Although the women’s suffrage movement began in Seneca Falls, New York, the first woman to vote in the United States cast her ballot in Wyoming. Before officially becoming a state, the territory of Wyoming passed the Wyoming Suffrage Act of 1869 which gave women over the age of 21 the right to vote and hold office. Before joining the union, the state vied for statehood, but refused to enter the union if Wyoming women were not able to keep their rights, telling Congress “we will remain out of the Union 100 years rather than come in without the women.” Lawmakers supported women’s suffrage for varying reasons. Some wanted to bring more women into the heavily unpopulated territory and others believed that since women played an integral role in fortier life, they deserved a right to vote. There is no clear record of the debate surrounding the issue, so main motivations for the passage of the Wyoming Suffrage Act are not clear. Regardless, the act passed and the women of the state gained the right to vote, and kept it when the state joined the union in 1890. Wyoming quickly moved to the forefront of the women’s rights movement. The state was the first to allow women to own property and sign legal documents, the first to have an all-female jury, and the first to have a female statewide elected official. Wyoming was also the home of the first female bailiff in the world, Martha Symon Boies.

Works Cited

Billock, Jennifer. “Women Have Been Voting in Wyoming for 150 Years, and Here Is How the State Is Celebrating.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 7 June 2019, www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/women-voting-wyoming-150-years-here-how-st....

National Park Service. “Wyoming and the 19th Amendment (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 22 Aug. 2019, www.nps.gov/articles/wyoming-women-s-history.htm.