Ramsey County Historical Society Presents

Redefining Citizenship: The Fight for the Right to Vote in Minnesota and the Midwest
Sara Egge

History Revealed Series
March 18, 2021
Thursday, 7:00 pm

Live presentation on Zoom
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The presentation will be recorded.
For registration or other questions, please email events@rchs.com

In partnership with the Roseville Library

Examining how women won the right to vote in Minnesota and the Midwest reveals how Midwesterners changed their conceptions of citizenship in the early twentieth century. Women earned the ballot during World War I, when demonstrating patriotism became an expected part of the war effort. Mobilizing for the war, which so many midwestern suffragists did quite willingly, served as a testament to their loyalty to both community and country. They also leveraged that mobilization against the alleged disloyalty of immigrants in the region whom they attacked as slackers. Suffragists claimed that exercising the right to vote was an expression of duty, rather than just a natural right.

Sara Egge is the Claude D. Pottinger Professor of History at Centre College in Kentucky. She received her PhD from Iowa State University. She is the author of the award-winning book Woman Suffrage and Citizenship in the Midwest, 1870-1920. She also serves as the President of the Midwestern History Association. Her research examines how the woman suffrage movement intersected with immigration and the nativist sentiments that accompanied its rise. She teaches courses on women’s and gender history as well as histories of citizenship, food systems, and environments in the US. She is originally from South Dakota.

For more about Woman Suffrage and Citizenship in the Midwest, 1870-1920, see this link.