Women | MNopedia

How Women Have Shaped the State

Women in Minnesota: Weaving the Web of Society in the North Star State

Rhoda R. Gilman, a founding member of Women Historians of the Midwest and a former candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, considers the influence of women in Minnesota: the Willmar 8, the Schubert Club, the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association, and much more.

The Willmar 8 on the picket line

The Willmar 8 outside the Citizens National Bank of Willmar (Kandiyohi County) during their first days on the picket line, December 1977. From box 51 of the St. Paul Dispatch/Pioneer Press photographs arranged by subject (photographs collection), ca. 1910–1985, Minnesota Historical Society.

MN90: In the Aftermath of Pearl Harbor

Not every West Coast American of Japanese descent was herded into an internment camp after Pearl Harbor. Some, like Ruth Tanbara and her husband, Earl, were compelled to relocate to places like St. Paul, Minnesota. Here’s Britt Aamodt.

MN90: Freedom Ride

Claire O'Connor was a freshman at the University of Minnesota in June 1961, when she took a Greyhound bus into the heart of Jim Crow. The Freedom Rider shares her story with Britt Aamodt.

Lena Olive Smith

Lena Olive Smith, ca. 1920s.

Commitment and Guardianship of Lydia B. Angier, 1896–1907

Lydia B. Angier was declared insane and committed against her will to Rochester State Hospital in 1896. For the next three years, she wrote letters arguing for her release and restoration to her old life in St. Paul, where she had run a newspaper stand. Her letters provide a window into life inside hospitals for the insane at the turn of the twentieth century, where many people faced poor living conditions and abuse.

Newspaper coverage of Lydia B. Angier’s 1896 commitment hearing

Newspaper coverage of Lydia B. Angier’s 1896 commitment hearing: “Will Be Cared For,” St. Paul Globe, November 14, 1896, page 8, col. 4.

Lydia B. Angier

Lydia B. Angier, ca. 1899. Photograph from box 113.H.I.4F-1 of the Fergus Falls State Hospital casebooks, 1890–1904, State Archives Collection, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. Volume 12 (file nos. 2335–2633, October 1898–April 1899) contains case records regarding patients and their care, their care at prior institutions, and demographic and medical details, in addition to photographs of patients.