S01 E07 South Dakota: Allies in Suffrage, Powerhouse Couples & The Flying Squadron

In this episode, Liz Almlie talks about the struggle of the suffrage movement in South Dakota by visiting sites along the National Votes for Women Trail. 

We visit sites of the events and activists in the SD votes for women campaign. 

• Learn about the “Flying Squadron” suffrage rallies in the town of Lead where women gave street speeches and held rallies at the Homestake Opera Theater. 
• Alice and John Pickler were a political power couple that fought doggedly for suffrage despite being frequently ridiculed. 
• Mamie Shields Pyle, operating from her home in Huron, was a leader in the movement lobbying legislators and the public, including speaking year after year at the state fair. 
• Zitkála-Šá was a Yankton Dakota writer, musician, educator, and political activist. She fought for rights of American Indians including for citizenship and for women’s suffrage, often speaking at the Capitol in Pierre.

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Liz Almlie is a Historic Preservation Specialist with the South Dakota State Historic Preservation Office and is NVWT State Coordinator. She has researched the suffrage movement in South Dakota extensively and has an M.A. in Public History.

Links to People, Places, Publications

• South Dakota and the 19th Amendment (here)
• Alice and John Pickler, South Dakota Public Broadcasting (here)
• Pickler Suffrage Collection, South Dakota State Historical Society (here)
• Visit the historic Pickler Mansion in Faulkton (here)
• Mary Shields Pyle Biographical Sketch (here)
• Visit the historic Pyle House Museum in Huron (here)
• Zitkála-Šá Biographical Sketch (here)
• Visit the South Dakota State Capitol in Pierre (here)
• Visit and see a play at the Grand Opera house in Pierre (here)
• Visit the former St. Charles Hotel in Pierre (here)
• “Flying Squadron” or “Suffrage Special” speaking tours (here)
• Visit the Homestake Opera House in Lead (here)

CM Marihugh is a public history consultant and currently conducting independent research for a book on commemoration of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. She has an M.A. in Public History from State University of New York, and an M.B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Learn more about:

• National Votes for Women Trail (here)
• National Votes for Women Trail - William G. Pomeroy historical markers (here)
• National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (here)

Do you have a question, comment, or suggestion? Get in touch! Send an e-mail to NVWTpodcast@ncwhs.org

Transcript

SPEAKERS

CM Marihugh, Earth Mama, Liz Almlie

CM Marihugh  00:00

Welcome to Her March to Democracy where we're telling stories along The National Votes For Women Trail. The trail chronicles the fight for voting rights for women. The Suffragists or Suffs, as they were called, were the revolutionaries of their day and they battled the powers that be. These foot soldiers cut across the lines of geography, race, ethnicity, class, and gender, and numbered in the many 1000s over 70 plus years.

Earth Mama  00:36

We are standing on the shoulders 
Of the ones who came before us, 
They are safe, and they are humans. 
They are angels, they are friends. 

We can see beyond the struggles 
And the troubles and the challenge 
When we know that by our efforts 
Things will be better in the end.

CM Marihugh  01:09

Each episode is a tour on the trail to the places of struggle. The cities, the towns, where wins and defeats happened over and over again. Our theme music is Standing On The Shoulders by Joyce Johnson Rouse and recorded by Earth Mama. Join us on our travels to hear the stories along The National Votes For Women Trail. 

Today we'll be talking about stories and sites to visit along The National Votes For Women Trail in South Dakota. And I welcome Liz Almlie, who is a public historian who has worked for the South Dakota State Historic Preservation Office since 2011. And she started studying the suffrage movement in South Dakota in 2018. She is also the state coordinator for The National Votes For Women Trail. 

And I was just looking at the online trail map. And I see that South Dakota has at this point 58 sites, 58 locations that are linked to suffragists and suffrage events along with some historical markers. So there was a lot of activity in South Dakota. And I'm wondering, Liz, if you could start by giving us an overview of South Dakota's role in the fight for votes for women? 

