Women earned the right to vote in Wyoming first

Men outnumbered women six to one in the Wyoming territory. Men hoped the right to vote would lure women into the region. Toward this goal, Wyoming became the first place in the United States to allow women to vote and hold office. This took place in 1869 before Wyoming was even a state. When Wyoming entered the Union in 1890, it was nicknamed “The Equality State.”

Men got nervous when women entered politics and tried to take away the women’s vote. The men would have been successful if the territorial governor had not stopped them with a veto. Wyoming went on to elect the first woman justice of the peace, superintendent of schools, state representative and first woman governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross.

Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first woman governor in the United States when her husband, Governor of Wyoming from 1923 to his death October 2, 1924, passed away and by a special election, she was elected to fill the rest of the term and became the 14th governor of Wyoming, effective January 1925 and remained in that office until 1927. She was a member of the Democrat party and a staunch supporter of Prohibition in the 1920s.

Following her position in Wyoming, Ross was appointed by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the 28th and first female director of the United States Mint from 1933 to 1953. Ross served five terms as director, retiring in 1953. During her later years, she wrote for various women’s magazines and traveled. Ross died December 19, 1977 in Washington, D.C. at the age of 101.