Mrs. Swisshelm was born in Pittsburgh in 1815, was teaching school by 1829, was married in 1836, and started a pro-feminist, abolitionist newspaper (St. Cloud Visiter [sic]) in St. Cloud, Minnesota in 1858.
Our esteemed :rolleyes: local yokels took offense to her stances and dumped her printing press into the Mississippi, so she turned tail and ran across town to start the St. Cloud Democrat - and continued her feminist, abolitionist editorials.
Over time the area upon which she had her original printing press became St. Cloud State University, and a plaque was erected applauding her actions on the site.
HOWEVER.
Swisshelm was a product of her times, and her times included the idea that Americans had the god-given right of manifest destiny. She was also a product of her geography which, in 1862, was the edge of the frontier. And 1862 included - beyond our civil war - the Dakota Uprising, which placed her in real (but distant) mortal danger.
Over the past few weeks a group of students has agitated for removal of the plaque. It seems that while Mrs. Swisshelm agitated for women and slaves, she deplored the murder of more than 400 white settles by the Dacotah. This student group wants the plaque removed because, despite her efforts for the advancement of women and enslaved Africans, she was anti-Native American.
Before my guts get stomped on all over these boards, I wish to make myself clear: Aboriginal people all over the globe have been used and abused, and what European transplants did to local peoples is horrid beyond belief. But in 1862 those ideals didn’t exist, for the most part.
So whaddaya think?
IMO, the plaque should stay and the students should shut their yaps til they experience life in a sod house on a prarie defending their lives against people bent on killing them. IMO. the plaque should stay and the students should shut their yap and proclaim the attributes of a woman who fought for feminists and slaves in the hinterlands.
[sub]This may very well be a Great Debate, but 1) That place scares me, and 2) The topic is fairly local and specialized, and 3) My local paper, which has been running the story, has really sucky archives and I’m having problems finding links to back up what I’m telling you here. I’ve decided to let the ModGods decide where it should be.[/sub]