Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Harriet S. Grant, 1869-1944
By Molly P. Rozum, Associate Professor, University of South Dakota
While "Hattie" Grant grew up in Dakota Territory and lived in South Dakota during most of the state's woman suffrage movement, she became an active suffragist only for its sixth successful 1918 campaign. Harriet S. Grant was born 30 October 1869 to Edwin H. and Irene S. Grant at Rossville, in Vermillion County near Danville, Illinois. She had two brothers and the family was Presbyterian. She moved to South Dakota in June 1880 with her parents, who were part of an "Illinois colony" of settlers in Beadle County. Grant township is named after the family. The family moved to Huron, where her father did press work for a Sunday school organization.
Harriet Grant became a teacher and also wrote poetry. In 1896, she ran as a Republican for the Beadle County Superintendent of Schools against Democrat and Populist opponents. Grant also trained teachers at summer Institutes and was active in the South Dakota Teachers' Association. She belonged to the Women's Synodical Missionary Society. In 1917, she served as state chair of artwork for the Woman's Educational Clubs of South Dakota. Although the long-time South Dakota Universal Franchise League president Mamie Pyle lived in Huron, for South Dakota's 1918 woman suffrage campaign, Grant chaired Beadle County's Franchise League. National American Woman Suffrage Association organizer Maria McMahon claimed Grant "rose to the emergency and left nothing undone." In 1918, almost 70% of Beadle County's residents voted for woman suffrage. In 1919, Grant served as the treasurer for the state's Federation of Women's Clubs.
By 1928, Grant lived in Sierra Madre, California. She served as president of the Sierra Madre Woman's Club in 1929 and remained associated with the club during the 1930s, taking special interest in promoting art. She maintained ties to a contingent of Huronites who had moved to California and to those who remained in the South Dakota town. Harried Grant died on 9 December 1944 and is buried at Spring Hill Cemetery in Danville, Illinois, where one of her brothers lived. Grant may have lived in Danville for a short time in the early twentieth century.
No image of Harriet S. Grant was found.
SOURCES:
"Clubwomen Name District Leaders." Pasadena Post, California, 19 Apr 1929, p. 2.
"Crowd enthuses at Art Exhibits." Pasadena Post, California, 5 Mar 1932, p. 6.
"District Federation Head Praises Local Executives." Pasadena Post, California, 20 Jun 1933, p. 4.
Easton, Patricia O'Keefe. "Opposition to Woman Suffrage in South Dakota." (MA thesis, University of South Dakota, 1982), pp. 133-135.
Easton, Patricia O'Keefe. "Woman Suffrage in South Dakota: The Final Decade, 1911-1920." South Dakota History 13, no. 3 (1983), pp. 206-226.
"E.H. Grant Pioneer, To Be Buried Here." Daily Plainsman, Huron, South Dakota, 4 Jun 1929, p.1.
Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current, www.findagrave.com; see Edwin H. Grant and Harried S. Grant.
"Former Huronians Meet in California." Daily Plainsman, Huron, South Dakota, 23 Mar 1936, p. 5.
"Grant Township Picnic." Daily Plainsman, Huron, South Dakota, 19 Jun 1894, p. 4.
Harper, Ida Husted, ed. History of Woman Suffrage: 1900-1920, vol. 6. New York: Fowler & Wells, 1922, p. 594.
Illinois, Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916-1947, database on-line, Ancestry.com; see Harriet S. Grant.
"Large Corps of Workers Largely Responsible for Great Success of Fete." Pasadena Post, California, 16 Apr 1929, p. 24.
McMahon, Mrs. Albert [Maria]. "How to Win a State." The Woman Citizen (Nov 16, 1918), p. 509.
"Miller Notes of Interest." Argus-Leader, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 23 Jun 1903, p. 1.
"Mrs. E. H. Grant Passes Away From This Life Sunday Evening." Dakota Huronite, Huron, South Dakota, 8 Aug 1907, p. 8.
"Music Lovers Hail Concert." Pasadena Post, California, 26 Sep 1930, p. 11.
"Old Settlers' Picnic." Daily Plainsman, Huron, South Dakota, 17 Jun 1983, p. 4.
Mamie Shields Pyle Papers, Richardson Collection, Archives and Special Collections, The University of South Dakota; https://archives.usd.edu/repositories/2/resources/19. See correspondence. Porter to Pyle, 17 Jan 1919; Pyle to Commercial Printing Co., 2 Aug 1918. https://explore.digitalsd.org/digital/collection/richardson/search/searchterm/Mamie%20Shields%20Pyle%20Papers/field/collec/mode/exact/conn/and
South Dakota State Census, 1915, database on-line, Ancestry.com; see Harriet S. Grant.
"Thousands Throng the See Beautiful Wisteria Fete." Pasadena Post, California, 16 mar 1931, p. 11.
U.S. Federal Census, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, database on-line, Ancestry.com; see Harriet S. Grant and Edwin Howard Grant.
Untitled. Argus-Leader, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 27 Nov 1917, p. 9; 10 Oct 1918, p. 5.
Untitled. Daily Plainsman, Huron, South Dakota, 31 Oct 1896, p. 2; 24 Sept 1940, p. 12.
"Women's Work." Argus-Leader, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 11 Oct 1915, p. 2.