A Woman’s Work: Changing the Course of History
This year, the United States celebrated the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage. The country has taken a close look at the incredible time, effort and sacrifice women in America put toward achieving their right to vote, demanding equality and fair treatment.
Women’s Suffrage wasn’t the only cause that cultivated leaders across the nation; women made their mark on state and national history by plowing through stereotypes and degradation, showing that a woman’s true place is in directing the course of history, moving society forward into a new place of inclusion and respect.
Back to the Beginning
While the Great Dakota Wilderness was still sparsely settled, immigrants came to the prairie as families, single men and even single women. Thousands of women led their own homestead efforts in Dakota Territory, turning up sod, leading plow teams, sustaining livestock and food supplies. These Pioneer Women were fiercely independent and hardy— embodying the German-Russian expression “Arbeit mach das Leben süb” or “Work makes life sweet.”
Women in pioneer families also did an incredible breadth of work alongside their husbands and children to make a living. They broke the sod and planted crop, milked cows, gathered eggs, herded cattle, made products like butter and soap, sewed and mended clothing, washed clothes, grew gardens, canned fruits, meats and vegetables, made five meals a day for their farming men, and raising their children. They were busy from before sunrise to long after the stars came out. Hardy. Loving. Strong.
“The Mrs. Files”
Many of the superhero pioneer women have a first name unknown to history. Lori Nohner, with the North Dakota State Historical Society, has been digging into historical documents to try and put the proper name to various donated items. Many women were only recorded as “Mrs. Last Name” or “Mrs. Husband’s Name,” their identity inextricably linked to the head of the household. Nohner has dedicated time and effort to retrieving these lost names.
“I believe it is important that these women are remembered as themselves, not only by the names of their loved ones,” she writes. “Researching and recording these first names ensures their work and contributions to the state’s history are remembered.”
The New York Times has recently published a series of its own entitled “The Mrs. Files,” recalling this same issue and the research that continues to uncover these lost names.
Redefining “A Woman’s Place”
Pioneer Women set the stage for other strong women—no matter their life’s work—to rise from the prairie. Here are a few North Dakotans who took life by the horns and made their own, in turn directing the course of the state’s (and nation’s) history.
Laura J. Kelly Eisenhuth (1859-1937) Laura J. Kelly Eisenhuth became the first woman in the nation elected to state office when she became North Dakota’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. She won with 19,078 votes to opponent Joseph M. Devine’ 17,343. The veteran teacher’s election to state office garnered extensive state and national news coverage. At that time, North Dakota women could vote only in school matters, and Eisenhuth reasoned that if women could vote for the State Superintendent, they sure as heck could fill the position, too. Though she lost her bid for re-election in 1894, Eisenhuth had paved the way for women looking to serve in state office: in 1894, Antoinette Peavey was elected State Superintendent in Colorado and Estelle Reel won in Wyoming in 1896.
Elizabeth Preston
Anderson (1861-1954)
Barnes County’s most prominent figure in the Women’s Suffrage movement was Elizabeth Preston Anderson, from the Tower City area. She was a Christian woman and former teacher, in the early to mid-1900s solely working with the local chapter of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union she had organized. Preston Anderson expanded the group’s mission to also include supporting women’s suffrage and she was a huge leader in organizing groups, appointing leaders and encouraging women across the state to get involved in politics. She testified at the State Capitol multiple times, advocating, for both alcohol education and women’s suffrage.
When North Dakota Governor Lynn Frazier signed the Woman suffrage bill on January 13, 1917, Elizabeth Preston Anderson was directly to his right.
Dr. Fannie Quain
(1874-1950)
Fannie Almara Dunn Quain was the first woman born in North Dakota to earn a doctor of medicine degree. She graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1898 and returned to her home state to champion a state campaign to eradicate Tuberculosis. Dr. Quain co-founded the North Dakota Tuberculosis Association, serving as the organization's secretary, treasurer, vice-president and president at different times. She also established the state’s first baby clinic and the State Sanatorium at San Haven, while raising public awareness of Tuberculosis to slow its spread.
