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.

Ruth Lamar McGhee

Ruth Lamar McGhee, adopted daughter of Frederick L. and Mattie Crane McGhee, in St. Paul, ca. 1910.

Lippincott, Carrie H. (1860–1941)

In 1887, Carrie H. Lippincott was a twenty-seven-year-old New Jersey native with an eighth-grade education. She moved to Minnesota, where she created a mail-order company focused on selling flower seeds to women. Lippincott established herself in her new home by practicing innovative marketing methods and developing what we might call today a personal brand, declaring herself “The Pioneer Seedswoman of America.”

Carrie H. Lippincott in her flower shop

Carrie H. Lippincott in her flower shop, 1922. Miss C. H. Lippincott seed company scrapbook, ca. 1893–ca. 1922, Sound and Visual Collection, Minnesota Historical Society.

Page from the 1906 Lippincott Seeds catalog featuring Lippincott’s home

Carrie H. Lippincott’s home (602–604 Tenth Street S., Minneapolis), ca. 1906. Lippincott is shown in the inset at the upper right. The image was printed in the 1906 Lippincott Seeds catalog and in periodicals like the Citizen and Farmer. Miss C.H. Lippincott seed company scrapbook, ca. 1893–ca. 1922, Sound and Visual Collection, Minnesota Historical Society.

Views of Lippincott’s Seed Store

Photos of Lippincott’s Seed Store in Hudson, Wisconsin, showing plants and cut flowers. From the 1914 Lippincott Seeds catalog, page 50. Henry G. Gilbert Nursery and Seed Trade Catalog Collection, National Agricultural Library, US Department of Agriculture.