The North Dakota Woman Suffrage Centennial Committee presents Persistence, a radio play by Kathy Coudle-King of Grand Forks with consultants Barbara Handy-Marchello and Susan Wefald.

Prairie Public will broadcast this radio show on Tuesday, December 15, at 8pm; Sunday, December 20, at 5pm; and Sunday, January 10, at 10am. It will be available online after the December 20 broadcast.

Synopsis of the Radio Play :  The struggle to secure full voting rights for women in North Dakota is a story of PERSISTENCE that will inspire audiences of all ages. Even before statehood, women and men in Dakota Territory were fighting to enfranchise women. While there were many women and men who lobbied for full voting rights for women from territorial days through 1920,  one woman stands out for the decades of commitment she dedicated to the cause:  Elizabeth Preston Anderson.  She and Linda Slaughter, the first woman elected to public office in Dakota Territory, come back from the past in this radio drama filled with humor and insight.  With voting rights still in the news, this is a very pertinent program today.   Running time - approximately 45 minutes. 

Funding for this Prairie Public radio production was made possible by the estate of Carolyn Pickard Handy through the generosity of Barbara Handy Marchello. This project is supported in part by a grant from the North Dakota Council on the Arts, which receives funding from the state legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.

References on North Dakota’s Woman Suffrage History:

Lori Ann Lahlum and Molly R. Rozum, Editors,   Equality at the Ballot Box – Votes for Women on the Northern Great Plains, (South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2019).  Includes four chapters on North Dakota Suffrage: “Quiet Voices in the Prairie Wind,” by Barbara Handy Marchello; “Kate Selby Wilder Dresses the Part,” and “Kate Selby Wilder” by Ann Braaten; and “Cora Smith Eaton and North Dakota Woman Suffrage, 1888-1897,” by Kristin Mapel Bloomberg. 

Susan Wefald, “Convincing the Men – North Dakota’s Woman Suffrage Campaign 1912-20,” North Dakota History, Winter 2019/Vol.84.2  pages 14-33.

Susan Wefald, Important Voices, North Dakota’s Women elected State Officials Share Their Stories, 1893-2013 (North Dakota State University Press, 2014)

Emma S. Pierce, “North Dakota,” in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 6, 1900-1920, ed Harper. 

Jeanne F. Tucker, The History of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement in North Dakota, 1951.