Today in History

On December 10, 1869, John Campbell, Governor of the Wyoming Territory, approved the first law in U.S. history explicitly granting women the right to vote. Commemorated in later years as Wyoming Day, the event was one of many firsts for women achieved in the Equality State. On November 5, 1889, Wyoming voters approved the first constitution in the world granting full voting rights to women. Wyoming voters again made history in 1924 when they elected Nellie Taylor Ross as the first woman governor in the United States.

The events leading up to the passage of the 1869 suffrage law were put into motion by Esther Slack Morris, a pioneer whose ears were ringing, according to one account, with "the words of Susan B. Anthony" when she arrived in South Pass, Wyoming in 1869.

A native of New York state, Morris embraced the women's rights movement when she was prevented, on account of the discriminatory property laws in the state of Illinois, from claiming title to a tract of land left to her by her deceased husband. By the time she moved west, she was familiar with the ideas of activists Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott. When Morris joined her second husband and family in South Pass, preparations were being made for the first election in the newly-recognized territory.

At this point, twenty of the most influential men in the community, including all the candidates of both parties, were invited to dinner at the 'shack of Mrs. Esther Morris' . . . To her guests she now presented the woman's case with such clarity and persuasion that each candidate gave her his solemn pledge that if elected he would introduce and support a woman suffrage bill. Woman Suffrage and Politics, the Inner Story of the Movement,
Carrie Lane Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Schuler,
p. 75,
1923.
Votes for Women: Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921 After winning a seat in the legislature, Democrat William Bright, who had been present at Morris's home, kept his promise and introduced a bill granting women the right to vote. Although the legislators treated the legislation as a joke, they approved it nonetheless. To their surprise, Governor Campbell signed it into law. The summoning, three months later, of the first women jurors to duty in Laramie, the capital of the territory, attracted international attention.

• Find more material on the achievement of suffrage in Wyoming. Search the full text of Votes for Women, 1848-1921 on Esther Morris. After retrieving a list of hits, go to any item and use the BEST MATCH link in the page header to jump to the segment of the piece pertaining to Morris.
• Read Woman Suffrage and Politics, the Inner Story of the Movement for a detailed account of the first election in Wyoming, including a description of the virulent opposition encountered by supporters of African Americans' right to vote.
• See the time line One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage for an overview of the suffrage movement, which enjoyed some of its first successes in Western states.
• Enjoy images of the "Equality State" available in History of the American West: 1860-1920. Search on the term Wyoming to see, for example, The Grand Teton, a Crow Indian Village, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Wyoming.