Liz Almlie  02:39

Absolutely. So in South Dakota, there were people involved in the suffrage movement, trying to open the franchise to women starting actually from the 1860s. There were some votes in the territorial legislature about whether to allow women to vote. And at that point, there weren't even really that many people working on suffrage yet, as a movement. It might have been because they needed people to fill county offices. 

So they thought if they franchised women that would help with that issue. But both votes in 69 and 79 failed to pass. So we get the first actual campaigning in the 1880s with a local group around Webster that started and a guest speaker Matilda Joslyn Gage came from New York and did some campaigning along the railroad towns. And the Women's Christian Temperance Union was actually the first big organization to work for suffrage, which meant that over the decades, the issues of temperance and suffrage were very tightly connected, because the WCTU wanted to limit the sale and consumption of alcohol. 

And if- being a largely women based organization if they could vote, then they could vote for prohibition. So they really wanted suffrage to pass. South Dakota became a state in 1889. And our first campaign to have suffrage was in 1890, the first public ballot, and then over the course of the following years, there were six amendment campaigns. So there was definitely a lot of activity all across the state. Lots of people involved, each trying to get those passed. We had two state organizations, ultimately, one that started in 89 and went through the campaign for 1910. 

And then, a new organization formed in 1912 to take on the work and those two groups, The Equal Suffrage Association, and The Universal Franchise League usually had the support of the National Association at least with literature and speakers to Help with the campaigns. And they focused on the state amendments throughout this whole period. Late in 1917, 1918, there were some speakers that came on behalf of The Congressional Union For Women's Fuffrage, which later became The National Women's party. And they tried to do some recruiting in South Dakota, but there wasn't a lot of activity with those groups. 

So in the suffrage movement, the women really focused a lot on speaking in public holding meetings, writing letters, writing for newspapers, they usually worked sort of through the system, there was opposition, but it never became- reached the level of physical violence, usually. A lot of opposition was from the anti prohibition, people that were interested in continuing the sale and, and production of alcohol. One of the big issues, we had a lot of predominately Euro Americ- European immigrants coming into the state. 

And there- the suffrage groups were periodically focused on getting literature and speakers in foreign languages to go out to these immigrant settlement areas, predominantly Scandinavian and German. We do also have a large Native population in South Dakota. Now we have nine federally recognized tribes. But there wasn't a lot of outreach to the tribes, whether or not Native people could vote at the time depended a lot on their land on their- whether they were living on reservations, or affiliated with their tribes. 

And for the most part, they weren't citizens until finally the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act passed. So in the native community, there was movement towards citizenship from some segments of that population. But for the most part, they didn't work for the State suffrage amendments. They had concerns of their own that they were working on. But ultimately, in 1918, the state Amendment did pass. And South Dakota ratified the 19th. Amendment in December 1919.

CM Marihugh  07:17

So when you're talking about the state amendment that passed in 1918, you're saying that that was when South Dakota women were able to vote in all elections, including the Federal Election?

Liz Almlie  07:31

Correct. Yes, there was limited school suffrage, starting in the 1880s, I believe, so they could vote for school bond issues, school board elections.

CM Marihugh  07:42

So, that's really significant that South Dakota passed that it's like, so many of the other western states, I know, every year, its central North, but had given, granted women the right to vote, it seems like it was quite an active suffrage movement, because they had so many of these, you know, ballot campaigns. 

The other thing that you brought up that I thought is so similar, I think across the country, is the link between prohibition and suffrage, and how the liquor lobby really did not want women to get the right to vote. So they found ways to stop that from happening. I'm wondering if we could start on some of our stories. Where are we going first?

Liz Almlie  08:32

We're going to go to Faulkton first, and it's in the center of the state, a little bit on the east part. And it was the home of Alice and John Pickler, and Alice Pickler, she was born in 1848. And they came from Iowa to homestead in Faulk County in 1883. And set up their home just on the southern end of town. Alice was very interested in temperance and very interested in suffrage, and was active for most of the whole movement, from starting in the 1880s, all the way, at least in 1817. 