In addition to raising two kids, Dr. Quain spent most of her years as an active member of
the public health and medical communities. In her professional career, she served as president of the North Dakota State Board of Health, Chaired the Nurse Training School Committee in Bismarck, was president of the Nurses Training School and acted as regional director of the Medical Women's National Association for North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. She helped raise the state’s standard of nurses’ training, assisted in fighting a deadly pandemic, saved lives as a physician and advocated for more women in medicine throughout her 75 years.
Minnie Craig (1883-1966) Three years after women gained the right to vote, Minnie Craig and Nellie Dougherty became the first two women elected to the North Dakota House of Representatives. Craig went on to serve six consecutive terms and made national history when she was elected Speaker of the House in 1933. She became the first woman in US history to serve as head of a legislative body.
She knew women should be involved in politics—as they were— and not as society and male leaders might see them: “women must... play politics as women and not as weak imitations of their ‘lords and masters.’”
During her tenure as Speaker, North Dakota faced a steep agricultural depression due to drought. She decided to leave the legislature when the session ended, dedicated to helping her home state in its turmoil. Craig continued her legacy of service as a state worker for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration.
Pearl Young (1895-1968)
North Dakota native Pearl Young left home at the age of 11 to work as a domestic in order to attend high school. She studied at Jamestown College for two years before transferring to the University of North Dakota, where she graduated in 1919 with a triple major in physics, mathematics and chemistry. Young taught physics at UND for a few years before she was hired as a physicist by National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA — the agency that later became NASA) to work at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Virginia. She was only the second woman hired as a physicist by the federal government.
While at NACA, Young developed a technical writing system to improve the organization and clarity of the committee’s publications. That system is still used, in part, by NASA today.
She retired in 1961,
three years after NACA became NASA, and taught at universities and studied aeronautics until her death in 1968.
Era Bell Thompson
(1905-1986)
Era Bell Thompson was born in Iowa in 1905 and moved with her family to a farm in near Driscol, North Dakota in 1914 at the age of 9. Her experiences as one of the few Black North Dakotans in the early 1900s made Thompson feel alienated, and “less than” in the eyes of those around her. She graduated Bismarck High School in 1924 and enrolled at UND. Despite challenges finding housing and jobs that would accept her, she excelled both academically and athletically. She began writing for the campus newspaper and also broke five UND women's track records (tying two national records).
Thompson earned her journalism degree from Morningside College in Iowa and moved to Chicago in 1933 to work as a housekeeper. In 1945, she wrote her autobiography detailing her experiences as a young black woman in North Dakota. The book launched Thompson into a 40year career as writer and journalist, serving for a long time as editor at the nationally prominent African-American magazine Ebony. In 1954, her travels through 18 African countries led to
her book, “Africa, Land of My Fathers” which recounts the raw firsthand encounters she had in the places of her heritage. Marie Tyler (1908-2002)
Women in agriculture, farming and ranching became more prominent on the state and national level thanks in large part to North Dakota’s Marie Tyler.
Tyler and her husband Jim owned JJ Ranch in Bismarck, where they
raised Santa Gertrudis Cattle and Quarter Horses. Tyler participated in a wide array of riding competitions throughout the state, and her success led her to become the first North Dakotan and woman to win the Western Pleasure stake
riding competition at the Minnesota State Fair in 1957.
Throughout her life, Tyler was active in many agricultural organizations, promoting the industry and sharing its importance and evolution. She was a leader in
the American National Cattlemen’s Association and the national organization now known as the American National CattleWomen, which focuses on beef promotion, education and legislation.
These women —and
many more — took initiative in living the life they wanted to, whether or not it was the societal norm. They helped show the world that a woman’s place is in the house….. and the senate (and anywhere else she darn well pleases).