The Hi-Line's many women heroes

Next year will be the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in Montana.

As luck will have it, it will also be the 100th anniversary of the Havre Daily News.

Most people consider the centennial of suffrage more important, so we are planning to celebrate that in our pages.

Martha Kohl, the historical specialist for the Montana Historical Society, was in town for the Montana Association of Museums meeting. The group conducted its statewide convention in Havre this weekend.

Montana beat out the United States as a whole by six years. The amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote didn't take effect until 1920. Granting women's suffrage was a landmark in Montana's history.

Kohl is hoping the state will celebrate more than suffrage in 2014. It's time, she said, that women's contribution to the state will get a lot of attention.

Shortly after the suffrage took effect, the colorful Jeannette Rankin became the nation's first woman U.S. representative.

The second one, by the way, was Alice Mary Robertson of Oklahoma, who, much unlike Rankin, was an anti-feminist.

Rankin was a trailblazer. Women politicians in Montana have done better than their colleagues in other states. Today, most statewide elected officials are women, and here on the Hi-Line, all three state representatives are women.

Other women in early Montana were more colorful than Rankin. Prostitutes and madams inhabited nearly every community, especially Butte, though a man in the audience Saturday insisted that Miles City should also get credit for its prostitutes.

While the congresswoman and the prostitutes are part of Montana history, there are a lot more women who deserve a mention during the 100th anniversary of suffrage, Kohl said.

Instead, she proposed that we honor thousands of women who played a vital role in our history, though their names may not be in any textbooks.

While many area women took on political assignments long before it was common — Toni Hagener was a Hill County commissioner long before that was common and Delores Plumage was the first Native American commissioner — many others have changed life on the Hi-Line forever.

The nuns who opened Sacred Heart Hospital or the Methodist women who founded Deaconess Hospital had an impact of area residents for generations.

Even before Title 9, Hi-Line women performed well in athletics.

They sang in choirs, opened businesses on their own, performed well in athletics and did many, many things that deserve praise.

So, planning ahead, we are looking for women who have made great strides.

Gary Wilson's book, Adventure Tales of Montana's Last Frontier, which comes out this fall, will feture stories on women at Fort Assiniboine and the early homesteaders.

If you have any ideas on women who made great contributions to Hi-Line history, please let us know. Email me at the address listed below.