Suffrage experts Liz Almlie, Ruth Page Jones and Kelly Kirk outline the long fight by South Dakota leaders Mamie Shields Pyle of Huron, Mabel Rewman of Deadwood and Ruth Hipple of Pierre to secure women the right to vote.
Liz Almlie has worked for the South Dakota State Historical Society as a Historic Preservation Specialist since 2011. She received her B.A. in History at Augustana College, Sioux Falls, in 2008, and her M.A. in Public History at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, in 2010. She presently serves on the board for the National Collaborative of Women’s History Sites. Almlie wrote an article on stories from the South Dakota suffrage movement for a 2020 issue of South Dakota History and posts other research findings on the blog site: historysouthdakota.wordpress.....
Ruth Page Jones received her Master of Arts in History from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee after a career in information technology and nonprofit management. With deep family roots in Aurora County, South Dakota, she has written several papers on that area's history. Her article on the South Dakota suffrage movement was published in the Fall 2020 issue of South Dakota History and her essay on school suffrage in South Dakota appeared in Equality at the Ballot Box: Votes for Women on the Northern Great Plains, published by the South Dakota Historical Society Press in 2019.
Kelly Kirk, inspired by her surroundings, has spent her career as a historian dis-covering and telling the stories of the people and the places where she has lived. She is the Director of the Sanford Lab Homestake Visitor Center, a space where history, community, and world-leading science collide. She also serves as a history instructor, Veterans Legacy Program lead, and is active on several local and regional boards.
This video was made possible by our partner, the South Dakota Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.