009, correspondence 1918-02-19 to 1918-02-28, Pyle papers USD; Ledger of Contacts, 2021-02-17-0057 to -0084, 2021-02-18-0001 to 0003, Box 6674, Folder 23, WCTU Suffrage Notebook – Meeting for Speakers, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives]. Mary Frances Hunter of Harrington KS graduated from the State Normal School in Emporia KS in 1882 and married Edgar D. Brookman in 1889 in Sioux City [Annual Catalogue of the State Normal School, Emporia, Kansas (1895), 87; Proceedings of the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Ancient, Free… South Dakota, v.32 (1906), unpaginated; Vermillion Plain Talk (SD), April 7, 1927].
Image of E.D. Brookman house in George T. Jordan, Vermillion and Vicinity (J. E. Jonnason, 1901), RD12124, USD Archives.
Celeste A. Brooks (Scotland/Running Water, Bon Homme County) was one of two women who organized a county suffrage convention in May 1897 and one of two business managers of the South Dakota Messenger, under editor Della King of Scotland, who attended the 1897 state meeting in Mitchell. Later in 1898, she worked on distributing suffrage literature around her county, including packets to teachers. [Mitchell Capital (SD), September 24, 1897; Letter to Mrs. Clara Williams from Mrs. Henry Brooks, October 22, 1898, #2021-04-23-0077 to -0081, Box 6676, Folder 18, WCTU & Suffrage Correspondence – October 1898, Folder 4, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives; Maxine K. Schuurmans, One Hundred Years of Tyndall: A Centennial History (Tyndall Centennial Committee, 1979), 78]. Celestia Miller married Henry Brooks in 1878 [“Henry Brooks,” Find-a-Grave.com].
Joanna Miller Brooks (Running Water, Bon Homme County) spoke on “The New Woman on the Farm” during the oratory contest at the state suffrage meeting at the courthouse in Mitchell in 1897 [The Mitchell Capital (SD), September 24, 1897 and October 1, 1897]. Brooks later became an osteopath in 1906 and married Dr. Ernest Walton Robson of New York, dying in childbirth in New York City in November 1918 [The Osteopathic Physician 20(3) (September 1911), 15; Journal of the American Osteopathic Association 18 (December 1918), 204; “Henry Brooks,” Find-a-Grave.com].
Rev. A.A. Brown [Hot Springs, Fall River County] signed, with B.W. Burleigh and Henrietta Lyman, the S.D. General Congregational Association’s resolutions in support of the suffrage amendment passed at their state meeting in 1898 [The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), June 11, 1898, p.191, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University]. In 1891, Rev. A.A. Brown was the pastor of the Congregational church at Spearfish, then he became the superintendent for Home Missionary work in the Black Hills and Wyoming for the Congregational church until 1899 when he resigned and became pastor of the church in Hot Springs. Brown also had terms on the board of trustees of the Spearfish Normal School and the school directors board for Hot Springs. At least once in 1899, his wife hosted a W.C.T.U. meeting. In 1901, he and his wife moved to Nebraska [Hot Springs Star (SD), August 28, 1891; Hot Springs Weekly Star (SD), May 13, 1892, July 8, 1892, October 27, 1893, June 15, 1894, July 27, 1894, June 12, 1896, June 10, 1898, April 21, 1899, September 29, 1899, November 3, 1899, February 16, 1900, April 6, 1900, January 18, 1901; Black Hills Weekly Journal (Rapid City, SD), January 25, 1901; 1900 Census, Hot Springs, via Ancestry.com].
Hon. Arthur R. Brown [Canton, Lincoln County] gave a suffrage address to the Women’s Study Club in Canton and the “sentiment of the club was decidedly pro-suffrage” [Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), February 25, 1916]. When a franchise league was formed in Canton in April 1916, A.R. Brown was named president [Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), April 7, 1916]. Brown was an attorney and president of the Lincoln County Bank [Dakota Territory Department of Immigration, Resources of Dakota (Sioux Falls: Argus Leader, 1887), 411; Canton, Lincoln Co., SD – 1916 Business Directory, USGenWeb Archives].
