Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/708

CHAPTER XLVII.

MINNESOTA.

Girls in State University—Sarah Burger Stearns—Harriet E. Bishop the First Teacher in St. Paul—Mary J. Colburn Won the Prize—Mrs. Jane Grey Swisshelm, St. Cloud—Fourth of July Oration, 1866—First Legislative Hearing, 1867—Governor Austin's Veto—First Society at Rochester—Kasson—Almira W. Anthony—Mary P. Wheeler—Harriet M. White—The W. C. T. U.—Harriet A. Hobart—Literary and Art Clubs—School Suffrage, 1876—Charlotte O. Van Cleve and Mrs. C. S. Winchell Elected to School Board—Mrs. Governor Pillsbury—Temperance Vote, 1877—Property Rights of Married Women—Women as Officers, Teachers, Editors, Ministers, Doctors, Lawyers.

Minnesota was formally admitted to the Union May 11, 1858. Owing to its high situation and dry atmosphere the State is a great resort for invalids, and nowhere in the world is the sun so bright, the sky so blue, or the moon and stars so clearly defined. Its early settlers were from New England; hence, the church and the school-house-monuments of civilization-were the first objects in the landscape to adorn those boundless prairies, as the red man was pushed still westward, and the white man seized his hunting-ground.

This State is also remarkable for its admirable system of free schools, in which it is said there is a larger proportion of pupils to the population than in any other of the Western States. All institutions of learning have from the beginning been open alike to boys and girls.

Mrs. Sarah Burger Stearns, to whom we are indebted for this chapter, was one of the first young women to apply for admission to the Michigan University.^[1] Being denied, she finished her studies at the State Normal School, and in 1863 married Mr. O. P. Stearns, a graduate of the institution that barred its doors to her. Mr. Stearns, at the call of his country, went to the front, while his no less patriotic bride remained at home, teaching in

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1. The names of the young women who applied for admission to the classical course of the Michigan State University, in 1858, were Sarah Burger, Clara Norton, Ellen F. Thompson, Ada A. Alvord, Rose Anderson, Helen White, Amanda Kieff, Lizzie Baker, Nellie Baker, Anna Lathrop, Carrie Felch, Mary Becker, Adeline Ladd and Harriet Patton.