“But when the right was afforded, she stepped up." "She was not the fist-pounding suffragette, saying ‘We need these rights,’ says Mary Mountain, a docent at the museum. to cast a ballot in the general election. Swain was simply going into town to get her yeast, when she cast her ballot, making her the first woman in the U.S. "She was just a Quaker woman, 70 years old, when she cast that first vote," Viner says. But it was Louisa Ann Swain who changed the course of history. It also was first state to allow women on a jury. Wyoming had the first female bailiff, justice of the peace and governor. "The right decision for all the wrong reasons," Viner says. “Because obviously men were the only ones who could pass such a law in the territory at the time."Īccording to Viner, the men passed the act to allow women the right to vote and hold office, in hopes it would bring more families to Wyoming and help the territory to become a state. "We owe this act to men,” says Kim Viner, a docent at the Laramie Plains Museum. In fact, the state recognized the importance of the female vote back in 1870, 50 years before it was enacted into the U.S. But what very few people know is that it's the first state to give women the right to vote. Wyoming, a state known for cowboys, cattle and its wide-open spaces.
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