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Wyoming
"The wide, open plains and high mountains of Wyoming
shaped me into what folks here call a rugged individual." --excerpt from
Burning of the Marriage Hat,
(Copyright ©2002 by Margaret Benshoof-Holler)
High plains near Shoshoni, Wyoming
Photo by Margaret Benshoof-Holler
Article: Love and Hate in the Equality
State
Wyoming is known as the "Equality State" because that's
where women in the U.S. first gained the right to vote.
Women in Wyoming gained that right in 1869 while Wyoming
was still a territory. Women in most of the rest of the
U.S. did not gain the right to
vote until 1920. The reason why the "cowboy state"
turned out to be a forerunner of women's rights has more
to do, perhaps, with politics than a deeply ingrained
belief in suffragism among its citizens. In 1869, there
weren't a lot of women in Wyoming. One way to get them,
politicians thought, was to pass a law allowing women to
vote. Suffragists from the east went out to Wyoming to
check it out. They took one look at the isolation of
the southern Wyoming plains and got back on the train
and headed out. Women who stayed were shaped, as if by the
strong wind and rugged terrain, to look a little bit like their
Wyoming surroundings. They became Wyoming's rugged
female individualists.
Wyoming newspapers
Wyoming Public
Radio
Wind River Indian Reservation
Other Wind River Indian Reservation
Wyoming American History and Genealogy Project
Wyoming museums
University of Wyoming
Other Wyoming colleges
Wyoming libraries
University of Wyoming libraries
Yellowstone National Park
Wind River Mountains
Wyoming forts
Other Indian Sites
Lakota Sioux Homeland
Lakota Sioux rights site
Indian information
at Running Deer's Longhouse
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