The Woman Yesterday

Sarah Burger Stearns (1836-1904)

By Abigail Blonigen

The Woman Today is excited to present a new history feature, “The Woman Yesterday,” highlighting prominent Northland women in history.

Our first feature is suffragette and activist Sarah Burger Stearns, born in New York City on November 30, 1836. According to MNopedia, Stearns’ family moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan when she was about 9 years old.

A writer from a young age, in high school Stearns served as president of a literary society for girls and as an editor of her school’s newspaper. There she wrote an article and started a petition for the University of Michigan to allow female students. When the university refused to change its stance, Stearns obtained her education at the State Normal School in Michigan (now Eastern Michigan University) and went into teaching.

She was married in 1863 to Ozora Stearns who soon after left to fight for the Union in the Civil War. Stearns continued to teach during the war as well as provide aid at hospitals.

After the war concluded, the couple moved to Rochester, Minnesota where Ozora became mayor and Stearns immersed herself in suffrage work. She and other suffragettes spoke to the Minnesota Legislature in support of an amendment allowing women to vote, but it did not pass. She also founded one of the state’s first women’s suffrage organizations during her time in Rochester.

In 1872, Stearns moved to Duluth and founded the Duluth Women’s Suffrage Club. After decades of advocacy and a suffrage amendment making its way through the Minnesota Legislature only to be vetoed by the governor, suffragettes across the state banded together to create the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association in 1881. Stearns was elected their first president.

An educator all her life, Stearns was the first woman to serve on the Duluth School Board. She was instrumental in the formation of the Duluth Children’s Home to provide food and housing for women and children. She also served as secretary of Duluth’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.

The Stearns’ moved to California in 1895, but still summered in Duluth. Stearns continued advocating for women’s rights until she died in 1904 — 16 years before the 19th Amendment was ratified in the United States, giving American women the right to vote. D Abigail

Sources: Dyson, Hannah. "Stearns, Sarah Burger (1836–1904)." MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnopedia.org/person/stearns-sarah-burger-1836-1904