Rev. Edwin Brown [Wolsey, Beadle County] signed on as president of the Wolsey suffrage club when it was organized by Emma Smith DeVoe in February 1890. Brown also spoke at the Beadle County equal suffrage convention and served on its committee on resolutions. In July, Brown started focusing on press work [Wolsey Journal (SD), February 21, 1890, “Page 25 : [news clipping: Emma Smith DeVoe lectures at Wolsey],” “Page 25 : Equal Suffrage: A Convention to be held in Huron on Friday, Feb. 28, 1890,” Huron Times (SD), February 28, 1890, “Page 25 : Beadle County Equal Suffrage Convention,” and The Woman’s Tribune (Boston), March 15, 1890 in “Page 27 : Beadle County Convention,” Dakota Ruralist, August 9, 1890, “Page 48 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10; Letter to Mrs. Elizabeth W. Wardall from Edwin Brown, August 6, 1890, #2021-01-20-0064, WCTU Suffrage Correspondence 1890: A-C, Box 6674, Folder 1, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives, Pierre].
In September 1890, Brown and his wife Mary hosted the visit of Henry Blackwell of Boston during his campaign tour. Blackwell reported afterwards:
“On Saturday I reached Wolsey, a little town twelve miles north of Huron and a competitor for the State capital. Here I was the guest of Rev. Mr. Brown, the Presbyterian minister, and his wife, who are cordial friends of suffrage. In the afternoon I went with him to his farm three miles north, and looked at his herd of fine young horses, returning to Wolsey in time for the evening meeting. Mr. Brown not only is a safe guide spiritually to his congregation, but he is showing them how to make money, in spite of drought, by using the unequalled natural resources of this country in grass and hay for raising live stock.” [The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), October 18, 1890, p.332, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University].
In September 1899, Brown was a speaker at the S.D.E.S.A. & W.C.T.U. joint convention in Madison [Mitchell Capital (SD), September 1, 1899]. Ordained in 1879, Brown was pastor of the Presbyterian church at Wolsey from 1884 to 1892, taught Latin/Greek at Pierre University from 1892 to 1895, then returned to Wolsey where he had a 640-acre farm. He lived at Wolsey at least until 1904 and was on the executive committee of the S.D. Anti-Saloon League in 1905 [Kimball Graphic (SD), September 3, 1892; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), September 8, 1892, et al.; Mitchell Capital (SD), April 26, 1895, March 10, 1905; Madison Daily Leader (SD), September 17, 1904; 1895-1900 census, Beadle County, and 1898 Presbyterian Ministerial Directory, via Ancestry.com].
Emma H. Brown (Aberdeen, Brown County) was chair of the Aberdeen suffrage committee in 1910 and “doing splendid work” raising pledges for the campaign [Page 2, Bulletin – votes for women, c1910, RA08427, Pyle Papers USD]. Brown also served as the first vice-president of the equal suffrage league in Aberdeen in 1914 and was one of the hosts when Anna Howard Shaw spoke at the opera house in Aberdeen [Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), May 22, 1914; Lemmon Herald (SD), September 18, 1914].
Rev. J.M. Brown () [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County], who was pastor of the First Methodist Church, offered opening prayers at the state suffrage conventions in Sioux Falls in 1909. He and the church trustees had opened the church for the convention’s use. He also spoke on suffrage around the area during that campaign [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), November 3, 1909, November 6, 1909; Sisseton Weekly Standard (SD), November 12, 1909; Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), September 30, 1910; Page 2, Bulletin – votes for women, c1910, RA08427, Pyle Papers USD; 42nd Annual Report of the NAWSA Convention (New York: NAWSA, 1910), 145]. The 1909 convention was held at the First Methodist Church [42nd Annual Report, 145]. James M. Brown and his wife came to Sioux Falls from Mankato MN in the fall of 1906, he had earlier been in Warren MN as well. in the fall of 1911, he was transferred to Keokuk, Iowa [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls SD), October 12, 1906; The Daily Gate City (Keokuk, IA), October 16, 1911].
“There will be general regret over the leaving of Mr. Brown. He has been a faithful worker in the church and is recognized as a strong man and has always been popular with the general public. He is a man of high ideals and pleasing manner, a good public speaker on all occasions and takes an active interest in affairs which concern the welfare of the citizens, whether it bears upon his church and church work, or not.”
The Daily Gate City (Keokuk, IA), September 25, 1911.
Lebuse Stransky Brown (1891-1980) [Scotland, Bon Homme County] hosted Ida Stadie’s campaign visit to Scotland in July 1918 and signed on as chair of the franchise committee that Stadie organized [The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), July 11, 1918]. Lebuse Stransky came from Pukwana to Scotland SD in late 1914 to teach music lessons and married Guy R. Brown, a hardware merchant in Scotland, in Sioux City in January 1915. Lebuse Brown was also active with the Civic League and war work with that League and the Red Cross during World War I [The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), January 28, 1915, August 9, 1917, May 16, 1918, June 6, 1918, October 3, 1918, April 7, 1921; Tabor Independent (SD), June 20, 1918; “Lebuse S. Brown,” Findagrave.com].