So her commitment was very consistent across this whole period. She was the franchise superintendent for the Christian- Women's Christian Temperance Union. Franchise and suffrage was her focus. And one of the first things she got to do was go with a few other women to the statehood Convention, which was being held in Sioux Falls, to decide on a state constitution to propose because a lot of the politicians at the time wanted to be a state. So there were conventions- Alice got to go to the 1885 convention, and they brought an appeal to cut male as a requirement. And they appeal that to the committee on elections. 

And although the convention then or in 1889, didn't  include it in the state constitution, they did require that the legislature put it on the first ballot, which is why we get this 1890 campaign as the first state ballot campaign. Alice continued, they lobbied the territorial legislatures in multiple years in the late 1880s. And she continued lobbying after we became a state, at least until 1907. And at one point, she told the national Suffrage Association at a convention, she said we would not have it written in the history of our state that any legislature had ever convened without are knocking at the door for suffrage. 

So she was very committed to making sure it was on the ballots on the the legislative agenda. And the close ties with prohibition, sort of hurts that the 1890 campaign went fairly well, there was a lot of activity. Prohibition had been part of the state constitution from the start. So it wasn't as big an obstacle in 1890 campaign. But there was movement to repeal prohibition going into the 1890s. So South Dakota had a suffrage campaign in 1898. But the anti prohibition people caused a lot of obstacles for them, and continuing to do so until finally the suffragists started to try to separate themselves in the early 1900s and keep the WCTU at a distance.

And although Alice continued to support the state association, she was most active with the WCTU and their franchise department. And she even ran that work. In 19 fourteens campaign from the office where her husband, her late husband had had his law practice, in Faulkton. So for suffrage, Alice did a lot of work, writing letters, putting together literature, even when her husband John, was in the US Congress. So they had- they were residing in Washington, DC. 

And she was writing letters, sort of in between people coming to speak to John about political issues, and the childcare and all the housework that she was doing. So in between all that she would take up her pen and address bundles of letters until either the baby wakes up or becomes tired of amusing himself. According to one of the women's periodicals, in 1890. She also attended a lot of the national conventions. And in 1894, was one of the people to go to Congress. 

And she spoke with the group of suffragists at the US Senate about federal legislation. She did support that national work, particularly while she was in DC, with her husband. Alice also was one of the first historians of the suffrage movement in South Dakota. She wrote The State History of Fuffrage for the volumes, The History of Women's Suffrage that were being put out by Susan B. Anthony, and Ida Husted Harper. 

She wrote it for the fourth volume, which was published in 1902. And that history also was repeated in her own County history, written by an acquaintance I'm sure. So there's a women's suffrage history in the 1909 history of Faulk County, South Dakota.

CM Marihugh  13:29

I know in discussing this, before we started, you had mentioned something about 36 yards of petitions. Would you recount that again. 

Liz Almlie  13:43

So, South Dakota had an unusual measure pass, I think around 1901. So the Suffrage Association tried to gather up enough petitions to put suffrage on the ballot, as an initiated measure, rather than having to go through the legislature. And that was denied by the Secretary of State and the State Attorney General, because they decided this new initiative process couldn't be used for constitutional amendments. 

And Alice was really upset about that specifically, because the Secretary of State was a Norwegian immigrant. And she said that he couldn't plainly speak the English language. And so she was frustrated that he was wanting to put that obstacle in front of women voting but sort of American women voting. So when they went to the legislature in 1907, they again had this big petition drive, but they presented it to the legislature 1907 and the newspaper said that it was 36 yards of petitions mounted on Canvas, and they had the legislative pages festoon it, unfurl it around the house chambers so that I I'm sure it was quite a spectacle.

CM Marihugh  15:01

Is there a picture of that?

Liz Almlie  15:04

Not that I've found so far.

