This month marks the 104th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote.
How was this news greeted in Golden? With detached interest…the fact is, women in Colorado had had the vote since 1893. Their first presidential election was the 1896 contest between William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan.
Many of the western states were early adopters of female suffrage. Some states–including Colorado–began by allowing women to vote in school board elections. That worked well, so the question of voting in all elections was given more serious consideration. Much of the discussion on this issue focused on the “purifying” effect that women could have on politics. It was assumed that women would vote for virtuous issues such as temperance and against vice and corruption. Of course, not everyone wanted curbs on drinking, child labor, prostitution, and gambling; that’s why female suffrage took so long to pass.
This was not a local issue. The Transcript regularly posted articles about the status of women’s voting rights in various states as well as other countries. The suffrage movement was extensive, well-coordinated, and persisted through decades.
In the 1893 election, Jefferson County’s men voted 842 for female suffrage and 515 against. Golden voted 276 for and 159 against. The Transcript commented:
The large vote in favor of woman’s suffrage is a surprise to all the ladies, especially in this county, where it was fully expected a majority would be cast against it. According to present appearances they hardly know what to do with it now they have got it, but they will find a way to handle it, never you fear. — Colorado Transcript, November 15, 1893
Some men had voted for the issue thinking that having more voters would give us more representatives in Congress. They were mistaken–representation is based on total population, not the number of voters. (That’s why the census count is important.)
Many thanks to Esther Kettering for sponsoring Golden History Moments for the month of August.
