Anna R. Simmons Emma Cranmer Della Robinson King Alice M.A. Pickler Clare Williams Ida Crouch-Hazlett (Colorado) Laura A. Gregg (Iowa) Henrietta G. Moore (Ohio) Mary Garrett Hay (Kansas) Laura M. Johns (Kansas) Carrie Chapman Catt (Iowa) M. Lena Morrow (Illinois) Julia Mills Dunn (Illinois) Emmy Carlsson Evald (Illinois) Ulrikka F. Bruun (Chicago IL) Mrs. W. Winslow Crannell (Albany NY)
1897
February-March: In the 1897 legislature, with favorable committee reports, a suffrage amendment passed both chambers and was signed by the governor to go on the ballot in November 1898. Advocacy efforts were led by Anna Simmons and Emma Cranmer, who also did campaign and organizing work over the following summer. Simmons and Jane Breeden were “constantly on duty” during the six weeks of the state legislative session, with assistance from Henrietta Lyman, Emma Cranmer, and Carrie Dollard. Breeden and Cranmer were invited to speak from the Senate platform and were reportedly “listened to with much courtesy and attention” by the senators as well as others from the House, state offices, and clerks who came in to hear them [Kimball Graphic (SD), February 13, 1897, February 20, 1897, pg 1, pg 2, February 27, 1897; The Woman’s Column 10(9) (February 27, 1897), 1; 10(12) (March 20, 1897), 3; Black Hills Union (Rapid City SD), March 5, 1897; Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), July 2, 1897; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 3 (1915), 790-791; Anthony/Harper, History of Woman Suffrage vol. 4, 557].
“March 2, 1897. Editors Woman s Journal: Our State Legislature has just taken the final step whereby an amendment to the constitution providing for equal suffrage will be placed before the voters for their approval or disapproval at the general election to be held in November, 1898. Our legislative committee, consisting of Mrs. Simmons, of Huron, and myself, have been constantly on duty for six weeks. We have had the assistance of Mrs. Lyman, of this city, Mrs. Cranmer, of Aberdeen, and Mrs. Dollard, of Scotland, S. D. We met but little opposition in the Senate. The opposition in the House of Representatives was from a minority, but it was bitter, and skilfully managed…. The fact that we had quietly made a canvass of certain committees as to the views of the members upon woman suffrage was of great service in knowing just what committee to ask that our bill be referred to. We obtained a favorable report from both the House and Senate committees. A party of ladies was invited to meet the Senate Committee on the morning our matter was under consideration. Mrs. Simmons, Mrs. Cranmer and myself urged its importance. To our surprise, when the question came up for discussion in the Senate Chamber, some of the gentlemen of that committee requested that we should address the Senate in our own behalf. We were invited to the platform, and listened to with much courtesy and attention… When it was known that we were to speak, many members of the House came into the Senate room, also nearly all of the State officers and clerks employed about the State House. The lobby, aisles and halls were crowded, and we felt that we made valuable suffrage sentiment, besides securing a satisfactory vote. The question of equal suffrage is now squarely before our people, and we hope for the cooperation of its advocates in every part of the country. We have a large foreign vote to convert, and the antagonism of the liquor business to meet. These forces will no doubt be used by a few professional politicians, who do not want ‘women in politics,’ to make the campaign as difficult as possible for us…. Jane R. Breeden, Member Legislative Com.” The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), March 20, 1897, p.96, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“The lobby of the house was crowded with women while the bill was under consideration and out of deference to that body, which yesterday passed a measure against wearing high hats, they appeared without headgear. It is said that this action so pleased some of the members that four additional votes were secured for the bill.” Kimball Graphic (SD), March 6, 1897 [an “Anti” editor].
“we must now take hold of South Dakota, and I feel sure that, with all of the educational work done there in the campaign of 1890, we shall be able to carry that State provided the National chips in with its money and its organizers, and helps Mrs. Simmons and Mrs. Cranmer, the two leading women, to begin at once the precinct organization in every county. I hope Mrs. Catt will send Miss [Mary Garrett] Hay at once to S. Dak. to teach Mrs. Simmons how to begin that kind of organizing.” — Susan B. Anthony to Mariana Wright Chapman, February 27, 1897 MWC Family Papers, SFHL-RG5-260, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, Item ID: A00180019.