CM Marihugh  15:07

Oh, what a shame. Okay. She was a dedicated activist, when you mentioned that she was part of a group of suffragists who spoke to the US Senate, I have often thought about the pluck of these women who not even just in their state houses, but in the US Senate and House. 

And those that went to talk to the President, the courage that that took, because, number one, the audience was all male and at least half and, and often, many more were against the idea of women voting of women being politically active. And I'm not always sure that they were very attentive, when these women were speaking. So the fact that they did that time and again, to me just shows how- their- their bravery and their courage. 

Now, I know Alice was part of a South Dakota power couple. So can you tell us about her husband?

Liz Almlie  16:13

So yes, John Pickler was a lawyer, also from Iowa, and served in the territorial legislature, and then eventually, in the US Congress. So her social circle was a lot of politicians, I'm sure. And that probably helped her with the confidence and sort of knowing the the landscape of legislative houses, and how to do that work, I bet. But John himself was a suffragist in his own right. He greatly supported Alice and her work for the WCTU. And while he was in the territorial legislature in 1885, they were meeting in Bismarck, and he brought a bill for equal suffrage to that legislature and debated it in the chambers, and had the support of some other politicians from Southern Dakota territory at the time. 

One was named VV Barnes, of De Smet, South Dakota, and then there was John Blakemore of Highmore. And in the Bismarck newspaper, they were sort of attempting to be humorous, attempting to be satirical, perhaps. They referred to them, these suffrage supporters in the legislature, with female pronouns, and the nicknamed them, nicknamed them, Miss Belva Barnes, Elizabeth Katie Blakemore and Miss Susan B Pickler. And in other articles, John Pickler got called "Old Petticoats" or "Old Petticoat Pickler." But despite the the ridicule, his bill did pass both houses of the legislature in 1885. 

And this- the suffragists who were there in Bismarck for the debates, the newspapers said they almost hugged Pickler to death for the victory. But the appointed governor of the territory, Gilbert Pierce, vetoed the bill. And he put out a statement with many reasons for why he vetoed it, one of which was that he wanted the measure given more consideration and a public vote. That would come once South Dakota was a state. He didn't want it to distract from whether South Dakota and North Dakota were going to become states. 

And in the statement, he also questioned whether women want to vote because that- he considered it an obligation or responsibility. And he wasn't sure, from whatever measure he was taking whether women actually wanted that obligation. And he said the bill didn't address whether women could hold political office in addition to voting. So he thought it was incomplete in that way, which sounds like a long list of reasons. But suffragists were terribly upset with Pierce for years afterwards. Even the- the New York newspaper, there were suffragists talking about wanting Pierce to be removed from office for vetoing this bill. 

But John continued his support. He spoke at various events and put out statements in support of suffrage during the 1890 campaign, that first one. And one of the reasons interestingly, that John and Alice both gave for why women should vote was because of the "Homestead pioneer experience", that the women who had come as homesteaders had done equal work to the men in that experience. They had also many of them contributed to the war effort during the Civil War. And they had great potential for moral influence over civic affairs. 

That's where they were coming from. A lot of women could homestead land in their own right if they were single or widowed. So there were many women who were landowners who were paying taxes without being able to vote on the laws that govern the taxes in the land. So for instance, John once said, there are a large number of unmarried women in the state, who came and acquired government land under the preemption and homestead laws, and who are paying taxes without any representation, and without any voice and loving taxes on their land. 

It is estimated that 1/5 of the land belongs to women. So they had sort of those very measured reasons for supporting suffrage. But in John's political career, he did continue to get some ridicule for supporting suffrage and for supporting a few other measures. He was called eccentric, he apparently worried his fellow Republicans with his, "outspoken championship of progressive ideas." But he had a lot of support from civil war veterans. John was a Civil War veteran in his own right. 

He had served in the Iowa infantry and then actually became an officer in the US Colored Infantry attached to a South Carolina regiment. So he had veterans support, he had support from people who were interested in temperance, Methodists, Women suffragists. So there- he did have a successful political career, despite being ridiculed, sometimes in the press.

