Politics | Page 18

Sarah Burger Stearns

Engraving of Sarah Burger Stearns, undated. From History of Woman Suffrage, Ida Husted Harper et al., eds (Rochester, NY: Susan B. Anthony, 1889).

Stearns, Sarah Burger (1836–1904)

Sarah Burger Stearns was a committed reformer dedicated to the cause of women’s rights. She founded one of Minnesota’s first suffrage organizations, the Rochester Woman Suffrage Association, in her home city of Rochester. In 1881, she was elected the first president of the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA). Although she resigned in 1883 due to ill health, Stearns stayed involved in the suffrage cause throughout the 1880s and into the 1890s.