Suffragists on the Western Frontier

August 26th was Women’s Equality Day, in commemoration of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which formally recognized women’s right to vote in the United States. This year is particularly special, as it marks 90 years of women casting their ballots. But did you know that women in many of the Western states were voting long before the passage of the 19th Amendment? Films like Iron Jawed Angels have popularized the images of women picketing the White House and holding large suffrage parades, but we often forget about the contributions of women on the Western frontier.

The first state to grant women the right to vote was Wyoming, which passed universal suffrage in 1869. Utah was soon to follow in 1870. By 1914, the majority of Western states and territories recognized women’s right to vote, a full six years before the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Several factors can explain why women were voting in the Western states ahead of women on the East Coast. One explanation is that mining and agricultural prospecting was a driving force behind the westward expansion of the United States. Suffrage was seen as an enticement for women to move west, particularly in states like Wyoming. Additionally, granting women the right to vote ensured that Western states had larger voting populations, and would therefore have more representation in Congress. However, this is an overly simplistic explanation that ignores the hard work of suffragists in the West. Rebecca Mead argues:

“Pioneer” suffragists took advantage of small territorial legislatures, the statehood process, third-party challenges, and reform politics to pursue a broad women’s rights agenda . . . Sometimes attributed to a “frontier effect,” roughly defined as a combination of economic need and political experimentalism, winning these legal reforms still required sustained effort by early women’s rights activists. Failure to credit women’s activism has obscured the radicalism of their goal and methods . . .

Utah was in a very different situation than Wyoming. Brigham Young and the Mormons arrived in the Utah Valley in 1847. Women participated equally in voting for leaders within the Mormon Church, but the ability to vote for political representatives was not granted until 1870. Many historians argue that women in Utah were given the right to vote in an attempt to counter Washington’s opposition to polygamy. Members of Congress initially supported women voting in Utah because they believed that women would vote to reject polygamy. They were shocked to discover that Utah women favored polygamy, and as a result, Congress rescinded women’s suffrage in Utah in 1887 as part of a series of anti-Mormon pieces of legislation that were passed during Utah’s bid for statehood.

The irony of the situation is that women in Utah were actually well ahead of the national curve in terms of obtaining higher education, owning property, and running their own businesses. For example, Emmeline B. Wells founded a women’s newspaper called The Women’s Exponent. Everyone who worked for the newspaper, from the writers to the typesetters, was a woman. In addition to reporting news from the Mormon Church’s Relief Society (which still is one of the world’s largest women’s organizations), The Woman’s Exponent was a major source of news for the women’s suffrage movement, and regularly featured articles advocating for universal suffrage.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two of the leaders of the national suffrage movement, were very aware of the importance of Western suffragists. In 1871, they took a tour of the Western states as part of their state-by-state campaign for women’s suffrage. In her autobiography, Elizabeth Cady Stanton describes her first trip West, and she pays particular attention to her time in Utah.

We were very thankful for the privilege granted us of speaking to the women alone in the smaller Tabernacle. Our meeting opened at two o’clock and lasted until seven, giving us five hours of uninterrupted conversation . . . I gave a brief history of the marriage institution in all times and countries . . . and we all agreed that we were still far from having reached the ideal position for woman in marriage . . . Though Mormon women, like all others, stoutly defend their own religion, yet they are no more satisfied than any other sect. All women are dissatisfied with their position as inferiors, and their dissatisfaction increases in exact ratio with their intelligence and development.

Stanton and Anthony also spoke heavily in favor of family planning during their speeches, suggesting that women should space the timing of their pregnancies and limit their number of children. Predictably, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were not allowed to speak at a Mormon pulpit again after this trip, but they had made strong ties with the suffragists in Utah.

Anthony and Stanton went to California after their stay in Utah, where suffrage faced bitter opposition. Beverly Beeton explains in a 1982 article in Journal of the West that during their time in San Francisco, Anthony and Stanton spoke to crowds of over 1000 people, who had each paid a $0.50 entry fee. The media’s coverage of these events was mixed. Susan B. Anthony was pilloried in the press for looking stern and matronly, while Elizabeth Cady Stanton was praised for her speaking style and friendly demeanor. The trip out West marked Stanton’s first time speaking in public since the Senecca Falls Convention in 1848. Anthony was very hurt by Stanton’s reception in California, mainly because she had been trudging her way along the campaign trail alone for decades before she had the companionship of Stanton on the road. Nevertheless, Anthony kept up the good fight. In all of her speeches in the West, Susan B. Anthony argued that the 14th and 15th Amendments already granted women the right to vote, which would later be used in her defense at court when Anthony voted in the election of 1872.

Although women’s suffrage faced many challenges in the West, such as a lack of sustainable organizations due to the large territorial boundaries, the suffrage campaign was hard fought and ultimately successful.  These plucky frontier women utilized the press, conducted letter writing campaigns, and tirelessly spoke at churches and other public venues in order to advance the women’s movement at both the state and national level.

For a comprehensive bibliography about Western suffrage, visit the Women of the West Museum’s website.  I realize that my analysis focuses primarily on the contributions of white women.  If any of our readers has suggestions for resources regarding the contribution of Indigenous, Chicana, Asian, and African American suffragists in the Western States, I would love to hear from you in the comments section.

Posted by Serena Freewomyn on Aug 31 2010. Filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry