Lori Walsh: 2020 is the centennial year of the ratification of the 19th amendment, which assured that women in the United States have a right to vote. SDPB has embarked on a project to tell the history of suffrage in South Dakota. Today we continue our look at that history by welcoming Lori Ann Lahlum to the program. She's a Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator for the Department of History at Minnesota State University in Mankato, and she is co-author of the book, Equality at the Ballot Box, Votes for Women on the Northern Great Plains and she joins us now on the phone. Welcome professor, we appreciate your time.
Lori Ann Lahlum: Well, thank you. I'm thrilled to be here, Lori.
Lori Walsh: I think a lot of people might be surprised about how far back this conversation about women voting in our region goes. Before we get started with some details, tell me a little bit about your interest in this. You wrote this book with Molly Rozum, who's been a guest on this program as well, and I'm sure will be again. Why study women's suffrage? What kind of drew you into this?
Lori Ann Lahlum: Well, my training, I do Western women's gender and sexuality history. And so I've always been interested in women in the West. And I attended a session at an organization of American Historians Conference, where there was a discussion about the Washington State Women's Suffrage Centennial and the kinds of things they were doing. And it occurred to me, because of the Northern Great Plains History Conference, and the fact that I've been long involved with the Northern Great Plains History Conference as has Molly, that there needed to be something done there to try to generate interest in commemorating this milestone, of course, recognizing the problems with the amendment.
And so that's actually how I started doing research on women's suffrage, because I started organizing these sessions, starting with round tables at the Northern Great Plains History Conference, and it just kind of grew from there. I will add that the book is the brain child of Nancy Koupal Tystad. I had lower ambitions, I thought a special issue of all of the state historical society journals in the area of the Northern Great Plains History Conference in South Dakota was on board with that. But then Nancy said, "You know what, why not do a book?" And so it's been wonderful working with Molly on this project.
Lori Walsh: Yeah, it's a fabulous book and it is really helping me walk through this year and learning some history that I didn't know. And let's go back because I'm looking at some stuff that you have and Dakota Territory organized in 1861. Take us back to the sort of beginnings. When does the conversation about women being able to vote even start surfacing?
Lori Ann Lahlum: Well, the political discussion, and I'm framing it as political discussion because I'm sure conversations took place at club meetings and in households and things like that, but the political discussion began in 1868, which was earlier than I thought when we started working on this project. A lot has been, well I shouldn't say a lot, but it's usually noted that women's suffrage nearly passed the Dakota Territorial Legislature in 1872. And so when I started looking through the actual journals of the House and the Council, I was somewhat surprised to learn that in fact, there had been legislation introduced in 1868.
Lori Walsh: So this is, women are here then at this point, how many women are even part of this conversation and who are they? And when I say what women are here, clearly, that is a complex question because there are many indigenous women here at this point, and we're primarily at this point talking about white women who have come to this region. So talk a little bit about who is here and how are they part of the conversation?
Lori Ann Lahlum: Well, a lot of the women they're actually unknown, or at least we have an uncovered sources identifying these women. There are references about women being engaged in the conversation in terms of what was taking place in the legislature. Some of it is done quite facetiously that no, women really aren't interested, but there have been comments made that women were in fact, or at least some women, were unhappy, white women were unhappy when this legislation wasn't enacted. But unfortunately there aren't names that are listed. One of the early accounts of this that provides some detail is provided by Alice Pickler in terms of flushing out the story a little bit, because if you look at what appears in the journal for the House and the Council, there's very little that actually is said, the newspapers provide a little more context, but I think there are lots of suffrage questions that still remain to be answered.
Lori Walsh: When we're looking at 1868, you mentioned facetiousness, I want to ask you about the sense of mischief making or mocking. Were the efforts to sort of include women in voting that early serious efforts, or were they kind of a joke?
Lori Ann Lahlum: Well, there is some question about that. It appears that the bill that passed the House may have in fact, been a serious effort to give women the right to vote. Why Enos Stutsman introduced the legislation, we don't know. I looked and looked and looked and have not been able to find any collection of his papers. He actually died when he was relatively young so that could be part of it. He was also a bachelor so perhaps his papers weren't preserved. So it's not exactly clear why he introduced the legislation. He was at the time, a Representative in the House from the Pembina District. And he had advocated for hiring a woman customs agent. Now it's a little bit complicated, did he really believe in kind of the idea that women could and should have this kind of position, or is it because he was advocating for a close friend and he lived in fact with this woman's family?
