EBS STAFF
WYOMING – On
Dec. 10, 1869, the governor of the then-territory of Wyoming signed unprecedented
legislation into law: women were granted the right to vote. The Wyoming
Territory was the first territory or state in the nation to give unrestricted voting
rights to women; the following September, in 1870, women voted in Wyoming’s
second territorial election with a reported 1,000 women turning out to the
polls, according to the Wyoming State Historical Society.
Women were
granted suffrage in Montana in 1914, though it wasn’t until 1920 before the 19th
amendment granting all American women the right to vote was ratified by the
states.