Mary Brown (1843-1934) [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County] hosted at her home an “afternoon parlor meeting” with suffrage advocates Anna Simmons and Emma Cranmer in the summer of 1897 to raise interest in the suffrage amendment before their evening address at the Unitarian church. Mary also signed on as treasurer of the suffrage club organized at the evening event [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), July 2, 1897]. Mary Morse was born in Wisconsin and, in 1867, married Civil War veteran and merchant Thomas Henderson Brown. They came to Sioux Falls by stage coach in October 1872 with their first two sons. They lived on Phillips Ave. in the first wood-frame house in Sioux Falls. In 1893, her husband having been one of the South Dakota commissioners for the Chicago World’s Fair, Mary was a hostess of the state building during the exposition. Mary Brown was also a local and state leader in the Women’s Relief Corps in 1884 to 1934, the Order of the Eastern Star from 1890 to 1934, the Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1903, the Rebekahs, and the Pythian Sisters in 1910. The Browns owned the Sioux Investment Co., which built the Brown and Henderson Apartment blocks in downtown Sioux Falls in 1908 and 1916 respectively, and they lived in the Brown Apts [The Henderson Apartments are still standing]. [Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), March 29, 1886; Sturgis Advertiser (SD), March 27, 1890; Brookings County Sentinel (SD), November 21, 1890; Madison Daily Leader (SD), May 26, 1892, May 27, 1893, February 6, 1894, May 2, 1905; The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), May 26, 1893; Sully County Watchman (Onida SD), June 1, 1894; Semi-Weekly Register (Brookings SD), May 23, 1896; Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), June 22, 1903, November 5, 1921, December 1, 1923, September 23, 1934 (includes photo); The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), July 7, 1904; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), June 6, 1907, April 14, 1910; Hot Springs Weekly Star (SD), June 26, 1908; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), June 12, 1913; Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), November 26, 1915; Sioux City Journal (IA), March 16, 1930; Bailey, History of Minnehaha County (1899), 474; Sioux Falls Downtown Historic District, National Register of Historic Places nomination (1994), p7.15 to 7.16; 1880-1930 censuses, via Ancestry.com; “Mrs Mary Morse Brown,” Findagrave.com].
Edwin W. Tomlinson, “Mary Morse Brown biographical sketch, 1930.” Manuscript collections, Wisconsin Historical Society Archives in Madison, Catalog entry from WHS, also on World Cat.
Phoeba Brown gave recitation and violin solo at the 1897 state suffrage meeting in Mitchell [Mitchell Capital (SD), September 24, 1897].
Mary Bryan (1877-1943) [Huron, Beadle County] was active in the state leadership of the League of Women Voters from 1926 to 1933, serving as treasurer, vice-president, and Education chair over the years [The Discerning Voter 1(9) (May 1926), 2; The Daily Plainsman (Huron, SD), November 7, 1927, October 5, 1929, October 19, 1929, October 29, 1930, November 1, 1930, October 28, 1931, April 6, 1933]. She was also a leader of the Beadle County L.W.V. [The Daily Plainsman (Huron, SD), July 2, 1929, July 18, 1929, March 26, 1931]. Bryan was also highly active in the local and state Parent and Teachers Association, was the state chair for the National Kindergarten Association and Child Welfare commission (a governor-appointed position), was a member and chair of the Huron school board, started a Beadle County Women’s Democratic Club, and was the president of a South Dakota Maternity Health League [The Daily Plainsman (Huron, SD), November 8, 1927, November 9, 1929, February 28, 1930, September 9, 1930, May 7, 1932, September 29, 1932, July 13, 1933, January 19, 1934, March 21, 1934, September 6, 1934, October 17, 1935, May 26, 1936, December 24, 1937, October 28, 1938]. Mary Jones was married to dentist Evan H. Bryan [The Daily Plainsman (Huron, SD), May 13, 1931; 1920-1940 censuses via Ancestry.com; “Mary J Jones Bryan,” Findagrave.com].
E.A. Bruce (Yankton, Yankton County) was treasurer of the pro-suffrage Men’s Equal Suffrage League of Yankton in 1916 [Madison Daily Leader (SD), October 23, 1916; image of stationary from the league in the permanent exhibit at the SD Cultural Heritage Center]. A “Mrs. Bruce” of Yankton had a connection to the movement as well, but I couldn’t determine if that was a relation of his [McMahon to Pyle, February 27, 1918, RD08011, correspondence 1918-02-19 to 1918-02-28, Pyle papers USD].
