The University of South Dakota Libraries are proud to be a sponsor for the upcoming lecture “Vanguard: Leading on Voting Rights, Leading the Nation” by Professor Martha S. Jones, who is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at The Johns Hopkins University. The presentation is a joint Schell History Lecture and Gunderson Lecture in honor of Women’s History Month. It is scheduled for March 18 from 4 to 5 p.m. via Zoom. There is still time to register for the event. To do so, go here: https://www.usd.edu/arts-and-sciences/history/vanguard-lecture. Jones’ book, “Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All” is part of the libraries’ Hot Off the Press Collection (https://usd-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/1r36jh2/01SDBOR_ALMA9993910090803645).
USD Libraries, Archives & Special Collections, and the South Dakota Oral History Center all house numerous collections and research materials on women’s suffrage. The SDOHC has about a dozen oral histories that discuss the topic. Several are currently featured on the SDOHC Kiosk on the second floor of I.D. Weeks Library, and many can be accessed at the Digital Library of South Dakota (https://explore.digitalsd.org/ ).
Also in the DLSD is the Marnie Shields Pyle Papers. This collection is part of the Richardson Collection, USD Archives & Special Collections. Mamie Shields Pyle was a prominent suffragist and leader of the South Dakota Universal Franchise League which secured suffrage to South Dakota women in 1918. She is the mother of Gladys Pyle, the first female senator from South Dakota. Her papers, highlighted here, demonstrate the organizational efforts of the suffrage campaign in South Dakota through correspondence and printed materials (https://explore.digitalsd.org/digital/collection/richardson/search/searchterm/Mamie%20Shields%20Pyle%20Papers/field/collec/mode/exact/conn/and)
For more information, contact the Archives and Special Collections (https://www.usd.edu/library/archives) or SDOHC (https://www.usd.edu/library/sdohc).