July: Simmons and Cranmer led Equal Suffrage Day at the Lake Madison Chautauqua. The day included talks in the W.C.T.U. tent, lectures at the auditorium, a Round Table and a School of Methods on citizenship, and a symposium of talks on suffrage by local men [Madison Daily Leader (SD), June 30, 1897, July 1, 1897].
Della Robinson King of Scotland, S.D. ran “almost entirely at her own expense the South Dakota Messenger, a campaign paper which was of the greatest service” [Anthony/Harper, History of Woman Suffrage vol. 4, 558].
Above from South Dakota Messenger, Vol. 1, No. 3, November 8, 1897, #2021-05-19-0036, in WCTU Messenger – 1897, Pickler Papers H91-74, SD State Archives
The Mitchell Capital newspaper, on October 8, 1897, reprinted an article “The New Woman” by Mitchell resident Louise L. Hitchcock that had been written for the Messenger. “[The New Woman] is popularly supposed to be advanced in her ideas, and holds ‘views’ concerning politics and religion—A woman with bloomers and a sphere… she would ordinarily look with disfavor upon domesticity as interfering with her career…. The progressive age, the broadening of educational advantages, and the necessity of the winning of bread has surely developed a type of woman not known in the past. [Yet] the New Woman as pictured in the press is a caricature not known in real life…. while our ideal New Woman has entered this broader field, she has retained her delicate womanly instincts, and is still the same loving mother, devoted wife and affectionate sister known to the poets of the past.”
September 28-30: The South Dakota Equal Suffrage Association convention was held at the county courthouse in Mitchell, presided over by president Anna R. Simmons. The featured speaker was Elizabeth Upham Yates of Maine [Mitchell Capital (SD), September 24, 1897 (includes the full program), October 1, 1897 pg 1, pg 3; Anthony/Harper, History of Woman Suffrage vol. 4, 558].
In her presidential report at the Mitchell convention, Simmons spoke “of the situation as things had occurred in the past and offered some good advice and counsel as to the future work which confronted the association, urging the members to be kind and gentle in their discussions, leaving entirely out of their discourses and remarks anything that savored of sarcasm.” Alice Pickler’s remarks were “in reference to the past work of the association concerning what had been accomplished in former years as to securing the franchise for woman. In a historical way she associated the white ribbon of the W.C.T.U. with the yellow ribbon of the suffrage movement. Mrs. Breeden questioned the propriety of associating prohibition with the present subject and thought the entire forces should be spent in bringing to a successful issue and not sidetrack the main issue. The president stated that equal suffrage was the main and the sole object of the meeting but that all W.C.T.U. ladies were welcome to join the movement.” “The ladies seemed to realize that they have a very hard fight on their hands, due mostly to the fact that those whom they wish to talk to particularly, the men, don’t attend the meetings in sufficient numbers to furnish them much encouragement.” Mitchell Capital (SD), October 1, 1897, page 1 and 3.
“I do not see how we can get along and win without all of the help we can get… 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 (Elkton), January 11, 1898, 2021-05-06-0052 to -0054, Box 6676, Folder 24, WCTU SD Equal Suffrage Association Records – 1898 Campaign, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives.
Carrie Chapman Catt, NAWSA president, to Mariana Wright Chapman, February 3, 1898: “… I have waited to learn positively whether we should be called upon to look after the campaigns in Washington and South Dakota. I felt, if we were to do this, that all our force would be needed and that I must continue in my present office. It is now pretty plain to me that it would be foolish to put money in those states, and we are not wanted there…. during the summer, I presented the fact to the Business Committee, that if we were to undertake the South Dakota campaign there was no money to pay for it. They all felt, however, that we should go ahead and do the best we could… Miss Anthony loaned $800 and that amount we still owe.” MCW Family Papers, SFHL-RG5-260, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College, Item ID: A00180079.
February: Anna Simmons presented South Dakota’s appeal for support to the NAWSA executive committee meeting in Washington D.C. and Carrie Chapman Catt put forward a motion for $5,000 support but action on the motion was postponed [Avery, ed., Proceedings of the 30th Annual Convention of NAWSA … Washington, D.C., February 13-19, 1898 (Washington DC, 1898),17]. In Simmons’ state report she told them that SDESA had “determined that our work shall be carried on separate from all other issues and from the standpoint of justice and liberty. It will not be due to our S.D.E.S.A. if any other organization in its anxiety to help the cause, takes up the work” [Avery, ed., Proceedings (1898), 111]. According to histories, NAWSA and Carrie Chapman Catt reportedly broke off aid to SDESA because of its entanglements with the WCTU and third-party politics [Egge, Woman Suffrage and Citizenship, 94; Egge, “Ethnicity and Woman Suffrage,” in Lahlum & Rozum, Equality at the Ballot Box, 228; Nelson in Lauck et al., 142]. There were outside speakers sent to South Dakota, however, including Ida Crouch-Hazlett.
