Julia Bullard Nelson
Nelson spent the summers of the 1870s and 1880s in Minnesota, where she emerged as a state and national leader in the movement for women’s suffrage and the temperance campaign against alcohol use.
Category Archives: Activism > Social Reform
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Sarah Burger Stearns
Sarah Burger Stearns was a committed reformer dedicated to the cause of women’s rights. She founded one of Minnesota’s first suffrage organizations, the Rochester Woman Suffrage Association, in her home city of Rochester. In 1881, she was elected the first president of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA).
Martha Dorsett
Martha Angle Dorsett is best known for being Minnesota’s first female lawyer. After being denied the right to practice law in Minnesota in 1876, she successfully petitioned the Minnesota legislature to change the state law governing attorney admissions. With the law amended to permit admission regardless of sex, Martha went on to practice law and remained active politically throughout the rest of her life in Minneapolis.
Anna Dickie Olesen
The first female nominee of a major party for the US Senate, Anna Dickie Olesen was a celebrated orator and passionate social reformer who became one of the most prominent Democratic women of the early twentieth century.
Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark Van Cleve
Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark Van Cleve was the child of a military family and a crusader for the rights of disadvantaged people in Minnesota and beyond. Born during her parents’ journey to help build the future Fort Snelling, she lived to see a fledgling community grow into an urban center.
Clara Ueland
Clara Ueland was a lifelong women’s rights activist and prominent Minnesotan suffragist.
Fannie Barrier Williams
Civil rights activist who helped found the National League of Colored Women in 1893
Adeline Davis
Canadian temperance reformer and author
Maria Grant
Canadian social reformer, suffragist, school trustee, secretary, probation officer, and Unity movement preacher
Ada Kepley
American attorney, temperance agitator and minister