By Elizabeth Eikmann
It’s great to finally be an official CRDIP Intern! I began my first two weeks as an intern with the Gateway Arch National Park diving into primary source material on suffrage organizing in St. Louis, MO. A player that is central to the project is a woman named Virginia Minor who, along with her husband, Francis Minor, sued for her right to vote in St. Louis in 1873.
I’ve discovered a number of fantastic primary documents that will prove useful for the project’s research. At the St. Louis County Public library, I discovered Virginia Minor’s will. I also found in the St. Louis Post Dispatch reports of her death along with an article where Susan B. Anthony, well-known suffrage activist from Rochester, NY, mistakenly thought Minor left her $100,000 upon her death instead of measly $1,000 that she did…whoops!
Figure 1: Virginia Minor’s Will
Figure 2: Susan B. Anthony though the will was $100,00 when in reality, it was $1,000
I combed through Susan B. Anthony’s suffrage newspaper The Revolution and found a few articles on Virginia and Francis. This is a great source that will connect the Minors and St. Louis to the larger national movement.
Figure 3: “The Revolution” in Susan B. Anthony’s suffrage newspaper
I’m working on developing a Minor family tree to ideally discover Francis and Virginia Minors’ descendants.
Figure 4: I am working on the family tree to tru to discover Francis and Virginia’s descendants
I’ll end this blog with one of my favorite random clippings from a historic newspaper I stumbled on throughout my dig. It reminds me of a dark early 2000s Facebook status update:
Figure 5: Can you picture this early 2000’s Facebook post?