April: The South Dakota Equal Suffrage Association held its annual meeting in Sioux Falls at the opera house. Speakers included Mary E. Collson, Mrs. George W. King, Mrs. Osgood, Clara Richey, Rev. G.M. House, and Ida Crouch-Hazlett [Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 3 (1915), 791].
“What ever else may be said in relation to the merits or demerits of the question at issue, it cannot be justly said that the women are lacking in clear grit and undying persistence in the efforts to achieve their alleged rights.” Custer Weekly Chronicle (SD), April 16, 1898.
“At a recent joint meeting of the Political Equality and the Nineteenth Century Clubs of Yankton, a debate was held. A correspondent of the S. D. Messenger says: ‘The opponents of equal suffrage had spared no pains in collecting all that would tell against it, even to the falsehoods about Wyoming, and a very full reading of a pamphlet called ‘Judged by Their Fruits,’ an emanation of the Massachusetts Anti-Suffrage Association, the first page of which ought to be enough to throw it out of consideration by any fair and honest person, for what is demanded there of women would, if applied to men throw out more than nine-tenths of all male voters. The equal suffragists read many pertinent articles, and several letters from personal friends, making a good showing for their side of the question. The meeting ended with a short but spirited debate. There was no provision for judges to decide which side had the best of the argument, as it was merely intended to bring the matter before the public.'” The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), April 16, 1898, p.125, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
Ida Crouch-Hazlett arrived in the Black Hills from Colorado and “had been given the Hills counties to organize.” In April she spoke at the city hall auditorium in Hot Springs before going to Sioux Falls for the state meeting [Hot Springs Weekly Star (SD), April 8, 1898, April 15, 1898; Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 3 (1915), 791]. She returned to the Hills then, speaking at Centennial, Belle Fourche, Minnesela, Rapid City, et al. [Daily Deadwood Pioneer-Times (SD), May 24, 1898; Black Hills Union (Rapid City SD), July 29, 1898].
In May, the South Dakota General Congregational Association at its annual meeting in Huron adopted a resolution in support of equal suffrage “with a burst of enthusiasm” — “Resolved, That this Association hereby acknowledges the influence that our mothers and sisters have exerted and are now exercising towards the establishing of the kingdom of God on earth. That as a body of Christian disciples we recognize the elevating social influence of the Christian women in our churches and land to-day. That, whereas our last Legislature by a joint resolution of the House and Senate, with a good sound majority, honored the cause of woman’s enfranchisement by submitting the question to the people of the State to be voted on at the next general election, Be it further resolved that as a further mark of our appreciation of their social and moral work, we hereby recognize as noble the desire of these same mothers and sisters for political equality with their husbands, fathers and brothers. Resolved, That as our Lord gave woman full social freedom, so we, as His professed followers, hereby agree to use all honorable means to release her from present limitations, and to place her upon a political equality with the other citizens of our State” The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), June 11, 1898, p.191, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
Letter to Mrs. Ida Crouch-Hazlett from Capitola C. Butterfield (teacher at Ogallala Boarding School) advising Crouch-Hazlett not to come to Pine Ridge to campaign for suffrage–demonstrating racism towards the Oglala Lakota people, July 20, 1898: “You would reach here about 12 (noon) by stage from Rushville Neb. There is a Hotel at Agency where the accommodations are good for an Agency. How long it would take you – I have no idea but the trip would be an expensive one for you I fear, and as there are places where so many more civilized people live, it would seem that the money could be better expended.” #2021-04-07-0016, Box 6676, Folder 4, WCTU & Suffrage Correspondence -July 1898 Folder 2, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives.
June 21-22, 25: The South Dakota Scandinavian Temperance Society held its fifth annual meeting in Bradley, and one of the resolutions passed was in favor of equal suffrage [Lahlum in Lahlum/Rozum, Equality at the Ballot Box, 174].
