By Bethany Andreasen

The Votes for Women League and Women’s Christian Temperance Union are noted for significant contributions to the suffrage movement in North Dakota. Additional organizations, however, such as the Minot Ladies’ Socialist Club, also played a role in this campaign.

In 1913, the club undertook activities to educate both club members and the community about the topic, as well as to push the state legislature into action.

Minot was a center of socialist politics in North Dakota. The city even elected socialist Arthur Le Sueur mayor in 1909. Socialist women, of course, could not participate in this election, but they addressed political concerns in bi-weekly meetings the Ladies’ Socialist Club held in members’ homes.

These were, in large part, similar to the meetings of other women’s organizations of the time, featuring presentations and discussion on a prepared topic, readings and recitations, musical selections, and refreshments. Only the topics of the presentations and discussions demonstrated the political perspective of the club’s membership. For instance, the topic for the February 18, 1913 meeting was “How the Working Classes are Gouged by the Government.”

The club’s January 21, 1913, meeting focused on suffrage, which dovetailed with a project to obtain signatures on a pro-suffrage petition, copies of which were distributed to the membership. The club planned to present the petitions to the state legislature.

Apparently, club members viewed this as of high importance. An account in the January 22 Minot Daily Reporter stated that “the ladies are particularly desirous of a large number of signatures.” It also noted that “The club decided that Woman Suffrage will be the subject of the next meeting and, as it is their aim to interest all the members and their friends in the subject, they will continue to discuss Woman Suffrage at the meetings in the future until the petitions have been signed.”

Some members turned in their completed petitions at the February 4 meeting; the rest were asked to ensure their copies reached Bismarck by the end of that week.

At the same time, a committee was planning a program for a community event in recognition of national Woman’s Day. The club booked the Arcade Theatre to hold the anticipated large audience. On February 23, the day of the event, the Minot Daily Reporter outlined the program: six musical performances, three recitations, and three papers, all by local women.

The three papers would each address the topic of woman suffrage. Mrs. Howard Thomas was to speak on “Some Reasons Why Women Should Not Be Denied the Ballot,” and Mrs. Mary Smith on “The Aim of Equal Suffragists.” Finally, Mrs. Charles Kelso would offer a “General Discussion of Woman Suffrage.”

No existing records reveal how many people attended the Woman’s Day event. It is also impossible to determine what influence the club’s activities had on suffrage opinion within the community and the legislature.

However, these activities illustrate that support for woman suffrage manifested itself in organizations not always identified as part of the struggle.

Dillon Dyer provide

research for this story.

Bethany Andreasen is a Professor of History at Minot State Universit