By Charles Pederson
Part 1 and Part 2 of this article presented the often-overlooked political lives of Cora McQuestion and Elizabeth Ries, two strong Scott County women who blazed a trail in the local political world. This final chapter, Part 3, reflects on the two women’s rise in the context of women’s rights generally.
The Limits of Feminism
On March 11, 1926, shortly after the election of Cora McQuestion and Elizabeth Ries, the Jordan Independent remarked, “Scott County . . . is becoming quite the feminist stronghold.” The article’s favorable tone contrasted with the prevailing opposition to the 19th Amendment just a few years before. A typical letter to the editor in the Baltimore Sun, for example, had been titled, “Don’t Get So Excited, Dear Miss. Maybe We’ll Let You Vote Some Time or Other, If You Are Good Little Girls.”
The encouraging “feminist” sentiments, however, were short-lived. After McQuestion’s and Ries’s elections in the mid-1920s, no other woman for many years was elected mayor of a Minnesota town. In Shakopee, for example, Isla Lindmeyer was elected in 1952—27 years after Ries’s election. Delores Lebens was elected Shakopee mayor for a 1-year term in 1988—another 36 years. And since Lebens’s election until the date of this writing, not another woman has served in Shakopee’s highest office.
It’s hard to quantify why McQuestion and Ries were elected. It must be true that both women were favorably viewed as viable political figures. McQuestion’s actions in foiling a bank robbery, overseeing an uptick in arrests for Prohibition-related infractions, and being one of the few female mayors all brought positive publicity to Prior Lake. In Shakopee Ries leaned into her role as mayor, as well, chalking up notable accomplishments.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about McQuestion’s and Ries’s political lives is not that they were elected, but that their elections came so soon after nationwide female suffrage was instituted.
Dreams Deferred
It might be argued that women made further strides during World Wars I and II, entering farming and manufacturing fields that men had traditionally dominated. But when men returned from those conflicts, they resumed their previous positions, further demonstrating that women’s gains were short-lived. Until startlingly recently, women could not do the following:
Serve on a jury. Only in 1973 could women finally serve in all 50 states.
Get a credit card in their own name. A 1974 law allowed women to get a card without a husband or other male relative as cosignatory.
Be guaranteed that they would not be fired for getting pregnant. A 1978 law made it illegal to fire a woman for being pregnant.
Decide to refuse sexual relations with their husband. In 1993, spousal rape finally became illegal in all 50 states.
Get an Ivy League education. The last Ivies to allow “co-eds” were Yale and Princeton, in 1969; Harvard, 1977; and Columbia, 1981.
Pay the same rate as men to obtain health insurance. A 2010 federal law forced insurers to charge the same rate for males and females.
Fight on the front lines. In 2013 a combat ban was lifted.
Looked at Another Way
“[The struggle for female suffrage] is so often described in a way that makes it seem kind of dowdy and dour. . . It is not a boring history of nagging spinsters; it is a badass history of a revolution staged by political geniuses.” —Kate Clarke Lemay, Curator of the National Portrait Gallery.
Learn More!
Bennett, Jessica, & Chambers, Veronica. (2020, August 19). Suffrage Isn’t “Boring History.” It’s a Story of Political Geniuses. New York Times.
Coller, Julius. (1976). The Shakopee Story. North Star Pictures.
Drexler, Ken, & Champagne, Mary. (2019, September 13). 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Primary Documents in American History. Library of Congress Research Guide.
Evon, Dan. (2019, September 3). Could Women Not Do These 9 Things in 1971? A Viral List Recounts Some of the Bumps on the Road to Gender Equality. Snopes.
Jones, Hannah. (2016, March 18). Women of Courage: Pioneers of Scott County. SWnewsmedia.
Kennedy, Audrey. (2021, March 18). Explore Women’s Art, History and Culture This March. SWnewsmedia.
La Opinión [Los Angeles]. (1927, April 3). Alcalde que fundara un restaurant [Mayor who started a restaurant]. In Library of Congress.
Minnesota Historical Society Library. (n.d.). Women’s Suffrage in Minnesota: Overview.
Minnesota NOW. (2021, April 10). Trailblazers Come in Many Colors.
National Register of Historic Places. (2010). Minnesota MPS Holmes Street Bridge. National Archives Catalog.
Paranick, Amber. (2020, November 3). “Women Have the Vote!” [Blog post]. Library of Congress.
Roessner, L. Amber. (2020). The Voices of Public Opinion: Lingering Structures of Feeling About Women's Suffrage in 1917 U.S. Newspaper Letters to the Editor. Journalism History, 46(2), 124–144.
Scott County Historical Society. (n.d.) Rock Spring Café. In Yesterday and Today in Shakopee.
Scott County SCENE. (2020, June/July). In 1920s, Women Served as Local Mayors: Shakopee, Prior Lake Elected First Female Mayors in State Following Suffrage.
Shakopee Heritage Society. (2018, August 9.) Throwback Thursday: 75 Years Ago, County Board Agrees a New Courthouse Is Needed [Photo]. SWnewsmedia.
Shakopee, City of. (n.d.). History of Shakopee.
Shakopee, MN. (2020, March 31). A Look Back: Shakopee’s First Female Mayor.
Newspapers (may be viewable online)
Jordan Independent. (1926, March 11). Prior Lake’s New Mayor Is Woman of Courage: Has Record of Routing Bank Bandits Out of the Village.
Jordan Independent. (1942, December 17). Mrs. McQuestion, Former Mayor: Prior Lake Lady Departed This Life, Friday, Funeral Services Here, Monday.
Minneapolis Journal. (1926, March 10). Woman Who Routed Bandits at Prior Lake With Shotgun Elected Mayor of Village.
Minneapolis Star. (1926, March 10). Prior Lake Woman Who Routed Holdup Men Elected Mayor.
Minneapolis Sunday Tribune. (1926, January 17). Elizabeth Ries, Shakopee Mayor, on Radio Program.
Minneapolis Sunday Tribune (1927, November 27). Shakopee Woman Mayor Bruised by Hit and Run Driver.
Shakopee Argus. (1949, May 12). E. K. Ries Passes at Home Here.