Writer 'rescues' suffragette

By Katie Brown, Journal staff | Saturday, March 08, 2008

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South Dakota native Sally Roesch Wagner said she first became interested in Matilda Joslyn Gage, a key player in the women's suffrage movement of the 1800s, "on a hot July afternoon in 1973."

"I walked through the front door of 520 S. Kline St. in Aberdeen and entered the rest of my life," Roesch Wagner said.

That front door was to the home of Gage's granddaughter, Matilda Jewell Gage.

At the time, Roesch Wagner taught women's studies at California State University in Sacramento.

She planned to speak with Gage's granddaughter for "about an hour."

Five days later, Roesch Wagner was still enthralled in the documents, old photographs, scrapbooks, and published and unpublished works.

They told Gage's the story.

When Roesch Wagner speaks Saturday, March 8, in Rapid City, she hopes to introduce those attending to Gage, a woman who Roesch Wagner said had just as big a role in the women's suffrage movement as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

"Yet, few people can say her name today," Roesch Wagner said.

Roesch Wagner will present her speech, "Rescuing Matilda from the Outtakes of History," at 7:30 p.m. at The Journey Museum.

The speech will focus on why Gage's contributions were somehow left out of history books.

"I want to bring this woman and her ideas back to their rightful place in history," Roesch Wagner said.

Roesch Wagner was raised in Aberdeen. She left South Dakota after high school and was one of the first people in the country to receive a doctorate in women's studies.

She is now the director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation of Fayetteville, N.Y.

Gage was the major women's rights leader that supported the Equal Rights Party in the late 1800s.

The party stood for equal rights for everyone: women, Native Americans, blacks and immigrants.

"It was a party that some people might find quite appealing today," Roesch Wagner said.

All four of Gage's children moved to Dakota Territory.

Roesch Wagner said that at one time, Gage encouraged her son-in-law, a down-on-his-luck businessman to publish a few of the stories he often told his children.

That man is now known as L. Frank Baum, and those stories became "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."

Roesch Wagner speaks throughout the country about women's history. She also is working to restore Gage's home into a museum.

Roesch Wagner wrote "She Who Holds the Sky: Matilda Joslyn Gage," "Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists" and the introduction to the reprint of Gage's 1893 book "Woman, Church and State."

If you go

What: Sally Roesch Wagner speech and book signing

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 8

Where: Wells Fargo Theater at The Journey Museum, 222 New York St.

Cost: Free

Contact Katie Brown at 394-8318 or katie.brown@rapidcityjournal.com