There are in the public schools 1,115 men and 2,522 women teachers. The average monthly salary of the men is $39.92; of the women, $35.57.
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union was the first and still continues to be the largest of the organizations. It works for the franchise through public lectures, petitions, legislative bills and various educational measures. The Woman's Relief Corps and a large number of church, lodge and literary societies enlist women's activities in a marked degree. They sit on the official boards of many churches and some of these are composed entirely of women.
SOUTH DAKOTA.[205]
In June, 1883, a convention was held at Huron to discuss the question of dividing the Territory and forming two States, and a convention was called to meet at Sioux Falls, September 4, and prepare a constitution for those in the southern portion. The suffrage leaders in the East were anxious that this should include the franchise for women. Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage of New York, vice-president-at-large of the National Suffrage Association, lectured at various points in the Territory during the summer to awaken public sentiment on this question. On September 6 a petition signed by 1,000 Dakota men and women, praying that the word "male" should not be incorporated in the constitution, was presented to the convention, accompanied by personal appeals. There was some disposition to grant this request but the opponents prevailed and only the school ballot was given to women, which they already possessed by Act of the Legislature of 1879. However, this constitution never was acted upon.
The desire for division and Statehood became very urgent throughout the great Territory, and this, with the growing sentiment in Congress in favor of the same, induced the Legislature of 1885 to provide for a convention at Sioux Falls, composed of members elected by the voters of the Territory, to form a constitution for the proposed new State of South Dakota and submit the same to the electors for adoption, which was done in November, 1885. Many of the women had become landholders and were interested in the location of schoolhouses, county seats, State capital and matters of taxation. As their only organization was the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, a committee was appointed from that body, consisting of Alice M. A. Pickler, Superintendent of the Franchise Department, Helen M. Barker and Julia Welch, to appear before the Committee on Suffrage and ask that the word "male" be left out of the qualifications of electors. They were helped by letters to members of the convention from Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell, Susan B. Anthony, Lillie Devereux Blake and others of national reputation.
Seven of the eleven members of the committee were willing to grant this request but there was so much opposition from the convention, lest the chances for Statehood might be imperiled, that they compelled a compromise and it was directed that the first Legislature should submit the question to the voters. They did incorporate a clause, however, that women properly qualified should be eligible to any school office and should vote at any election held solely for school purposes. This applied merely to school trustees, as State and county superintendents are elected at general and not special elections.
The constitution was ratified by the voters in 1885, with a provision that "the Legislature should at its first session after the admission of the State into the Union, submit to a vote of the electors at the next general election, the question whether the word 'male' should be stricken from the article of the constitution relating to elections and the right of suffrage."
Congress at that time refused to divide the Territory and thus the question remained in abeyance awaiting Statehood.
In 1889, an enabling act having been passed by Congress, delegates were elected from the different counties to meet in convention at Sioux Falls to prepare for the entrance of South Dakota into Statehood. This convention reaffirmed the constitution adopted in 1885, and again submitted it to the voters who again passed upon it favorably, and the Territory became a State, Nov. 2, 1889.
The first Legislature met at once in Pierre, and although they were required by the constitution to submit an amendment for woman suffrage a vote was taken as to whether this should be done. It stood in the Senate 40 yeas, one nay; absent or not voting, 4; in the House 84 yeas, 9 nays; 21 absent.