Rev. Dr. William I. Brush (1827-1895) [Mitchell, Davison County] spoke at the 1890 state suffrage convention in Mitchell. According to the report in the Wessington Springs Herald, during his remarks, he brought his wife Electa on stage “and asked the audience if they did not think she was as capable of casting a ballot as the ignorant man. The force of the illustration was not lost on the audience, especially that part who were acquainted with Mrs. Brush. Dr. Brush made a few well received remarks and of course put in a word for the University of which he is President saying there was equality of sex there, etc.” He also extended an invitation for the attendees to visit the university [Mitchell Capital (SD), August 29, 1890; Brookings Register (SD), September 5, 1890; Wessington Springs Herald (SD), September 12, 1890; Page 50 : Equal Suffrage Proceedings (continued from page 49), and “Page 49 : Entire Page,” “Page 50 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10]. Born in Connecticut, in 1850, Brush graduated with a degree in classics from Yale and married Electa Jane ___. In 1860 to 1869, he was president of the Upper Iowa University in Fayette, then was presiding elder of the Charles City district, and in the 1870s went to be elder of the Austin district in Texas. In c.1882-1884, he came to Mitchell and was a leader in starting a new Methodist university in Mitchell. In 1885, he was elected its president. He traveled extensively ‘in the interest of the university,’ largely to raise funds, including a whole year away from Mitchell in 1888. He also spoke occasionally at Methodist camp meetings, church conferences, and Chautauquas. In 1889, he was one of the speakers at a state Prohibition meeting on the proposed state constitution with a prohibition clause. In March 1891, he was appointed by President Harrison to be U.S. Consul in Messina, Sicily and resigned that post in early 1892. After his return, he became chancellor and president of the University of the Northwest in Sioux City IA and gave the opening prayer at the Republican National Convention held in Minneapolis MN [Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), September 5, 1884, March 18, 1889; Warner Weekly Sun (SD), September 12, 1884; DeSmet Leader (SD), February 14, 1885, August 22, 1885; Union County Courier (Elk Point SD), August 12, 1885; Mitchell Capital (SD), January 1, 1886, September 24, 1886, October 8, 1886, October 22, 1886, March 9, 1888, August 10, 1888, April 26, 1889, November 1, 1889, July 4, 1890, January 9, 1891, March 6, 1891, March 13, 1891, April 3, 1891, April 10, 1891, June 10, 1892, June 24, 1892, July 1, 1892, July 29, 1892, May 3, 1895; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), November 4, 1886, March 28, 1889; Hand County Press (Miller SD), August 25, 1887; Sturgis Advertiser (SD), March 7, 1888; Wessington Springs Herald (SD), July 25, 1890; Madison Daily Leader (SD), May 3, 1895; Directory of the Living Graduates of Yale University (New Haven CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1892), 18; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 3 (1915), 957; “William Brush,” Findagrave.com; Mitchell Daily Republic (SD), September 18, 2010, quoting The Dakota Wesleyan University Memory Book, 1885-2010 by James McLaird].
Ira N. Bubert (Coal Springs) was a suffrage supporter according to an article by Rose Bower [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914]. Ira Bubert was a cashier at the Coal Springs Bank and then the Meadow State Bank until he and his family moved back to Illinois [Commercial West 29 (February 26, 1916), 28; Lemmon Herald (SD), February 2, 1916, February 9, 1916; “Ira Newton Bubert,” Find-a-grave.com].
Katherine Buck (1864-1922) [Elkton, Brookings County] worked for suffrage through the local WCTU in the 1897-1898 campaign. She also spoke on ‘does the business woman need suffrage’ for a talk series during a county suffrage convention in October 1897 [Semi-Weekly Register (Brookings SD), October 27, 1897, May 10, 1898; Letter to Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt from Josephine T. Roberts, December 26, 1897, #2021-05-06-0075, Letter from Mrs. Katherine Buck, #2021-05-06-0100, Letter to Mrs. Catt from Mrs. Katherine Buck, January 11, 1898, #2021-05-06-0052, Postal Card to Mrs. Clare Williams from Mrs. Buck, September 7, 1898, #2021-04-14-0107, Letter to Mrs. Clare Williams from Mrs. Buck, September 9, 1898, #2021-04-14-0156, Letter to Mrs. Clare Williams from Mrs. Katherine Buck, October 8, 1898, #2021-04-22-0043, Letter to Mrs. Clare Williams from Mrs. Buck, October 24, 1898, #2021-04-23-0100, and Postal Card to Mrs. Clare Williams from Mrs. Katherine Buck, October 28, 1898, #2021-04-23-0037, Box 6676, Folder 24, WCTU SD Equal Suffrage Association Records – 1898 Campaign, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives]. Nancy Katherine Eckel married Edward A. Buck in about 1884. For the WCTU, Buck was county president in 1894-1895, county treasurer in 1897, and Elkton vice-president in 1901. Between 1904 and 1910, they moved to Olmsted County, Minnesota [Brookings Register (SD), October 12, 1894; Semi-Weekly Register (Brookings SD), October 23, 1895, December 1, 1897; Saint Paul Globe (MN), November 16, 1901; Aberdeen Democrat (SD), January 29, 1904; 1900-1920 US census and Probate, via Ancestry.com; “Nancy Katherine Buck,” Findagrave.com].
