Politics | Page 32

Trellis in the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial

The memorial features a steel trellis inscribed with the names of twenty-five prominent Minnesota suffragists, including Alice Ames Winter, Marguerite Milton Wells, and Myrtle Cain. Photo by Linda A. Cameron.

Drawing of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial Garden

Architect’s rendering of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial Garden, from the memorial dedication booklet, 2000. LOOM Studio.

Drawing of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial Garden

Architect’s rendering of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial Garden, from the memorial dedication booklet, 2000. LOOM Studio.

Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial

The Minnesota Woman Suffrage Memorial on the northeast corner of the upper state capitol mall, 2019. Photo by Linda A. Cameron.

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.

Charles William Dorsett

Charles William Dorsett, husband of Martha Angle Dorsett, ca. 1900s. Photograph by Sweet.

Martha Angle Dorsett

Martha Angle Dorset at the time of her graduation from the University of Michigan, ca. 1875. Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Dorsett, Martha (1851–1918)

Martha Angle Dorsett is best known for being Minnesota's first female lawyer. After being denied the right to practice law in Minnesota in 1876, she successfully petitioned the Minnesota legislature to change the state law governing attorney admissions. With the law amended to permit admission regardless of sex, Martha went on to practice law and remained active politically throughout the rest of her life in Minneapolis.