August: SDESA secretary Clare Williams opened a state headquarters office above the Collins’ clothing store in Brookings [Semi-Weekly Register (Brookings SD), August 9, 1898].
September: Anna Simmons and Emma Cranmer continued campaign lecture tours, speaking almost nightly [Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), September 22, 1898; The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), September 23, 1898; et al.]. According to one article published in Colorado after the election, Simmons’ “eldest daughter, a girl of 19, can look after things at home during the weeks when her mother is gone. Mrs. Simmons is a motherly looking, handsome woman, and makes an earnest, convincing address.” In the same article, Cranmer reported that she had “‘spent considerable time in the Russian settlements in Turner county and met with a surprisingly cordial reception. One of the Russian women who took part in an entertainment to raise money for suffrage work had stacked fifty stacks of grain this year. Surely she is entitled to the ballot. The Scandinavian vote is ours in a very large measure, and they are giving us aid and co-operation which is effective and encouraging. Bishop O’Gorman of Sioux Falls, is an ardent suffragist, and his outspoken utterances will carry great weight in the coming election with the Roman Catholics of the state.'” [Springfield Herald (CO), November 11, 1898].
Speaking on the futility of planning country meetings during the harvest: “It is just work, work away into the night. How can such parties get away to attend Equal Suffrage meetings?” Letter to Mrs. Clare M. Williams from Miss Josephine F. Cloyd, September 17 and 20, 1898, #2021-04-19-0042, Box 6676, Folder 14, WCTU & Suffrage Correspondence – September 1898, Folder 5, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives.
Through the month of September, Crouch-Hazlett also toured through eighteen points around Minnehaha County [Süd Dakota Nachrichten (Sioux Falls SD), September 1, 1898; Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), September 8, 1898, et al.]. It was reported that Crouch-Hazlett claimed “that active opposition to the movement has ceased in the state except among classes that have everything to fear from upward social movements” [Turner County Herald (Hurley SD), September 22, 1898; The Herald-Advance (Milbank SD), September 23, 1898; et al.].
After hearing that Crouch-Hazlett’s talks “do more harm than good for the equal suffrage cause,” the Mitchell suffrage club cancelled her talks there, but she refused their authority to cancel the engagements [Mitchell Capital (SD), September 30, 1898]. She commented that it was “the culminating point of differences of opinions among the state suffragists regarding the methods of conducting a successful campaign” and that “it is folly to appeal to merely the church-going people in the treatment of a question that must be settled at the polls by all classes of people. It has been said all along by the best suffragists in the state and elsewhere that this would be the rock upon which South Dakota would split” [Mitchell Capital (SD), October 7, 1898]. Others in the county hosted her, including talks at the Methodist church in Mount Vernon–one on Saturday evening on suffrage and one on Sunday evening on social reforms–and they commented that she was a “forcible and logical speaker… will be the occasion of much talk and much thought by both men and women. We believe that much good has been accomplished by her coming here” [Mitchell Capital (SD), October 7, 1898, October 21, 1898]. In late October, she went also to Bon Homme County [Mitchell Capital (SD), October 21, 1898].
September-October 17: Mrs. W. Winslow Crannell (Albany NY) did a two-week South Dakota speaking tour in opposition to equal suffrage. A woman speaking against woman suffrage had a great impact. Crannell was a leader in the New York State Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women, and, according to historian Paula Nelson, had been invited to Minnesota by Marietta Bones. Her tour took her to Yankton, Sioux Falls, Mitchell, Huron, Aberdeen, Vermillion, Milbank, and stops in-between. The Sturgis Record printed Anti literature, while suffragists in Sturgis invited Lena Morrow, an Illinois suffragist working in South Dakota, to counter their arguments [Mitchell Capital (SD), October 14, 1898; The State Democrat (Aberdeen SD), October 21, 1898; Kimball Graphic (SD), October 29, 1898; Topeka State Journal (KS), November 5, 1898; Griggs Courier (Cooperstown ND), December 8, 1898; “Albany anti-suffragist Mrs. W. W. Crannell, to campaign in South Dakota.” JK1881 .N357 sec. XVI, no. 3-9 NAWSA Coll series: Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1897-1911, Library of Congress; Scrapbook 3 (1897-1904); Kingsbury, History of Dakota Territory, vol. 3 (1915), 791; Nelson in Lahlum/Rozum, Equality at the Ballot Box, 139-142, 145].
