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Pickler Family Papers 65 cubic feet (H91-74)
Major John Alfred Pickler and his wife, Alice Mary Alt Pickler, were
prominent Faulk County pioneers. Their papers consist of correspondence,
subject files, financial records, journals, business records, photographs,
scrapbooks, and speeches from 1865 to 1976.
Major Pickler was elected to the territorial legislature in 1884 and
later served as South Dakota’s first representative to the United States
Congress (1889-1897). His work with veterans’ pensions is reflected in
the collection along with documentation of the temperance and suffrage
movements in South Dakota, in which both John and Alice Pickler were
active.
Alice’s correspondents included persons of national prominence in
these crusades including Annie Wittenmeyer, Carrie Chapman Catt, Susan B.
Anthony, and Henry Blackwell. The collection includes an extensive body of
correspondence between state and national Equal Suffrage Association
headquarters and field workers and local societies. Portions of the
collection dating later than 1910 concern the household, school and
business activities of by then widowed Alice Pickler, her children, and
grandchildren.
An article by Linda M. Sommer "Dakota Resources: The Pickler
Family Papers and the Humphrey Family Papers at the South Dakota State
Historical Society," in South Dakota History, Vol. 24 (Summer
1994): 115-134 gives a detailed description of the Pickler collection. |
