Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial, St. Paul

In the summer of 1994, the League of Women Voters of Minnesota convened a group of thirty women to form the Nineteenth Amendment Celebration Committee. The committee organized events around the seventy-fifth anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, giving women the right to vote. They left a lasting legacy in the form of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial Garden. It was the first monument to a movement approved for the mall of the third Minnesota State Capitol.

Minnesota was the fifteenth state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment on September 8, 1919. It wasn’t until Tennessee ratified it on August 18, 1920, that it attained the three-fifths majority of states needed to amend the constitution. US Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment on August 26.

Minnesota’s Nineteenth Amendment Celebration Committee hosted a successful seventy-fifth anniversary celebration in 1995. Programs included suffrage-themed performances and a “Women Win the Vote Day” at the state fair. The committee also commissioned a curriculum on woman suffrage for elementary and high school students created by the Upper Midwest Women’s History Center.

Led by historian Barbara Stuhler, the committee considered ideas for a memorial that would be a fitting legacy for the milestone anniversary. They favored a garden on the state capitol grounds with plants native to Minnesota featuring the suffrage colors of yellow and white. The yellow daffodil, a traditional symbol of the suffrage movement, figured prominently in the plan.

The committee worked with the Capitol Area Architectural Planning Board (CAAPB) for permission to proceed with the memorial and began fundraising. They kicked off the project at the final anniversary event held at the Minneapolis Women’s Club in October 1995.

In March 1996, the Minnesota state legislature approved $250,000 for the planning and construction of the memorial. The appropriation required a matching grant of $50,000 raised from private and corporate donors.

Over the summer, the CAAPB sponsored a juried design competition for the memorial. They expected applicants to have an interest in women’s history. Female designers were especially encouraged to enter.

The planning committee outlined a number of design considerations. They wanted an accessible public memorial, no larger than 150 feet by 100 feet, for a location in the northeast corner of the lower capitol mall. The design should incorporate a path and at least one bench. Plantings could be flowers, shrubs, or trees, in the suffrage movement palette of yellow or gold and white, with some green and purple. The memorial should be easy to maintain and offer landscape interest year-round. It also had to fit in with other design elements on the mall.

The committee received six proposals. The judges awarded the commission and a prize of $5,000 to architects Ralph Nelson, Raveevarn Choksombachai, and design associate Martha McQuade of LOOM Studio, and landscape designer Roger Grothe of Aloha Landscaping, for their proposal, “Garden of Time: Landscape of Change.”

The winning design featured a garden with twenty-three beds and nine smaller plots of native prairie and woodland plantings separated by lines of pavers. It included a ninety-foot steel trellis inscribed with the names of twenty-five key Minnesota suffragists. A series of steel tablets shared the story of the fight for woman suffrage in Minnesota.

The committee asked for more funding during the 1997 legislative session. The senate included the request in a state government finance bill, but it was line item vetoed by Governor Arne Carlson. The following April, the governor approved a final $150,000 for completion of the memorial. Overall, the state provided $400,000 and the committee raised more than $100,000 in non-state funds.

A groundbreaking ceremony on August 26, 1998, marked the beginning of construction. The memorial was dedicated on August 26, 2000, the eightieth anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. Those attending enjoyed live music, an ice cream social, and a children’s activity. The committee sent special invitations to those involved with the project, and included a yellow “thank you” button bearing the name of one of the twenty-five suffragists featured in the memorial.

Many of the original plants failed to thrive. In 2004, Aloha Landscaping refurbished the garden with many new plants, including hardy perennials, groundcovers, and grasses. A rededication took place on August 24, 2004.