Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Augusta A. Connor, 1840-1924
By Erica Dominguez Martinez, student: University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, WI
Active Woman Suffrage Supporter through Many Organizations
Augusta A. Connor was born on October 4, 1840, in Maine, to Gilman Connor and Nancy R. (Young) Connor. Her father was a millwright and built many large mills in Maine and later New Hampshire, where her family lived for some time. They became one of the first settlers in St. Anthony, Minnesota, in 1857. St. Anthony merged with Minneapolis in 1872. Connor's father became a prominent local figure because of his work as a millwright. Augusta Connor had a large extended family: six sisters, one brother, and many nieces and nephew, who would visit her occasionally. Her mother died in 1859 after spending only two years in Minnesota. When her brother, Charles Connor, passed away, Augusta gained guardianship of her niece, Alma F. Connor. Augusta Connor never married and, after her father died in 1882 from pneumonia, she inherited his estate. She died on June 30, 1924, in Minnesota. She shares a gravestone with her sister, Marietta Spencer, at the Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis.
Throughout her life, Connor was part of many organizations that advocated for woman suffrage. These included the Woodbridge branch of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, where she became treasurer. She was also a member of the Political Equality Club, which did work on a variety of subjects, most pertaining to woman's equality and education. She was also part of the Moneta Circle of History, whose members would have history lessons at Connor's house. She was also president and, eventually, a director of the Maternity Hospital Association. Augusta Connor loved reading and writing poetry, and was part of a group of women who engaged in active literary work. On many occasions, she was asked to read her original poems at important events held by these organizations or by the city.
SOURCES:
1900 U.S. Census, population schedule. Minnesota. Hennepin. Digital images. Ancestry.com. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/: 2017.
Bingham, William H, and R. I. (Return Ira) Holcombe. Compendium of History And Biography
of Minneapolis And Hennepin County, Minnesota. Chicago: H. Taylor & Co., 1914.
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Find a Grave. 21 June 2012, www.findagrave.com/memorial/92321115/augusta-a.-connor. Accessed 14 Dec. 2017.
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