Jane Grey Swisshelm

Cabinet card of Jane Grey Swisshelm taken in 1860 after her relocation to St. Cloud, Minnesota

Historical Marker once located on St. Cloud State University campus

Home of J.G.S. & Office of St. Cloud Democrat ~ app. 1860

The life and legacy of Jane Grey Swisshelm is as controversial today as it was in the 1800’s. Her short time in St. Cloud as a newspaper publisher and land speculator was marked with great controversy within the small community. Decades went by before a historical marker in her honor was reevaluated and protested against on the campus of St. Cloud State University. This site is a reflection on who Jane Grey Swisshelm was and the controversy surrounding the historical marker honoring her.

Jane Grey Swisshelm was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1815. She came from an Orthodox Calvinist community to which her family was deeply connected. Dominated by her husband, at the age of twenty five, Jane began to write short stories, poems and essays in local newspapers. Encouraged by her mother, she created her own newspaper called the Pittsburgh Saturday Visitor in 1847. It was then that Jane began reporting her views on social change for the ongoing women’s rights movement and the abolition of slavery. Jane was the first woman chosen as a correspondent to write letters to the Tribune from Washington. In 1857 Jane felt overwhelmed by her husband, she left him behind and moved to St. Cloud, Minnesota with her daughter. While in St. Cloud, she established her own newspaper, St. Cloud Visitor and later she opened the St. Cloud Democrat. Individuals in the community felt threatened by Jane’s powerful and often time’s caustic personality, so much so that some of the Democrats broke into her office, destroying her work by throwing her printing press into the Mississippi River. She would not let the opinions of others bring her down, instead she learned how to embrace the negativity and channel it into writing, which led her to become a powerful and influential writer of the time period. In 1858, she wrote for both the St. Cloud Visitor and the St. Cloud Democrat. Jane used her writing to create a voice for herself and lead others in the feminist movement and the anti-slavery movement which was unprecedented at the time. These views were in contrast to her negative views of Indigenous peoples.

Her hate filled rhetoric about Dakota people was often present in her writing. Her newspaper called for the eradication and extermination of all Dakota people. After the Dakota rebellion, Jane left the St. Cloud and the St. Cloud Democrat in 1863, and moved to Washington D.C. with her daughter. She then began to work with President Abraham Lincoln on the Indian Policy. While working with President Lincoln, he appointed her to give personal opinions on the policy. Jane died in her home in 1884. Jane is remembered by family and friends as a woman who fought against slavery and for women’s rights, but there was a part of her that was disregarded.

In 1969, a historical marker was erected on the St. Cloud State University campus in honor of Jane Grey Swisshelm. The SCSU campus, outside Shoemaker Hall, was chosen because it was where her newspaper office and house once stood. The original intent was to highlight this woman who fought for women’s rights and wrestled against black slavery in 1858. This type of hatred was common for this era, Swisshelm used her newspaper as a platform to promote eradication of Native people. She printed vicious and hate-filled rhetoric regarding Native Americans, actively vilifying them in many of her newspaper articles. Although her time in St. Cloud was short, Swisshelm left a legacy that went unquestioned for nearly 40 years, until 2004, when a group of students at St. Cloud University learned of the controversy surrounding her life and decided to speak up.

As times change, so do people, nearly 150 years after Swisshelms’ impact in St Cloud, our views on racial inequality and the opinions of Swisshelm, who had very polarized views of race, came into question. Students on campus protested in 2002 and again in October of 2004 when the St. Cloud Student Senate voted 22-1 to remove the plaque (Kropp). The students on St. Cloud’s campus no longer wanted to be identified with her. In an article about the marker and Jane Swisshelm in the St. Cloud Times, July 10, 2012 it was noted that, “Anti-slavery, women’s rights crusader called a racist by group” (Tam). Cheryl Pierce, a senior student at the time expressed her view, “Our campus is supposed to stand for human rights. We want the atmosphere at St. Cloud to be nondiscriminatory” (Tam). Swisshelm no longer expressed the identity and views of the St. Cloud University students and they demanded the marker be eradicated. Due to pressure from the St. Cloud University student community, the marker was removed in 2004. Removing the marker was a testament of how students have chosen to fight against present racist sentiments and remove past expressions of racism.

Works Cited

Hoffert, Sylvia D, Jane Grey Swisshelm- An Unconventional Life, 1815-1884. 2004.

Kropp, Cathy, Marker Causes Controversy, Records of the Chronicle. St. Cloud State University Archives, St. Cloud, Minnesota, accessed 25 Oct 2004 accessed 15 Nov 2018

Tan, Michelle, St. Cloud Times, Student group protests Swisshelm memorial, 10 July 2012 accessed 15 Nov 2018