Women | Page 82 | MNopedia

Sybil Carter Indian Lace Association

When Sybil Carter started her first lace-making classes at the White Earth Reservation of Ojibwe, she set the stage for a major economic enterprise. In 1904, friends of Carter organized the Sybil Carter Indian Lace Association to help ship and market lace made by women on reservations to East Coast consumers. The association provided a good source of income to Native women. It also, however, held stereotypical and negative views of them and excluded them from leadership roles.

photograph of a woman operating a Munsingwear knitting machine

Interior views, Munsingwear Knitting Mills, Minneapolis.

Woman at Munsingwear knitting machine, undated.

Stageberg, Susie Williamson (1877–1961)

Susie Williamson Stageberg is known as the "Mother of the Farmer-Labor Party." The Red Wing activist spent a lifetime fighting for unpopular political and social causes. She strongly opposed the merger of the Democratic and Farmer-Labor Parties in the 1940s.

Don Cowan, Ruth Boynton, and Paul Rupprecht at the renaming of the University Health Service

Ruth Boynton with colleagues Don Cowan and Paul Rupprecht at the ceremony where the University Health Service was renamed the Boynton Health Service.

Ruth Boynton, 1920

Ruth Boynton in 1920. Boynton directed the University of Minnesota Student Health Service from 1936 to 1961.

Boynton, Ruth Evelyn (1896–1977)

Ruth Boynton was a physician, researcher, and administrator who spent almost her entire career at the University of Minnesota (U of M). She worked in public health and student health services at a time (the mid-twentieth century) when there were few women in either of those fields. She was director of the University Student Health Service from 1936 to 1961, and the facility was renamed Boynton Health Service in her honor in 1975.

Heart-shaped valentine, labeled "To Miss Sanford"

Valentine given to Maria Sanford, 1913

Valentine given to Maria Sanford by University of Minnesota Students.
Minnesota Historical Society Manuscript Collection, Maria L. Sanford Papers, 1851–1920

"To Miss Sanford
Vivid, buoyant,
Tireless, fluent;
Full of vim,
An occasional whim;
Never a shirk
Not afraid of work,
For mind, or heart, or hand;
A love of beauty,
A sense of duty,
As quick to obey as command;
A brain right clear,
A heart full of cheer,
Eloquent lips touched by altar’s coal;
Still she is, humanly,
Just plain womanly,
With face--index of beautiful soul.
Just as good as she is great,
The best-loved woman of the North Star State.
Feb. 14, 1913"