Speaker on Jeannette Rankin will be in Havre

Press release H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum

According to local author Gary A. Wilson, in his book, “Honky-Tonk Town, Havre, Montana's Lawless Era,” a young Jeannette Rankin came to town in October and November 1914 to speak on behalf of “prohibition, but also for social, labor and political reform.”

She also urged the adoption of women’s suffrage, which passed by a small margin in the election on Nov. 3, 1914.

Women’s suffrage set the stage for her election as the first woman to the U.S. House of Representatives, Nov. 7, 1916.

The H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum program “The Clack Centennial Celebration — Women’s Suffrage,” is presenting Suzette Dussault of the Humanities Montana Speaker’s Bureau. Her program is “Jeannette Rankin — Suffragette.”

The program will be held at the Best Western Great Northern Inn Meeting Room Saturday, Nov. 1, at 1:30 p.m. Refreshments will be served, and the public is invited.

Dussault will speak in Havre Public Schools Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 3 and 4. Dussault will be speaking in Havre almost exactly 100 years after Jeannette Rankin spoke here in favor of women’s suffrage in 1914.

Nationally, the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote, did not come into effect until 1920. Six years earlier, on Nov. 3, 1914, Montana voters — all men — extended voting rights to women, and Montana joined 10 other western states in equal suffrage.

Jeannette Rankin is undoubtedly Montana’s most famous suffragette, but the movement’s final triumph involved hundreds of women across the state.

Dussault’s program on Jeannette Rankin will educate people on the fascinating social and political implications of the suffragette movement.