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It's not true that "Women didn't have the vote 100 years ago." There's a widespread myth that American women couldn't vote until the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920.
Westerners should know better, because this is where women first got the right to vote, and it happened before 1910.
In general, the federal constitution left voting qualifications up to the states. Wyoming Territory allowed women to vote in 1869, and with statehood in 1890, Wyoming became the first state where women could vote in all elections. Thus its nickname, "the Equality State."
Colorado got statehood in 1876 and allowed women to vote in school elections. There was also provision for an 1878 referendum on full female voting rights, but suffrage was defeated. However, it came up again in an 1893 referendum, and it passed.
One irony: Colorado elected a Populist governor, Davis H. Waite, in 1892, and he campaigned for women's suffrage the next year. But he lost his bid for re-election in 1894, largely on account of the women's vote.
Women got full voting rights in Utah and Idaho in 1896, and in Washington in 1910. So a century ago, there were five states, all in the West, where women voted. Back then, Denver was the largest city in the world where women could vote.
And it should be noted that in 1914, women got the vote in Montana, where in 1916 its voters sent the first woman, Jeannette Rankin, to the U.S. House of Representatives.
In many respects, Western states have been far from progressive in their politics. But we shouldn't forget that there was one area where we led the nation.
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