[340] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Julia B. Nelson of Red Wing, who for twenty years has been the rock on which the effort for woman suffrage has been founded in this State. She acknowledges much assistance from Drs. Cora Smith Eaton and Ethel E. Hurd, both of Minneapolis.
[341] Among the officers of the State association at different times have been Mesdames Harriet Armstrong, Sarah C. Brooks, S. P. T. Bryan, E. G. Bickmore, Fxine G. Bonwell, Annie W. Buell, Charlotte Bolles, Jessie Gray Cawley, E. L. Crockett, L. B. Castle and Hannah Egleston, Prof. S. A. Farnsworth, Mesdames Eleanor Fremont, Sarah M. Fletcher, May Dudley Greeley, Mary A. Hudson, Julia Huntington, Dr. Bessie Park Hames, Oliver Jones, Miss Anna M. Jones, Mrs. Charles T. Koehler, Miss Ruth Elise Kellogg, the Rev. George W. Lutz, Mrs. Julia Moore, William B. Reed, Mesdames Susie V. P. Root, Lottie Rowell, Antoinette B. St. Pierre, H. G. Selden, Miss Blanche Segur, Mesdames Martha Adams Thompson, T. F. Thurston, Mr. J. M. Underwood, Miss Emma N. Whitney, Mesdames Belle Wells, Roxana L. Wilson and Mattie B. Whitcomb
[342] It would be impossible to name all of the men and women, in addition to those already mentioned, who have rendered valuable assistance. Among the more conspicuous are Miss Pearl Benham, Mesdames R. Coons, M. B. Critchett, J. A. Clifford, Edith M. Conant, Lydia H. Clark, Miss A. A. Connor, Mesdames Eliza A. Dutcher, L. F. Ferro, H. E. Gallinger, Doctors Chauncey Hobart, Mary G. Hood, Nettie C. Hall, Mesdames Norton H. Hemiup, Rosa Hazel, Julia A. Hunt, Doctors Phineas A. and Katherine U. Jewell, Mrs. Lucy Jones, Miss Eva Jones, Mesdames Leland, Kirkwood, A. D. Kingsley, V. J. D. Kearney, Frances P. Kimball, M. A. Luly, Viola Fuller Miner, Paul McKinstry, Jennie McSevany, the Rev. Hannah Mullenix, Mesdames E. J. M. Newcomb, Antoinette V. Nicholas, the Reverends Margaret Olmstead, Alice Ruth Palmer, Mesdames Pomeroy, E. A. Russell, D. C. Reed, the Rev. W. W. Satterlee, Mesdames Rebecca Smith, Abigail S. Strong, C. S. Soule, Anna Smallidge, M. A. Van Hoesen, Dr. Mary E. Whetstone, Mesdames L. May Wheeler, Sarah E. Wilson and E. N. Yearley.
[343] Mrs. Nelson published at this time, through financial aid from Mrs. Sarah Burger Stearns, a little paper for gratuitous distribution, called the Equal Rights Herald.
[344] This Legislature of 1893 provided for the adoption of a State Flag, and appointed a committee of women to select an appropriate design. At the request of a few women the Moccasin Blossom was made the State Flower by an act of the same Legislature, which was passed with great celerity.
[345] The vote on this was 69,760 for, and 32,881 against, a total of 102,641; yet the whole number of votes cast in that election of 1898 was 251,250. The amendment itself could not have been adopted if its own provisions had been required!
[346] The woman farmer turns up the soil with a gang-plow and rakes the hay, but not in the primitive fashion of Maud Muller. She is frequently seen "comin' through the rye," the wheat, the barley or the oats, enthroned on a twine-binder. The writer has this day seen a woman seated on a four-horse plow as contentedly as her city cousin might be in an automobile. Among the many plow-girls of Nobles County is Coris Young, a genuine American of Vermont ancestry, who has plowed 120 acres this season, making a record of eighty acres in thirteen days with five horses abreast.