In September and October, Ulrikka F. Bruun also came from Chicago to speak to Norwegian audiences, including a schoolhouse tour in Marshall/Roberts Counties and speeches at the Norwegian Lutheran church in Madison and in Dell Rapids [Article about Mrs. Bruun’s Equal Suffrage Lectures, #2021-04-14-0066, Box 6676, Folder 11, WCTU & Suffrage Correspondence – September 1898, Folder 2, H91-74, Pickler Papers, SD State Archives; Madison Daily Leader (SD), October 18, 1898, October 19, 1898].
October: A (another?) state convention was held in Sioux Falls with speakers Carrie Chapman Catt, Henrietta Moore, and Mary G. Hay, and many sessions open to the public [Anthony/Harper, History of Woman Suffrage vol. 4, 558-559].
Because there were no NAWSA organizers directing state efforts, the SDESA did more outreach to certain ethnic communities. Yankton County’s chair Matilda Vanderhule requested German and Scandinavian speakers from the SDESA. One of the speakers who did come, Emma Cranmer, only spoke English, but prioritized reaching new audiences by touring rural ethnic communities, with 13 stops in 15 days. She reported “inroads among Scandinavians” with a Norwegian newspaper agreeing to publish campaign literature and a Danish storekeeper agreeing to distribute it to their customers. The SDESA eventually sent Norwegian speakers to Yankton County for limited tours [Egge, “Ethnicity and Woman Suffrage,” in Lahlum & Rozum, Equality at the Ballot Box, 228-231].
“Victory for the women in this election means the addition of 100,000 voters to the state. For the most part they are white persons, native born, and for them is claimed a high average of intelligence, industry and thrift.” Kimball Graphic (SD), October 14, 1898.
In Brookings there were both active suffrage and anti-suffrage clubs, the Register commented: “Who says the ladies would not be divided in their political opinions? … If they wage a hot campaign, the male sex had better take to the woods on election day.” Semi-Weekly Register (Brookings SD), October 21, 1898.
November: After much confusion about the election results, Jane Breeden reported final numbers to The Woman’s Journal — “A telegram from Mrs. Breeden gives the result of the official count as follows: Yes, 19,678; No, 22,983; adverse majority, 3,285. Eight years ago the adverse majority was 23,610” [Kimball Graphic (SD), November 26, 1898; Black Hills Union (Rapid City SD), December 2, 1898; The State Democrat (Aberdeen SD), December 9, 1898; Black Hills Union and Western Stock Review (Rapid City SD), October 21, 1910; The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), December 17, 1898, p.408, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University].
“Pierre, S. D., Feb. 28, 1899. Editors Woman’s Journal: The fact that the first reports in regard to our suffrage amendment announced that it had carried has helped our cause. Many women who had not avowed themselves to be suffragists said it made them feel of more importance as individuals than they had ever done before, and they were glad to be made voters. The long period of uncertainty as to the final result kept public interest alive. If the vote were taken again now, there would be a large vote cast on each side. The change in the status of the question in social circles here is quite marked. In our women’s club meetings, where two years ago one was stared at for introducing the subject, we now find three-fourths of the members active suffragists, and various phases of the matter are continually claiming warm and earnest consideration. As soon as people come to see that the right of suffrage is a fundamental principle, concerning women’s lives and all the affairs of State just as man suffrage affects men, and realize that it is divorced from prohibition by its promoters, the case is won, except with the occasional politican[sic] whose methods will not bear the test of women’s scrutiny… Jane R. Breeden.” The Woman’s Journal (Boston MA), March 4, 1899, p.72, Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“The recent election is believed to have settled this question for some time to come.” Custer Weekly Chronicle (SD), November 26, 1898 (quoting a Nov. 21 Sioux Falls article).
When the amendment failed at the 1898 ballot, Carrie Chapman Catt blamed the complications of South Dakota’s third-party politics and their foreign-born supporters, many of whom were anti-prohibition. According to historian Sara Egge, she said she would refuse to support the SDESA until they effectively broke off from the WCTU, and, in December, she wrote to local suffrage associations encouraging them to bypass the state organization and work directly with NAWSA [Egge, “Ethnicity and Woman Suffrage,” in Lahlum & Rozum, Equality at the Ballot Box (2019), 232].
History in South Dakota 