Women's Suffrage in South Dakota

Women in South Dakota earned the right to vote in 1918, a year before it became federal law. Settlers had tried to get women’s suffrage in the state constitution, but it did not get ratified in time. A specific example of this was Emma Smith DeVoe who was originally born in Illinois, where she was influenced by Susan B. Anthony at a young age. In South Dakota, she began as an assistant state organizer for the South Dakota Equal Suffrage Association (SDESA) in 1889. In South Dakota, DeVoe worked closely with Susan B. Anthony.

Available Resource(s):

(Book Chapter) 2. The South Dakota Women Suffrage Campaign, Winning the West for Women: The Life of Suffragist Emma Smith DeVoe

Mamie Shields Pyle Gravesite*

Patricia O’Keefe Easton, “Woman Suffrage in South Dakota: The Final Decade 1911-1920,” South Dakota History 13 no. 3 (1983): 206-226.*

Physical copy located at the Agricultural Heritage Museum in Brookings.  

Mamie Shields Pyle archives – USD*

Election results from 1918

Image Citation:

American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). (2017, July 19). The U.S. Women’s Suffrage Movement