“We are getting the questions talked of which I think is a hopeful sign in the stores and wherever people may happen to congregate they soon get on the subj. of E.S.”
Letter to Mrs. Catt from Mrs. Katherine Buck, January 11, 1898, #2021-05-06-0052, Pickler Papers.
Louise Buck (1867-1953) [Wessington Springs, Jerauld County] served on a local suffrage campaign committee [Pidgeon to Pyle, February 22, 1918, RD07962, correspondence 1918-02-19 to 1918-02-28, Pyle papers USD]. Louise Sebo came to Wessington Springs from Iowa in 1910 and taught in town and rural schools until marrying druggist William H. Buck in 1913. After his death in 1924, she continued to work in the drug store until 1937 [Obituary text on “Louise Sebo Buck,” Find-a-Grave.com]. She was also involved as treasurer of the district WCTU and, during the war, was county chair of the Council for National Defense [Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), May 20, 1915; Mitchell Capital (SD), January 31, 1918].
Minnie L. Buck (1872-1938) [Sioux Falls, Minnehaha County] was involved with the Minnehaha County franchise league in 1916, including service as corresponding secretary in 1918, and remained involved with the League of Women Voters into 1923, serving as the chair for constitution and bylaws in 1919 at the county LWV’s formation. In 1918, her address was listed as 516 S. Spring Avenue [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), October 20, 1916, January 9, 1919, February 18, 1922, August 17, 1923, March 30, 1927; Leavitt to Pyle, November 1, 1918, RA11619, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, November 1-7, Pyle Papers USD]. Buck was born in Missouri and married to physician Elmer Roberts Buck. They lived in Eden SD until moving to Sioux Falls between 1910 and 1916. In 1916 to 1922, Buck was also active with the Federation of Women’s Clubs at district and state levels, the district W.C.T.U., and the History Club in Sioux Falls [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), March 11, 1916, October 20, 1938; Forest City Press (SD), May 24, 1916; Mitchell Capital (SD), May 3, 1917; The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), October 25, 1917; Saturday News (Watertown SD), May 15, 1919; Madison Daily Leader (SD), May 13, 1921, June 8, 1922; 1900-1930 census, Ancestry.com; “Minnie Louise Buck,” Findagrave.com (includes [wedding?] photo)].
Maude Etna Buell (1871-1932) [Rapid City, Pennington County] was one of the local women hosting Catherine McCulloch’s 1914 visit to the Black Hills and signed the county suffrage petition in 1916 [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914; Rapid City Journal (SD), November 5, 1916]. Maude Mitchell was born in Wyoming and married attorney Charles J. Buell in 1892. Buell was vice-chair of the SD Woman’s Liberty Loan Committee in 1917. One of their sons, Corporal Charles James Buell, was killed in France during WWI [Black Hills Union (Rapid City SD), May 6, 1892; Report of National Woman’s Liberty Loan Committee (Washington DC: GPO, 1917), 79; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), April 18, 1918; Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls SD), January 31, 1932; “Maud M Mitchell Buell,” Findagrave.com].
Mrs. Buer (Gustave, Harding County) was a suffrage supporter according to Rose Bower’s account of her campaign work [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914]. In the 1920 census and land records of the BLM-GLO, there was a Rae Buer (married to Theodore J. Buer) in the Gustave area.
