Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
The Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial was erected by the Nineteenth Amendment Celebration Committee of the League of Women Voters of Minnesota. Planning began in 1994 and the memorial was dedication on August 26, 2000. The memorial consists of a garden planted in the suffragist colors and a 90-foot trellis honoring 25 leaders of the suffrage movement in Minnesota.
Images
Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial
Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial
The design of the memorial garden is meant to represent the landscape of Minnesota created by the last glacial age
Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial
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Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial
Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial
Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial
Harriet Bishop (engraving by J.C. Buttre, c. 1860)
Jane Grey Swisshelm, c. 1860
Sarah Burger Stearns, 1880
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Dr. Martha George Rogers Ripley, c. 1905 (photograph by Marcus W. Owens)
Julia B. Nelson, c. 1866
Gratia Countryman, 1917
Emily Gilman Noyes
Members of the Political Equality Club in 1915. Ethel Edgerton Hurd is center in the back row. (Minnesota Historical Society)
Maud Conkey Stockwell
Professor Maria Sanford, 1918
Nanny Mattson Jaeger, 1919 (Library of Congress)
Josephine S. Simpson (Minnesota Historical Society)
Fanny Fligelman Brin. c. 1925 (photograph by Eugene G. Garrett)
Josephine Schain with Eugene C. Gibney, 1920
Sarah Colvin as National Chairman of the Women's Party, 1918
Clara Hampson Ueland, c. 1918
Nellie Griswold Francis, c. 1924
Anna Dickie Olesen, c. 1922
Bertha Berglin Moller
The woman seated at the center of this photo is likely Marguerite Milton Wells (Minnesota Historical Society)
Alice Ames Winter, c. 1923
Mabeth Hurd Paige, c. 1925
Myrtle Cain
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
The process of erecting this monument on the Minnesota State Capitol grounds began in 1994 when the League of Women Voters of Minnesota formed a committee to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the 19th Amendment ratification. In addition to planning commemoration events in 1995 the committee worked with the Capitol Area Architectural Planning Board to create a monument to the Women’s Suffrage Movement on the Capitol grounds.
The Nineteenth Amendment Celebration Committee requested designs for a memorial garden that would feature the suffragist colors of yellow, white, and purple. The winning design by Ralph Nelson, Raveevarn Choksombachai, and Martha McQuade of Loom Studio and Roger Grothe of Aloha Landscaping is titled “Garden of Time: Landscape of Change.” The committee raised $500,000 to fund the project from the state legislature and private donations. The groundbreaking ceremony was held on August 26, 1998 and the memorial was dedicated on August 26, 2000 (the 80th anniversary of the 19th Amendment ratification).
The design of the garden is meant to mimic the natural landscape of Minnesota and was originally planted with bulbs and wildflowers in the suffragist colors. Along one end of the garden is a 90-foot steel trellis that features the names of 25 leaders of the Minnesota suffrage movement. The trellis symbolizes the timeline of the suffrage movement in the state and nation with each vertical pole representing a year in the movement and the horizontal pieces corresponding with the lifetime of each featured suffragist. As a plaque on the monument states: “The cooperation of women in this movement for significant social change is physically reflected in the construction of the trellis. Each element while being singularly important cannot stand on its own, but when woven together form a strong unique structure.” There is also a series of tablets detailing the fight for the vote in Minnesota. Many of the original plantings did not survive so the landscape architects of Aloha Landscaping returned in 2004 to refurbish the gardens with hardier plants.
The 25 Minnesota Suffragists Honored on the Memorial Trellis:
Harriet Bishop (1818-1883)
Mary Jackman Colburn (1811-1901)
Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815-84)
Sarah Burger Stearns (1836-1904)
Martha Rogers Ripley (1843-1912)
Julia Bullard Nelson (1842-1914)
Gratia Countryman (1866-1953)
Emily Gilman Noyes (1854-1930)
Ethel Edgerton Hurd (1845-1929)
Maud Conkey Stockwell (1863-1958)
Maria Sanford (1836-1920)
Nanny Mattson Jaeger (1859-1938)
Josephine Sarles Simpson (1862-1948)
Fanny Fligelman Brin (1884-1961)
Josephine Schain (1886-1972)
Sarah Tarleton Colvin (1865-1949)
Clara Hampson Ueland (1860-1927)
Nellie Griswold Francis (1874-1969)
Elizabeth Hunt Harrison (1848-1931)
Anna Dickie Olesen (1885-1971)
Bertha Berglin Moller (1888-unknown)
Marguerite Milton Wells (1872-1959)
Alice Ames Winter (1865-1944)
Mabeth Hurd Paige (1870-1961)
Myrtle Cain (1894-1980)
Sources
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