WHM | Montana Women's History

099WHM Western Heritage 86.71.01 a,b Car on south bridge with banner Ku Klux Klan annual meeting — The Ku Klux Klan had a national membership of 3 to 5 million men during its height in the 1920s, and over a million women joined the women’s auxilliary. This photo was likely taken near either Billings or Livingston. The lead car sports a Billings license plate. Photo courtesy Billings’ Western Heritage Center 86.71.01 a, b.

In the 1920s, a group of women banded together under the auspices of a shared political belief and religious background. They dedicated themselves to installing memorials in their communities, hosting family picnics, and delivering flowers to local hospitals. In many ways they resembled other civic organizations of their time, many of which served a social function by bringing women of similar interests together. Committed to “tenets of the Christian religion,” “freedom of speech and press,” and “the protection of pure womanhood,” the ideology of this group overlapped with other groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Yet their commitment to “white supremacy” separated the Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK) from other women’s organizations—and provides a reminder that female participation in politics was not always a progressive force.

At its height, in the 1920s, the Montana Realm of the Ku Klux Klan boasted fifty-one hundred members across more than forty chapters. Committed to what they called “100% Americanism,” KKK members espoused xenophobic policies against immigrants and racist policies against nonwhites, and fostered hatred toward Jews and Catholics. In a Montana suffering from economic downturn, rapid technological advances, drought, labor unrest, and a generally chaotic postwar period, the Klan provided an appealing organization for those looking for scapegoats.

Continue reading Montana Women of the Ku Klux Klan →

On November 3, 1914, Montana men went to the polls, where they voted 53 to 47 percent in favor of women’s suffrage. Along with Nevada, which also passed a suffrage amendment that year, Montana joined nine other western states in extending voting rights to non-Native women. (Indian women would have to wait until passage of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act to gain the ballot.) Montana suffrage supporters rejoiced, and in 1916 followed up their victory by electing Maggie Smith Hathaway (D) and Emma Ingalls (R) to the state legislature and Jeannette Rankin (R) to the U.S. Congress. In this seeming wave of feminism, May Trumper (R) also became the state superintendent of public instruction.

The Suffrage Daily News, the short-lived paper in which this photo ran on November 2, 1914,, identified these suffrage campaigners only by their husband's names. while noting that the women had campaigned for the vote in four different Montana counties. Left to Right: Mrs. R.F. Foote, Mrs. J.B. Ellis, chairman, Silver Bow County, — The Suffrage Daily News, the short-lived paper in which this photo ran on November 2, 1914, identified these suffrage campaigners only by their husband’s names while noting that the women had campaigned for the vote in four different Montana counties. Left to Right: Mrs. R.F. Foote, Mrs. J.B. Ellis, chairman, Silver Bow County, Mrs. H. Salholm, Mrs. A. Obermyer and Mrs. E.G. Clinch. MHS Photo Archives 951-821

An air of inevitability surrounded the victory but it had not come easily. Montana women’s rights advocates first proposed equal suffrage twenty-five years earlier at the 1889 state constitutional convention. Fergus County delegate Perry McAdow (R), husband of successful businesswoman and feminist Clara McAdow, championed the cause. He even recruited long-time Massachusetts suffrage proponent Henry Blackwell to address the convention.

Blackwell was an articulate orator, but he did not have the backing of a well-organized, grassroots movement. “There has never been a woman suffrage meeting held in Montana,” he lamented. Nevertheless, Blackwell hoped to convince the delegates to include constitutional language allowing the legislature to grant equal suffrage through a simple majority vote instead of requiring a constitutional amendment. That proposal failed on a tie ballot.

Continue reading The Long Campaign: The Fight for Women’s Suffrage →

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