Martha Bullock (Deadwood, Lawrence County) was president of the Deadwood Woman’s Suffrage League in 1914-1916 and chair of the Lawrence County suffrage association in 1918. This included monitoring the influence that the Homestake Mine might have on the votes of their employees [The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), April 30, 1914; Madison Daily Leader (SD), April 28, 1914; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), April 23, 1916, November 7, 1916; Letter to Mrs. Pickler from Mrs. Pyle, September 4, 1914, #2021-06-09-0035, Box 6677, Folder 22, WCTU Correspondence – 1914 Folder 3, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives; Dorinda Riessen Reed, The Woman Suffrage Movement in South Dakota (Pierre: Commission on the Status of Women, 1975 [1958]), 110; Jean McLeod Doughty, “The Suffrage Movement in Lawrence County,” In Some History of Lawrence County (Deadwood: Lawrence County Historical Society, 1981), 655-656]. She was married to Seth Bullock, active with the Round Table Club, and vice-president of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Deadwood Business Club in 1918 [Rewman to Pyle, October 18, 1918, RD11407, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, October 17-22, Mamie Shields Pyle Papers, Richardson Collection, USD; Carol A. Bishop, The Round Table Club 1887-1987: The Other Ladies of Deadwood (Deadwood SD: Deadwood Historic Preservation Commission, 1994), 12; “Martha Marguerite Eccles Bullock,” Find-a-Grave.com]. More biography and photos: Rachel Lovelace-Portal, “Martha Bullock,” Images of the Past, SD Public Broadcasting (February 28, 2019).
Seth Bullock (1849-1919) [Deadwood, Lawrence County] later supported his wife’s position with the Franchise League, and in so doing “claimed to be pleased with himself for having come over to the woman suffrage ranks [and was] among those who had ‘got right’ on the woman suffrage question since the last election” [Doughty, “The Suffrage Movement in Lawrence County,” 655-656]. Bullock was the first sheriff of Deadwood and a well-known Black Hills pioneer [“Seth Bullock,” Find-a-Grave.com; “Seth Bullock,” Wikipedia; David A. Wolff, Seth Bullock: Black Hills Lawman. Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2009].
Bullock speaking about “pioneer” days for the Butte Miner:
“Neither prohibition nor woman suffrage was thought of in those days. Or if thought of no one had the courage to mention them favorably, as we were all young and wanted to live out our allotted span.”
Custer Weekly Chronicle (SD), November 30, 1918.
Mrs. Burden was invited to address the state Senate with Emma Cranmer and Anna Simmons while the suffrage bill was up for consideration in 1897, and “without speeches from the senators” the measure was put to a vote and passed [Dakota farmers’ leader., February 19, 1897].
Elizabeth “Bessie” Burke (c.1888-?) [Pierre, Hughes County] was, by one report, a participant in the March 3, 1913 suffrage procession in Washington D.C. while she was living in D.C. during her father Charles H. Burke’s term in the U.S. House. She was listed as a participant with two of the N.D. legislators’ daughters, Lillian Helgesen and Lillian Gronna [The Evening Times (Grand Forks ND), March 4, 1913]. Bessie and her sister Grace attended All Saints Episcopal School in Sioux Falls and Belcourt Seminary in D.C. In late 1918, having worked with the Red Cross locally, she was appointed for overseas nursing duty in France. She lived with her parents and her siblings in Pierre in 1910 (and maybe 1920?). {I lose track of her in records after 1918/1920.} [Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), September 15, 1904, October 3, 1907, January 7, 1909, May 24, 1917; Washington Times (DC), November 24, 1907; Evening Star (Washington DC), May 10, 1908, February 7, 1909; Madison Daily Leader (SD), November 8, 1918]
Rev. Benjamin Wade Burleigh () [Mitchell, Davison County] was a speaker on suffrage in Clay County in August 1897. He was also president of the Mitchell equal suffrage club when it was formed after the 1897 state convention. In May 1898 at the SD General Congregational Association annual meeting in Huron, Burleigh, Rev. Henrietta Lyman of Pierre, and Com. A.A. Brown in Hot Springs spearheaded a resolution in support of suffrage by the denomination. In July 1898, he made a speech on suffrage in Yankton [Vermillion Plain Talk (SD), August 27, 1897; Mitchell Capital (SD), October 1, 1897, July 15, 1898, July 29, 1898; The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), June 11, 1898, p.191, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University]. Burleigh had attended Yankton College, received a law degree in Ann Arbor MI, then changed careers and attended seminary in Chicago. He was clergy at the Congregational church, a supporter of prohibition, and a local musician–from a young age, playing both guitar and the zither and composing at least one song [Mitchell Capital (SD), May 1, 1896, October 9, 1896; October 16, 1896; May 20, 1898; December 9, 1898; Hot Springs weekly star., August 20, 1897; Press and Daily Dakotaian (Yankton SD), June 13, 1884; June 16, 1885; March 8, 1886; October 7, 1886; October 11, 1887; Michigan Alumnus (March 1904), 295].