CM Marihugh  21:35

I've got to say, John is such an inspiration. I think it's wonderful to hear about these couples that were working jointly in suffrage, because there were plenty of women whose fathers or brothers, husbands did not support it. So you know, the more stories that come out about these couples that work together is is really inspiring. 

It's interesting, also, that you talk about John mentioning that about 20% of the land settled in South Dakota belong to women, because it brings up this, you know, American Revolution, tenant of subject to taxation without representation. And as we're going through the suffrage stories, it becomes so clear that, you know, the suffrage movement was an extension of the revolutionary movement. 

It just happened much later, but it was it was still looking toward the the goals of equal representations. I did notice that, you know, when I was researching this session, this episode, I saw that Susan B. Anthony visited the Pickler home, what what is that home like? 

Liz Almlie  22:53

It's in the south part of town, and it's salmon pink. It's a big complex house that got added to a bunch of times, but was in the family until it became a museum in 1987. It was also listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. And now has a votes for women trail marker outside, it's open during the summers or by appointment, and you can stop and see the marker anytime.

CM Marihugh  23:19

And I looked on it online at the website and the photos and it's it's such a distinctive building, aside from its historic value. And it's one of those places that can be on the list of Susan B. Anthony slept here. So why what part of the state are we going to next?

Liz Almlie  23:40

We're going to go to Lead all the way in the western part of the state. There, suffragists spoke and campaigned lots of different types of places, opera houses and theaters being one of the big ones. In Lead there's the Homestake Opera House. And lead was sort of a company town. The Homestake Mining Company had a big gold mine and their owner, Phoebe Hearst put a lot into the town infrastructure and various charities. And eventually, in 1911, they announced they were going to build a recreation building, which contained the Opera House theater. It also had a swimming pool, a bowling alley, a billiards Hall library and some meeting rooms that the community could use. 

So it's a huge facility and it is still there. They had a big fire in 1984 but had been doing a lot of restoration work and they're still running theater and music performances. They have event rentals, a little interpretive center. So it's a wonderful space now and had connections to the suffrage movement. There were some speeches right away what after it opened in 1914? Because that was the suffrage campaign year. But the most interesting one was in 1916. Because the state of Association had started, they worked with some visiting speakers to do what they call The Flying Squadron Campaign. 

So they had Elsie Benedict, who was a journalist from Denver, and Effie McCollum Jones, who had been a Unitarian minister from Iowa. They came to get things kicked off. And then they were eventually joined by Emma Smith DeVoe, who was a suffragist from Washington State, and was then the President of the National Council of Women Voters. And has- used to live in South Dakota, and was really active in the 1890 campaign, also. 

But these three were the primary speakers for The Flying Squadron, and they went sort of town to town. They went by automobile for some part of it, and then by train, for part to get out to the Black Hills. But their usual operation was to arrive at a town have a meeting with a local suffragists in the afternoon. And then Elsie Benedict would do a street corner, speech or rally gathering up the crowd just from off the street. Sometimes she spoke from a car and gathered everybody together, then directed them up the street around the corner, to a theater where Effie McCollum Jones would give the sort of formal lecture of the evening. 

But they had quite quite a trip going down to town. There was one time you- Jones even fractured a rib, from the car riding over the rough roads that were typical. In South Dakota at the time, state highways are just getting going. And the interstate was still a far dream. And they were supported, when they got to the Black Hills, one of the local women who supported them was Rose Bower. And she was from a musical family. They'd even had The Bower Family Band and played around for different events and community things. 

And Disney even made a movie about them in 1968. But once she was an adult, she became an active suffragist around 1907. And she would play music. She had a cornet and she was known for whistling. And she gave speeches, sometimes from the street herself. And she supported The Flying Squadron campaign by contributing music to the street rallies that Benedict was holding. 