So there's a lot that we don't know as to why he introduced it. It seems that the Senate, or excuse me, the Council Bill is more problematic because the chief proponent of that was actually a well known brewer from Yankton. And the fact that the bill that passed the Council was defeated by those who supported women's suffrage, for the most part, including Stutsman in the House, seems to imply that there was something problematic with that House Bill. I've looked and looked. Perhaps they exist somewhere, the wording of the legislation, but I haven't been able to find it. The journal doesn't actually include the wording of the legislation, just the name of the bill that was introduced, who's voting for it, who's voting against it. It's pretty bare bones.
Lori Walsh: Yeah, when you have the early days of a few women, few white women, coming to be part of this male contingency here in Dakota Territory, there can be a sense of doing more. Restrictions that might have applied in the city might not apply out here. Does it frustrate you to not have more of their history, to not have more of their papers and their memories. What do you wish that you could find that you can't find as a historian?
Lori Ann Lahlum: Well, actually what I wish that I could find more primary sources from immigrant women because actually the South Dakota State Historical Society has a pretty robust collection because of the Alice Pickler papers, and USD has the Mamie Shields Pyle Papers, so there are some really nice collections that exist that are very broad in South Dakota, unlike North Dakota which suffrage records are few and far between in North Dakota. So there is quite a bit that exists, but of course we would like to know more. We would also like to know more about indigenous women and suffrage. There are some tantalizing evidence of some engagement with woman's suffrage in South Dakota, but that's a story that needs to be that needs to be fleshed out.
I'll also add that when mentioning the introduction of that 1868 Bill, it's probably good to remember the time period. This is reconstruction in the United States. But the year before, Congress had changed a law, which made it illegal for territorial constitutions to prohibit African-American men from voting. And Dakota territory after the law was enacted very quickly changed the Constitution of Dakota territory to include suffrage for African-American man, whereas Montana resisted and resisted and resisted making that move. So there is kind of something in the 1860s that seems to be going on in this area.
Lori Walsh: So my daughter voted for the first time in this upcoming primary election and we did the paper ballots, absentee ballots here during the pandemic. One of the choices she had to make was for school board. And I thought that was rather interesting because to her, it was like, well school board I don't know much about it. She had to do some research. The idea of women voting in a school board election was pretty important early on. Tell me a little bit about how early is that one of the drivers for including women in the vote.
Lori Ann Lahlum: Yeah, and that's the earliest. This idea that that school is an extension of a motherhood, if you will, of the domestic sphere and that women should have a voice in educating children. The first law in the United States was in 1838. It wasn't all women, there were qualifications on women, but it was in Kentucky that women could vote on school matters if they paid taxes and some other things. But it's really the 1870s where there's a huge increase in the number of states and territories that, to some degree, allow women the right to vote in school issues. And in Dakota Territory, it's kind of complicated. Ruth Paige Jones has done a wonderful job, kind of teasing out that complicated school suffrage issue. But at the end of the day, the reason why school suffrage is so important is because by voting in those school elections, women demonstrated that they could vote, that they were educated voters and it provided this ground work, this foundation for making an argument for broader voting rights.
Lori Walsh: Tell us a little bit about what happens next. We're going to have just about a minute left and we're going to have these conversations all summer long, I hope that we'll have you back as well, but after that sort of that early evidence in our remaining minute, what's the next big leap forward in this conversation?
Lori Ann Lahlum: Well 1885, and that is fascinating. We'll maybe have to talk about that another time, because 1885 is the year that Dakota Territory should have gotten the right to vote for white women. And I say that because the territorial legislature passed the bill, both houses and then the Governor vetoed it. And there was a lot of heartache over the veto of that legislation. Susan B. Anthony was still upset about it in the early 20th century that Governor Pierce vetoed the bill.
Lori Walsh: Oh, we'll talk more about that as we have a summer of conversations about this topic. Lori Ann Lahlum is co-author of the book, Equality at the Ballot Box, and she's Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator for the Department of History at Minnesota State University. Thank you so much for being here with us today, we really appreciate your time.
Lori Ann Lahlum: Oh well thank you, I enjoyed it.
Lori Walsh: SDPB is project about the history of women's suffrage in the state will continue throughout 2020. We'll feature profiles of prominent suffragists and delve into the contentious politics between those in favor and those opposed. And look for an SDPB TV documentary coming late this summer called, Simple Justice, Suffrage in South Dakota. SDPB is partnered in the project with PBS and WGBH in Boston and their series, The Vote, which looks at the suffrage struggle on a national level. You can find all our suffrage history coverage on our website sdpb.org/thevotesd.