Henrietta Hay's Column

Almost a hundred years ago, on November 7, 1893 Colorado men made history. They were miners and settlers and explorers and probably didn't realize how important their action was. Edwin Price, editor of the Grand Junction News, said, "The voters of Colorado have very cordially and gallantly extended to the ladies the same privileges which they themselves have enjoyed with the ballot." Colorado became the first state to approve women suffrage by popular vote enabling Colorado women to vote a full quarter century before the 19th Amendment made woman suffrage the law of the land. While the movement started in Denver, Mesa County was not to be left out. Mesa County men voted yes by a margin of 794 to 219. Mr. Price added a local note, "The ladies decided to postpone any celebration to November 25, when some of the pent-up joy will be let loose in jollification."

February is Women's History Month. I would like to think that my grandmother, her skirts sweeping the street, her big hat pinned firmly to her head marched for the vote. I have no idea, however, whether she marched or whether she even cared. But the story of Colorado's campaign is an interesting one. It began in 1868 when the Territorial Governor asked the legislature to consider suffrage. Denver newspapers explained the defeat at that time by pointing to "inappropriate female behavior. The suffragettes met on Sunday when all decent women should be in church or at home." A local minister intoned, "If women could vote those who were wives would now live in endless bickering with their husbands over politics, and those who were not wives would never marry." Fortunately his prophecy has not come about.

Several factors contributed to the eventual passage. The first was individual initiative by "strong minded women," one of whom was Caroline Nichols Churchill, a leader for many years. The other was the formation and growth of women's organizations, early examples of what we now call networking. For many years the Women's Christian Temperance Union and suffrage organizations worked together. Their motivation and long-term goals were different, but they found common cause in the struggle for the vote. Churchill wrote about women's reactions to the vote in 1893. "Western Women Wild with Joy Over Colorado's Election."

But women have made history in many ways other than political. Autumn Stephens, in a little paperback book called "Wild Women" Crusaders, Curmudgeons and Completely Corsetless Ladies in the Otherwise Virtuous Victorian Era," tells about some of them. They make today's most militant females look pretty tame.

One of the best known is Carrie Nation. Her ax is as famous as Lizzie Borden's. She started as a shrinking violet, but later set about making every man on earth as miserable as humanly possible. "I smashed five saloons with rocks. God was certainly standing by me." The author adds, "Or more likely just behind her, safely out of harm's way." All this time I thought the butchering of the English language was a recent effort. But it was Carrie Nation who spoke of the "hatcheration of joints."

Agnes Morley Cleaveland, born in 1874, learned early in life the value of equal firepower. In her autobiography she says, "A six-shooter makes all men equal. I amended it to, "a six-shooter makes men and women equal." That's one kind of equality.