Grace W. Burleigh (Mitchell) gave the address of welcome and devotional exercises “in behalf of the local supporters of the cause” at the 1897 state suffrage meeting in Mitchell, and she was elected corresponding secretary for the Davison County equal suffrage club when it formed [The Mitchell capital., September 24, 1897, October 1, 1897, and November 19, 1897]. Burleigh was also secretary of the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union [The Mitchell capital., April 1, 1898 and August 5, 1898].
Judge John H. Burns (c1851-) [Deadwood, Lawrence County] was president of the Deadwood suffrage club in 1890 and, as such, one of the vice-presidents of the county suffrage association. He directed canvassing work for the amendment in Deadwood [Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), August 9, 1890; Queen City Mail (SD), August 13, 1890; Sturgis Advertiser (SD), March 26, 1891; “Page 36 : Entire Page,” and The Dakota Ruralist (Aberdeen SD), June 14, 1890, “Page 37 : Entire Page,” Emma Smith DeVoe: 1880-1890 (Scrapbook D), WSL Manuscripts, MS 171, Box 10; Letter to Elizabeth Wardall from John H. Burns, November 2, 1890, #2021-03-30-0011, 1890 Campaign Folder 3, Box 6675, Folder 28, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives, Pierre]. Burns came to the Black Hills with his parents in 1877, was the first attorney to prosecute a case in Deadwood in 1877, and was involved with organizing Deadwood as a city in 1879 [Philip Weekly Review (SD), June 30, 1910; Weekly Pioneer-Times (Deadwood, SD), April 25, 1929; “Charlotte Stoddard Burns,” Findagrave.com]. Burns also had cattle ranching interests [Black Hills Weekly Times (Deadwood, SD), April 28, 1883; Black Hills Daily Times (Deadwood, SD), December 21, 1888; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), October 20, 1904; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), November 11, 1914]. In 1890, Burns was a county judge and aide-de-camp to Governor Mellette, and went to the Pine Ridge Agency, at a turbulent time, as a cavalry officer and correspondent for the Deadwood newspapers [Sturgis Advertiser (SD), July 3, 1890; Weekly Pioneer-Times (Deadwood, SD), January 15, 1903, December 23, 1920; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), September 16, 1914, pg. 1, pg. 4; Greene, American Carnage: Wounded Knee, 1890 (2014), 150]. He frequently acted as defense attorney for tribal members from the Pine Ridge Reservation [Madison Daily Leader (SD), April 10, 1891, June 19, 1895, February 3, 1896, October 24, 1899, October 21, 1905; Mitchell Capital (SD), June 21, 1895; Union County Courier (Elk Point SD), April 16, 1896; The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), December 29, 1899; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), September 13, 1899; Black Hills Union (Rapid City SD), May 29, 1903; Clow, “Justice in Transition…,” South Dakota History 27(3) (1997), 133-155]. He was also involved with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the League of American Sportsmen, and the Deadwood Business Club [Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), December 26, 1907; The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), August 20, 1908; Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), December 13, 1908, September 1, 1915]. Burns with his wife and daughter moved to Tampa, Florida in 1912 [Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), March 22, 1917, April 12, 1922].
Rev. A.E. Burrows (1861-1938) [Britton, Marshall County] was a Methodist minister stationed at Britton for the 1890 suffrage campaign. He and wife Louisa were involved with the Marshall County suffrage association working with Chestina Thorp, and Rev. Burrows offered to do some speaking engagements for the campaign also [The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), May 10, 1890, p.152, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University; Letter to Will F. Bailey from A.E. Burrows, August 1, 1890, #2021-01-20-0216, Letter to Bailey from Burrows, August 13, 1890, #2021-01-20-0213, Letter to Bailey from Burrows and Mrs. C.S. Thorp, August 29, 1890, #2021-02-02-0132, and Letter to Mrs. E.M. Wardall from Burrows, September 3, 1890, #2021-01-20-0059, Box 6674, Folder 1, WCTU Suffrage Correspondence 1890: A-C, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives]. Albert Edwin Burrows had been born in Canada and immigrated through Detroit in 1883. In Dakota Territory, he was stationed at Flandreau 1884, Clear Lake 1885, Blunt 1886-1888, Chamberlain, and Mitchell. He married Louisa Elizabeth McCrasey in about 1886. He became a “state evangelist” for the Methodist’s Dakota conference and led tent revivals at multiple communities. In 1893, he was involved in a scandal while in Gettysburg and was effectively dismissed from the Dakota Conference. He later lived in Chicago, Seattle, and Youngstown OH, and continued working as a minister, before passing away in California [DeSmet Leader (SD), November 27, 1886; Sully County Watchman (Onida SD), September 20, 1890; Mitchell Capital (SD), November 13, 1891, November 4, 1892, December 16, 1892; Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton SD), February 10, 1893; Brookings Register (SD), March 3, 1893, September 8, 1893, October 13, 1893, October 20, 1893; Custer Weekly Chronicle (SD), September 2, 1893; Seattle Star (WA), October 26, 1901; Northwestern Christian Advocate 46(13) (March 30, 1898), 23, 47(41) (October 11, 1899), 22; Rev. John G. Palmer, Palmer’s Directory of the Methodist Episcopal Church for Dakota Conference (1888), pg. 38-39, 41, transcribed by Joy Fisher; US Naturalization Records Index, 1885 SD census, SD Birth Index, 1900-1910 US census, and CA Death Index, via Ancestry.com].
