Myrtle Cain

Known as the “flapper legislator,” Myrtle Agnes Cain was a lifelong women’s rights activist and labor organizer. When she was elected to the Minnesota House in 1922, she and three other women became the state’s first female legislators.

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Alice Tripp

A self-proclaimed “jumper-inner,” Alice Tripp made her mark as a grassroots activist and self-taught farmer. She was a key leader of a movement opposing the CU Powerline, which began construction on western Minnesota farmland in the early 1970s.

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Eugenie Moore Anderson

Eugenie Moore Anderson emerged as a trailblazer for American women in international diplomacy during the post-World War II era. In 1949 she became the first American woman to hold the rank of ambassador.

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Meridel Le Sueur

For more than seventy years, the Minnesota-based writer and activist Meridel Le Sueur was a voice for oppressed peoples worldwide. Beginning in the 1920s, she championed the struggles of workers against the capitalist economy, the efforts of women to find their voices and their power, the rights of American Indians to their lands and their cultures, and environmentalist causes.

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Hannah Jensen Kempfer

Hannah Jensen Kempfer was the first woman from rural Minnesota elected to the state legislature, serving nine terms in the Minnesota legislature between 1922 and 1942.

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Deb Haaland

Secretary Deb Haaland made history when she became the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary.

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