So like in Lead in August 1916. They showed up, Benedict picked a street corner, Rose Bower played the cornet to draw people's attention. Benedict spoke with, "a wonderful voice" according to the press. And then Benedict led the crowd down a couple of blocks to the opera house where Jones was going to speak that night. So that- The Flying Squadron, they went- sorry, from Sioux Falls to the Black Hills, back to Sioux Falls, they covered a lot of ground. 

They were doing something almost every day. But in Lead they spoke at the Opera House, and it's still a place where people can go experience that historic building. 

CM Marihugh  28:11

And I looked at that too online. I'm always so curious what these historic buildings look like. It's it's, it's gorgeous. It's wonderful that it's still there. So many things get torn down. I wish so much that we had filmed the suffragists speaking on street corners. 

You know, we have some pictures in different states and locales. But it would be just wonderful to actually see the film of Rose Bower. playing her core net to attract to attract listeners and then to hear the speakers. That was such a brave thing to do. It was brave today would be brave today. I can't even imagine pulling up in a car and trying to start to get people to listen to you. 

So they- you know what's wonderful is that women- the movement really gave women the ability to develop a political voice. And they knew how to get people's attention they learned it and they took every opportunity that they could to do that. Where are we heading to next?

Liz Almlie  29:20

The next place is the Pyle House Museum in Huron, South Dakota. It's named for Mamie Shields Pyle and her family and Mamie Pyle was the state president of The Universal Franchise League from when it started in 1912. Through the passage of the state amendment in- and she was the first president of The South Dakota League of Women Voters as well. And she got her start during the 1910 campaign when there was a bit of a splinter group that fractured off and she got her teeth into the the leadership role there, but they did a lot of lobbying. 

She was really good at mobilizing and finding talented people and mobilizing them for the work. And they even did a lot at the state fair in Huron, she wrote one time that "you'd think the voters would grant the ballot to women, if for no other reason that they might have some peace at the fairs." So they really hit that work hard. But the 1918 campaign was the most interesting, and it was the one where suffrage finally passed, but it hit some really big obstacles. The first was the war. So the the bill went on the ballot after the 1917 legislature. 

And the first campaigning was pretty normal. But when the war hit, they realized that most women were going to want to support the war effort. So they shifted gears, they streamlined the leadership and the county committees, to just small three person teams. And they tried to do a lot more with existing events. So they'd have a float at a parade rather than trying to organize the parade on their own. So they tried to reframe things for the war effort, and frame suffrage as a value of American democracy that was critical to the war effort. So just- worth just as much for the war to work for suffrage and spend the time on that. 

And in South Dakota, like many states, they there was a council for national defense and March of 1918, they decided they had concerns about the German immigrants who were able to vote in South Dakota after filing their intent to become citizens, which had been in place since the territorial days. They were concerned about that. So they changed- they worked with the governor and the legislature to change the suffrage amendment into a citizenship bill that they called amendment E. So that bill would remove male as a voting criteria, but require that voters be full citizens of the United States. 

And the governor relied on Pyle and the state suffrage group to continue their campaigning. So they had to shift all their literature and their speeches, and train their campaigners to talk about citizenship processes, as well as women's right to vote. So that was a big shift for the state in the 1918 campaign. And then later that summer, the influenza epidemic hit and there were no longer allowed to meet, have big public meetings or gatherings, no door to door petition drives fundraising. 

And many suffragists were busy nursing family members or nursing in the community. Mamie's daughter Gladys even had been working as a teacher, but the schools closed. So Gladys was nursing flu victims. So instead, the sufferagists focused on literature, posters, newspapers, and eventually, the influenza epidemic waned. The war ended in November 1918. And suffrage passed in November 1918. In Watertown, those announcements were even on the same front page. 

So it was great to have that pass. But they were in trouble financially. And so the state headquarters had been downtown in Huron and Mamie worked from there with the secretary. But because they were in financial straits, she ended up working from her home, which is now the museum and had to let the secretary go after the campaign had ended. The debts they had eventually got covered by politicians primarily, who were friends of the movement. 

