Alexander, Ruth Ann

Ruth Ann Alexander was born in Lansing, Michigan, on February 13, 1924, to Harry and Anne (Green) Musselman, and died in Brookings, South Dakota, on February 1, 2010. She graduated from East Lansing High School and Michigan State University, earning a B.A. in English in 1945. She later completed a master’s degree in American studies at the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in American intellectual history at Michigan State University. In 1955, she married William Alexander, with whom she had three children.

Alexander taught English at South Dakota State University for 34 years, rising to the rank of full professor and becoming the first woman to chair the English Department (1981–1989). She introduced the university’s first courses on women writers, as well as African American and Native American literature. She also chaired the committee that established the Women’s Studies major. She received numerous grants and fellowships, including a Bunting Fellowship at Harvard University in 1987, and was recognized three times with SDSU’s Outstanding Educator Award (1971, 1972, 1974). Upon her retirement in 1989, she was named Professor Emeritus and continued to research South Dakota women writers and women in the Episcopal Church.

From 1994 to 2002, Alexander wrote a column for the South Dakota Church News titled All Sorts and Conditions of Women, which was later collected and published in 2003 as Patches in a History Quilt: Episcopal Women in the Diocese of South Dakota, 1868–2000. She also published scholarly articles on South Dakota writers such as Elaine Goodale Eastman and Kate Boyles Bingham. Beyond her scholarship, she participated in the Great Plains Chautauqua series, portraying Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1989–1991) and later serving as series moderator (1998–2001).

An advocate for women and girls, Alexander was the first woman elected to the Brookings School Board (1970–1975), where she promoted equal funding for girls’ and boys’ activities and raised academic standards. In 1972, Governor Richard Kneip appointed her to the first South Dakota Commission on the Status of Women, where she served until 1979. She also served on the Board of Directors of the South Dakota Historical Association (1988–2000), the Episcopal Church History Association (1992–1997), and the Episcopal Women’s Church History Project (1991–1997). She helped establish the Brookings Food Pantry and chaired the Emergency Services Commission from 1983 to 1999.