Minnie D. Davenport was born at Phillips, Maine, on November 4, 1883, the daughter of Marshall and Aura (Prescott) Davenport.  Following high school graduation at Phillips, Minnie attended Farmington State Normal School and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.  She married Edward O. Craig in July, 1908.  Although a native of Maine, Edward was president of the bank at Esmond, North Dakota, where the couple resided while in North Dakota.

After becoming interested in politics during the 1919 Legislative Session, Mrs. Craig was elected in 1923 to the North Dakota House of Representatives where she served for six terms, culminating in 1933, as the first woman speaker of a House of Representatives in the nation.  Minnie also was the state president of the Nonpartisan Clubs for two years and Republican National Committee woman from 1928 to 1932.  In 1933, Mrs. Craig was appointed state worker for the Federal Emergency Relief Agency.  In the 1935 Legislative session, Minnie was named assistant to the chief clerk and was chief clerk in 1937 and 1939.  In 1946, Mr. & Mrs. Craig retired to California where he died in 1947.  Mrs. Craig continued to live there until moving to her original home at Phillips, Maine, in 1959.  She died on July 2, 1966 at Farmington, Maine. 
 

Minnie D. Craig Papers  |  Politics and Government  Women