But Pyle stayed active when the 19th amendments passed and was ready to be ratified, the governor said he would only call a session for ratification if the legislators agreed to attend without cost to the state. So Pyle had to work on getting everybody signed up, that they were going to come to this session, so that the governor would call the session and the ratification could go through. But that was eventually done unanimously on December 4, 1919. And then, Pyle became the president of the League of Women Voters and was president of that group until 1926.

CM Marihugh  34:28

I also looked at the photograph of the Pyle House Museum, and it's a jewel. It's like a Victorian jewel. Could you tell us just a bit about that?

Liz Almlie  34:42

The family built it in 1894. And it was, it's a very spindle work Victorian and hasn't had any additions and very few changes. There was another one that was in the family until it became a museum. It was listed in the National Register in 1874. And then after Gladys Pyle's death in 1989, that's when it became a museum.

CM Marihugh  35:06

I love that quote you mentioned about the legislators should just give women the vote so they can have some peace at the fair because they'd been hammering away at them for a number of years. And I think, definitely the suffragists seem to know vowed to not give up, even though they were constantly hit with disappointment after disappointment. They just did not let up. And where are we going to head to next, who's next?

Liz Almlie  35:41

The last place we're visiting is the State Capitol in Pierre. It intersected with the story of a native woman named Zitkala-Ša, whose English name was Gertrude Simmons Bonnin. And she grew up around Greenwood, South Dakota. That's at the southern end of the state along the Missouri River, and was the Yankton or Yankton, Dakota Reservation. And her mother was Dakota. Her father was French. And she was largely raised by her mother and her aunts. And she ended up being sent to a boarding school in Indiana at the age of eight, and spent her education mostly out of state and at various boarding schools and eventually had an education and music and oratory with the New England Conservatory of Music. 

And she taught for a couple of years at least at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and Pennsylvania, around 1899. But she left in 1901 because she was increasingly frustrated and critical of the boarding school system. But she published collections of stories and essays, and she published essays in periodicals. One of her volumes were translations of traditional Dakota stories. And she wrote autobiographically about her experience in the boarding school system, and about her culture. Even though she was appreciative of her education, and the things she had learned and the skills she'd obtained, the system, she thought was very flawed. 

After she left Carlisle, she went to work back in South Dakota for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a clerk, and eventually married Raymond Bonnin in 1902. And they continued working for the BIA, eventually spending many years on reservations in Utah. And she learned to be frustrated also with federal Indian policy and reservations. And particularly the lack of self governance and the restrictions that came with living on the reservation. 

She really thought it would be better to have a dual citizenship type arrangement with the tribes that maintain the treaty rights and their sovereignty, but allowed tribal members to also be citizens of the US so they could participate in the government that was overseeing their reservations. She eventually in 1911, join the Society of American Indians, which was a group for all tribes to work together on common issues, like cultural preservation, and citizenship. 

And she became its secretary was the sort of primary staff person for the organization in 1916. And they moved to DC. She also edited their magazine for a time. And with colleagues like Marie Bottineau Baldwin, who was Turtle Mountain Chippewa, they spoke to groups around DC and around the country, about Native culture and the the need for enfranchisement. And they were speaking primarily to all white suffrage groups or majority white suffrage groups, but they really wanted to mobilize allies to work also, not only for women's suffrage, but also for native suffrage. 

And they intersected with Pierre, South Dakota because this Society for American Indians had it September- or its 1918 annual meeting that September. They met in the Capitol building in the house chambers. And then they also had sessions in the St. Charles Hotel, which was well known for being the hotel of the lobbyists. And at the Opera House in Pierre as well. In the meeting, the organization talked a lot about the war, the Native men who'd enlisted and were sacrificing for the democratic ideals and the Indian citizenship bills that were pending in Congress that they wanted to support and Bonnin, Bonnin wrote an editorial later that said, that Native people, "must speak for himself as no other can nor should he be afraid to speak the truth. If he is good enough to fight for American ideals, he is good enough for citizenship now." 

