Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/842

 

The first agitation of the question of woman suffrage in Minnesota, and the first petitions to the Legislature to grant it, began immediately after the Civil War, through the efforts of Mrs. Sarah Burger Stearns and Mrs. Mary J. Colburn, and the first suffrage societies were formed by these ladies in 1869. The work has continued with more or less regularity up to the present.

From 1883 to 1890 the State Suffrage Association held its annual meetings regularly in one or the other of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis and St. Paul. Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, the Hon. William Dudley Foulke, Mary A. Livermore, the Rev. Ada C. Bowles, Abigail Scott Duniway and other eminent advocates were secured as speakers at different times. Dr. Martha G. Ripley succeeded Mrs. Sarah Burger Stearns as president in 1883, and was reelected each year until 1889. She was followed by Mrs. Ella M. S. Marble for that year, and Dr. Mary Emery for 1890.

The association contributed toward sending Mrs. Julia B. Nelson to South Dakota to speak in the suffrage campaign of 1890. On November 18, 19, the State convention was held in St. Paul. Mrs. Stearns presiding. Mrs. Nelson was elected president. Among the speakers were Attorney-General Moses E. Clapp, the Reverends Mr. Vail and Mr. Morgan, Mrs. A. T. Anderson, Mrs. Priscilla M. Niles, Mrs. Ella Tremain Whitford and the Rev. Olympia Brown of Wisconsin.

In the autumn of 1891 the convention met at Blue Earth City. This place had not lost the savor of the salt which Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Phoebe W. Couzins had scattered