George W. Butterfield (DeVoe, Faulk County) was president of the De Voe suffrage club [Citing Faulk County Record, Thursday, May 22, 1890, in Faulk County Newspaper Excerpts, SD Genealogy Trails].
Rev. Albert R. Button (Burke, Gregory County) arranged suffrage meetings during Rose Bower’s campaign tour [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914]. Button was the pastor of the Baptist church in Burke, and had previous postings in Armour, Bradley, and at the Children’s Home in Sioux Falls [The Black Hills Union (Rapid City SD), December 23, 1898; Mitchell Capital (SD), December 4, 1903; Kimball Graphic (SD), November 13, 1903; Madison Daily Leader (SD), October 20, 1909; Lemmon Herald (SD), July 24, 1914; “Rev Albert Ransom Button,” Find-a-grave.com].
Governor Frank M. Byrne (1858-1927) [Faulkton, Faulk County] was one of the men listed as “Noted Men of South Dakota for Suffrage” in a 1918 news article and gave to the movement “valuable assistance, as he had done when a member of the Senate… Mrs. Byrne also was an excellent ally.” [Deutscher Herold (Sioux Falls SD), September 16, 1915; Madison Daily Leader (SD), October 29, 1918; The Citizen-Republican (Scotland SD), October 31, 1918; Anthony/Husted, History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 6 (1922), 589]. Byrne was governor of South Dakota from 1913 to 1917. The family moved to Oregon in 1924. Find more about him on Wikipedia, the South Dakota State Archives, and “Frank Michael Byrne,” Findagrave.com. Built in about 1898. the Byrne House at 1017 St. John Street in Faulkton, in which the family lived from 1901 to 1923, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 [“Governor Frank M. Byrne House,” NRHP nomination].
Emma B. Byrne (1866-1965) [Faulkton, Faulk County] spoke at a Fort Pierre suffrage meeting in 1914 about women wanting the vote to make the world better [Woman’s West of the River Suffrage Number, Rapid City Daily Journal (SD), October 26, 1914, page 3]. In 1917, she was one of the women who put out a call for a meeting to organize a state board of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in Sioux Falls [Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), January 8, 1917; The Suffragist (National Women’s Party) (January 24, 1917), 8]. In the 1918, she worked on campaigning and fundraising for Faulk County, while also struggling with having four sons in military service and working in the local influenza hospital [Byrne to Pyle, November 1, 1918, RA11618, Pyle to Mrs Byrne, November 4, 1918, RA11662, and Byrne to Pyle, November 7, 1918, RA11722, Box 4, Correspondence, 1918, November 1-7, Pyle Papers USD; Saturday News (Watertown SD), October 4, 1917]. When the South Dakota League of Women Voters was organized, Byrne served as one of the eight department heads [The Woman Citizen 4 (August 23, 1919), 291]. Byrne also worked extensively for child welfare causes, including organizing and serving as the first vice-president of a state auxiliary to the National Mothers’ Congress om 1915 [Madison Daily Leader (SD), June 4, 1915; Pierre Weekly Free Press (SD), June 17, 1915; Mitchell Capital (SD), June 24, 1915]. Her husband was governor of South Dakota from 1913 to 1917. The family moved to Oregon in 1924. Built in about 1898. the Byrne House at 1017 St. John Street in Faulkton, in which the family lived from 1901 to 1923, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 [“Governor Frank M. Byrne House,” NRHP nomination]. Also: “Emilie ‘Emma’ Beaver Byrne,” Findagrave.com.
Mitchell Capital (SD), August 5, 1915.
History in South Dakota 