Gladys Pyle. (Courtesy United States Senate Historical Office)
Gladys Pyle succeeded in another of her many historic firsts 100 years ago this week when she was elected South Dakota’s first female secretary of state, according to the Nov. 5, 1926, edition of the Rapid City Journal.
Already the first female state legislator in South Dakota history, the Huron native’s firsts were far from over.
Pyle was born into a politically active family. Her father, John Pyle, was a lawyer who served as South Dakota’s attorney general, and her mother, Mamie Shields Pyle, was the first president of the South Dakota League of Women Voters, which worked to achieve a woman’s right to vote in South Dakota in 1918.
