- Crystal Brilliant Snow Jenne
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Crystal Brilliant Snow Jenne was the first woman to run for the House of Representatives in the Alaska Territory.[1]
Biography
Crystal Brilliant Snow Jenne was born in Sonora, California on May 30, 1884.[2]
In 1887, she emigrated to the Alaska Territory with her parents, who worked as a troupe of actors to entertain the miners.[1] As her father joined the Klondike Gold Rush, they moved to Circle City where her father built an opera house.[2] After he found gold, they moved to Seattle, but they lost their money and returned to Alaska.[2]
After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley where she majored in Music, she taught in Paso Robles, California.[2][3] From 1907 to 1908, she taught in Douglas, Alaska.[2] She spent the next summer singing for miners in Skagway, Haines, Dawson, Fairbanks, Nome, etc.[2] She then attended the Spencerian Commercial School in Cleveland, Ohio to study Business.[2] She then taught in Skagway, Sitka, and the Mendenhall Valley.[2]
She moved back to Juneau in 1914.[1] She was married in 1916 and had three children.[2] Her husband died in 1938.[3] The next year, she published a volume of historical poetry.[2] Meanwhile she worked in church choirs, taught, and ran a flower shop.[2] In 1934, she ran as a Democrat for the Alaska House of Representatives.[1][2] She lost four races, and was elected in 1940, and reelected in 1942.[1][2][3]
She was a member of the Alaska Federation of Women's Clubs, the Democratic Women's Club, the Juneau Women's Club, and the National Business and Professional Women's Club.[2]
She died at the Sitka Pioneer Home on June 5, 1968.[2][3]
Bibliography
- The Ghost of Old Juneau (1939)
References
Categories:- 1884 births
- 1968 deaths
- People from Tuolumne County, California
- People from Juneau, Alaska
- University of California, Berkeley alumni
- Women in Alaska politics
- Alaska Democrats
- Members of the Alaska Territorial Legislature
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