This play follows the history of the effort to get women the vote in North Dakota, with humor and drama.
It was written by Kathleen Coudle-King in consultation with Barbara Handy-Marchello, former UND history faculty member, and Susan Wefald, North Dakota’s first woman to serve on the North Dakota Public Service Commission.
Kathy Coudle-King has taught writing at UND since 1994, after earning her M.A. in English at UND in 1993. She holds a B.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from NYU. The full story of how Persistence landed on Prairie Public radio can be found here: www.coudle-king.com/blog
The production is supported by the estate of Carolyn Pickard Handy and a grant from the North Dakota Council on the Arts.
For more information:
Lori Ann Lahlum and Molly R. Rozum, Editors, Equality at the Ballot Box – Votes for Women on the Northern Great Plains, (South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2019). Includes four chapters on North Dakota Suffrage:
“Quiet Voices in the Prairie Wind,” by Barbara Handy Marchello; “Kate Selby Wilder Dresses the Part,” and “Kate Selby Wilder” by Ann Braaten; and “Cora Smith Eaton and North Dakota Woman Suffrage, 1888-1897,” by Kristin Mapel Bloomberg.
Susan Wefald, “Convincing the Men – North Dakota’s Woman Suffrage Campaign 1912-20,” North Dakota History, Winter 2019/Vol.84.2 pages 14-33.
Susan Wefald, Important Voices, North Dakota’s Women elected State Officials Share Their Stories, 1893-2013 (North Dakota State University Press, 2014).
Emma S. Pierce, “North Dakota,” in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 6, 1900-1920, ed Ida Husted Harper.
Jeanne F. Tucker, The History of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement in North Dakota, 1951.