POLLY MANN:

Polly Mann was born in Lonoke, Arkansas on November 19, 1919, and grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She graduated from high school in 1937 and soon after served in a clerk position with the U.S. Army Transportation Section of the Quartermaster’s Office in Little Rock. In this position, she met her husband Walter H. Mann, a military draftee and lawyer. During this period, Mann began to develop her beliefs in pacifism.

Following the war, Walter and Polly moved to Windom, Minnesota, where he ran his own law firm and they raised their four children. They later moved to Marshall, Minnesota, where Walter was appointed district court judge, and Polly worked in the Southwest State College bookstore. In this role, Polly spoke with students regarding the Vietnam War. Polly also took an active role in the Minnesota DFL, and worked on the Eugene McCarthy campaign, attending the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968.

In 1971, Mann participated in the Citizens Committee to End the War in Vietnam, travelling to Paris to speak to representatives about the ongoing Vietnam War. In 1980, she moved to Minneapolis and soon after co-founded the Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) with Marianne Hamilton. Polly Mann ran an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in 1988. She also continually published columns, including for the WAMM newsletter, the Southside pride, and the Minnesota women's press.

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Polly Mann Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 17,748

Location of Master Files:

Digital masters of the audiocassettes are maintained on the Society's secure digital collections storage servers and is managed and preserved in accordance with archival best practices.

The original audiocassettes were disposed after the material was digitally reformatted into wav files.

Processing Information:

Processed by: Leif Kopietz, March 2020.

Digital audio transferred from the master audiocassettes by the Minnesota Historical Society for preservation purposes, (November, 2020).

Digitization was made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on November 4, 2008.

Catalog ID number: 9989779239304294

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Feminism -- Minnesota.

Peace movements -- Minnesota.

Political campaigns -- Minnesota.

Women -- Political activity -- Minnesota.

Women and peace -- Minnesota -- History.

Women pacifists -- Minnesota -- Biography.

Organizations:

Minnesota Progressive Party.

Minnesota Women's Press (Saint Paul, Minn.), author.

Women Against Military Madness (Minn.), author.

Document Types:

Manuscripts for publication.

Memoirs.

Newspaper columns.

Photographs.

Sound recordings.

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