Created as part of a commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of women’s suffrage in Montana, Women’s History Matters is designed to help the Montana Historical Society promote an increased appreciation and understanding of the role of women in the Treasure State’s past.

Explore this website to find

• Bibliographies of manuscript collections, oral histories, government documents, pamphlets, magazine articles, videos and dvds, and published material
• Over 130 articles published in Montana The Magazine of Western History to download and read
•  Information on oral histories, including what’s been collected and how to conduct your own
• Educator resources, including lesson plans
• Suggestions for ways communities, individuals, and organizations can celebrate the centennial
• Information on selected historic places–from homesteads to hospitals–associated with Montana women’s history
• Resources specifically related to the suffrage campaign, including links to newspaper articles published in the Montana press debating the issue in 1914
• A gallery of intriguing photographs that hint at the diversity of Montana women’s lives
• Information about speakers willing to travel to your community, along with other commemorative activities happening around the state
• blog posts that feature a wide range of Montana women’s stories and topics, from women bootleggers and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to early Virginia City business woman Sarah Bickford and twentieth-century Blackfeet banker Elouise Cobell.

Project Manager: Martha Kohl

Listen to Kohl describe the project here:

Project Assistant: Kayla Blackman

Website writers: Ellen Arguimbau, Ellen Baumler, Kayla Blackman, Maegen Cook, Laura Ferguson, Jodie Foley, Kate Hampton, Annie Hanshew, Jennifer Hill, Anya Jabour, Martha Kohl, Kirby Lambert, Mary Murphy, Natalie F. Scheidler, Ken Robison, Marcella Sherfy Walter

Montana Historical Society Women’s History Matters Committee: Ellen Baumler (interpretive historian), Jodie Foley (state archivist), Rowena Harrington (assistant registrar), Kate Hampton (community preservation coordinator), Molly Holz (director of publications), Kirby Lambert (director of outreach and interpretation), Delores Morrow (photograph archives manager)

Advisory Committee: Benjamin Clark (executive director, MonDak Heritage Center, Sidney), Anya Jabour (professor of history, University of Montana), Elizabeth Jameson (Imperial Oil and Lincoln McKay Chair, department of history, University of Calgary), Mary Murphy (professor of history, Montana State University), Diane Sands (community historian, Missoula), and Karen Stevenson (community historian, Miles City).