So they really, really wanted these bills to pass to be able to have more control over their own lives. The Indian citizenship bill did pass ultimately in 1924. So all tribal members were also full citizens. And with the general Federation of women's clubs, the Zitkala-Ša was a national lecturer. And she did a big voter registration drive around different reservations that year. There was still state level laws that disenfranchise many Native people, some of which eventually were addressed with the Voting Rights Act, but they're still continue to be voting rights movements in Native communities today. 

And then ultimately, Zitkala-Ša and her husband were instrumental in forming the National Council of American Indians who sort of like the League of Women Voters did a lot on voter education, and lobbying work. And she was- traveled, continued to travel as a speaker and organizer for that group. And then the Bonnins were eventually buried at Arlington National Cemetery. 

CM Marihugh  41:13

And they were buried there?

Liz Almlie  41:15

In Pierre, those three buildings where the Society for American Indians met in 1918. All three are still there, the State Capitol building, anyone can visit any day of the week, they're open during the day. The St. Charles hotel, is now mostly apartments that there's some retail on the ground floor and the lobbies open with an amazing mosaic floor. And then the Grand Opera House is on Upper Pierre Street in Pierre and is now where our community theater has all their productions.

CM Marihugh  41:47

That would be wonderful to see those those three historic buildings. Hopefully when I travel to South Dakota, next, I'll be able to drop in. I wonder if we could wrap up, Liz with you telling us how you would summarize the fight in South Dakota. What happened after the 19th amendment?

Liz Almlie  42:10

What's impressed me most about the South Dakota movement, as I've gone through all these newspapers, books and letters, is just what an incredible web and network of both women and men working together, having meetings conversations, speaking in public, writing letters, lobbying, traveling in sometimes hard conditions, but it meant decades of work, waves of people very few were like Alice Pickler and stuck around the whole time. 

But every time someone, you know, had something else come up in their lives, it seemed like another person stepped up and just wave after wave of supporters working on this issue. Not that there weren't setbacks, internal leadership conflict, some opposition, but they really, really were persistent. And then after 1920, the League of Women Voters was the big organization within South Dakota, and they worked on voter education. 

And they had some really interesting issues that I'm hoping someday to study more. But they were interested in women being able to serve on juries, which I don't think in South Dakota passed until the 1950s. About the guardianship of children in a marriage. They wanted women appointed to state boards to oversee institutions like prisons, asylums, and charitable schools, like School for the Deaf and School for the Blind. They were interested in maternity health, the peace movements, labor issues, like child labor, and eight hour work days, just really, really active and all those things. 

And the Native movement for citizenship, like I mentioned, the Act passed in 1924. But it's a continuing issue. And in this early period, it seemed to be sort of a parallel issue. There were a few women with native ancestry that worked for the state suffrage amendments, but- but they were fairly few. But there was a whole other parallel movement because voting rights are important to people and continued to be this whole parallel movement for native citizenship deserves as much recognition in this history and this time period.

CM Marihugh  44:29

Well, thank you so much for being with us today, Liz. This has been an incredible journey into the South Dakota suffrage movement, and we really appreciate you being here.

Liz Almlie  44:41

I really appreciate having the chance. I hope many people come to South Dakota and see our historic places.

CM Marihugh  44:48

Thank you for joining us this week. We hope you'll contact us with comments or questions. The National Votes For Women Trail project is a work in progress. Please click on the support the project link to contribute to our ongoing work. The trail is a project of the National Collaborative for women's history sites, a nonprofit organization dedicated to putting women's history on the map. Our theme is Standing On the Shoulders by Joyce Johnson Rouse and recorded by Earth Mama. Be sure to join us next time.

Earth Mama  45:25

I'm standing on the shoulders 
Of the ones who came before me. 
I am honored by their passion 
For our liberty. 

I will stand a little taller.
I will work a little longer. 
And my shoulders will be there to hold 
The ones who follow me. 

My shoulders will be there to hold 
The ones who follow me!