Women Gained the Right to Vote in Wyoming – This Day in History

On December 10, 1869, a milestone quietly became a landmark in U.S. history: the Wyoming Territory — not yet a U.S. state — formally granted women the right to vote and to hold public office. This act made Wyoming the first government in the United States — and among the first in the world — to enshrine full suffrage for women.

The law passed under the territory’s first legislature, with the bill introduced by William H. Bright. Despite the weighty implications, the motivations weren’t purely principled. Some male legislators reportedly supported the measure not so much out of a belief in gender equality, but because the territory was heavily skewed male — in 1869, there were roughly 6,000 adult men and only 1,000 women — and they hoped suffrage might encourage women to move there.

Still, regardless of their reasons, the decision was revolutionary. The act was signed into law by Territorial Governor John A. Campbell on December 10. Soon after, in 1870, women in Wyoming began voting and even serving on juries — the first time that had happened in U.S. history.

Importantly, when Wyoming applied for statehood later, its leaders refused to surrender women’s suffrage as a condition of admission. According to historical accounts, they reportedly told Congress they would rather remain out of the Union for a hundred years than join without granting women the vote. In 1890, when Wyoming officially became a state, it retained full suffrage — making it the first U.S. state to enshrine women’s voting rights.

Beyond casting ballots, women in Wyoming also began to assume public roles earlier than elsewhere: less than a year after suffrage passed, women were serving on juries and holding minor public office. The first woman to vote under the new law is believed to have been Louisa Ann Swain, who cast a ballot in Laramie in 1870 — a quiet but profound step forward.

The decision made by the Wyoming Territory didn’t just break fresh ground — it rewrote the possibilities of citizenship in America. It showed that full political participation for women was not a distant dream, but a concrete reality. In doing so, Wyoming blazed a trail that would, decades later, help lead the nation to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920.

That December day remains a landmark: a moment when Wyoming declared, loudly through its laws, that women — in the territory then, and across America in time — deserved full political voice, recognition, and equality.