Charlotte Sophia Imus Winchell
Charlotte Sophia Imus was born on May 28, 1836, in Shaftsbury, Vermont, the daughter of Alonza Imus and Eunice Vaughn. Her father was a tanner, shoemaker, and farmer. In 1842, the family moved to a farm on the edge of Galesburg, Michigan. Imus’ role as an educator began remarkably young as she began school at four and she started teaching when she was fourteen. Later Imus attended Albion College, forty miles east of her home. Imus graduated from Albion in 1856 and promptly joined its faculty, teaching French for the next three years. From 1861 to 1864, she was preceptress of the high school at St. Clair, Michigan. Imus married Newton Horace Winchell on August 24, 1864, in Galesburg, Michigan. The couple made their home at Ann Arbor, where Newton was studying geology and acting as an assistant on the Michigan Geological Survey.
In fall of 1872, the family moved to Saint Anthony, Minnesota where her husband taught geology, mineralogy, and botany at the recently reopened University of Minnesota and led the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota. At the time of their move, the family had three children. Two more would be added in Minnesota, the last born in the house at 120 State. However, Charlotte’s interests extended well beyond the household. She was an invaluable partner in Newton’s voluminous writings, editing nearly every publication Newton produced from annual reports to the survey’s six final volumes. Her children later recalled evenings with the family gathered about the table, wrapping and addressing monthly editions of The American Geologist that their parents had authored.
More importantly, Charlotte was deeply involved in civic life and philanthropic circles. She was an ardent but non-confrontational suffragist and after the state constitution was amended to grant school suffrage to women, she successfully ran in the 1876 school board election with her friend Charlotte Van Cleve. The two became the first women elected to public office in Minnesota.
Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark Van Cleve in 1875 (Minnesota Historical Society) and Charlotte Sophia Imus Winchell in 1880 (UMN Archives)
April 5, 1876, Star Tribune article on East Division School Directors election
April 12, 1876, Star Tribune article announcing Van Cleve and Winchell start on East Side Board of Education
Later, a story circulated that the Charlottes only won their election because a male opponent brought his laundress to one of the saloon polls to cast her vote for him. Upset with being teased by rowdy bar patrons, she announced that she changed her mind and said, ‘I think I’ll vote for the women.’ In the tale, inebriated drinkers began mimicking her and jokingly voted for Van Cleve and Winchell, electing them to office. The story was obviously false as a lone bar could not determine the election. However, it was also misogynist as Van Cleve and Winchell won the election on their own merits. The two won so convincingly that even before the final tally was known, the March 31, Star Tribune reported that ‘Mrs. Van Cleve and Mrs. Prof. Winchell will capture the East Division in that contest for the position of school inspector.’ When the final tally came in, Winchell had outpolled her opponent, Dr. Samuel Hewes Chute, by 771 votes to 623. Chute was one of the best known and wealthiest men in Minneapolis, which makes her win all the more remarkable. Women played a pivotal role in her victory, exercising their first opportunity to vote. The ‘East Division’ referred to Saint Anthony, as even though the two cities had merged in 1872, their school boards remained separate until 1878. Charlotte, with her widely regarded tact and social skills, played a crucial role in bringing about the school districts’ merger.
Charlotte was also a founding member and first president of the Minnesota Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. When Governor Andrew Ryan McGill signed a bill requiring the teaching of ‘scientific temperance’ in the schools of Minnesota, he gave the pen to Charlotte and attributed the bill’s success to her efforts. In 1883, she was one of three founders of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church and a mission in Penang, Malaysia, was named in her honor. In 1895, she organized and led a circle of King’s Daughters, known as the Charlotte Winchell Circle, which supported missionaries and scholarships in India, China, and Africa. Charlotte Winchell died on March 17, 1926, in Enterprise, Florida and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery.
March 11, 1887, Star Tribune article on signing of the Scientific Temperance Bill
1889 portrait of Gov Andrew Ryan McGill (Minnesota Historical Society)
As an educator, it is not surprising that Charlotte Winchell was the one who originally recognized that women faced a vexing hurdle in attending the University of Minnesota. Despite the university taking pride in being coeducational, there were few lodgings and no dormitories for women, which greatly discouraged out state women from attending. Charlotte suggested that her husband and friends use the old Cheever barn to build a boarding house for women students. Although the family’s economics delayed that plan, Charlotte still took in many students over their years in the home and after leaving, welcomed the home’s conversion to a cooperative cottage for University of Minnesota women.
However, as she left her home of thirty-three years for the last time, it is unlikely that Charlotte Winchell ever envisioned that her cottage would give rise to thirteen Charlotte Winchell Cottages that for decades would house a significant fraction of all the women attending the University of Minnesota.
Winchell Cottage in September 21, 1919, Star Tribune.
Return to Charlotte Winchell Cottage
Any concerns or suggestions?
email: Kent Kirkby ([email protected])