Governor Gordon has declared December 10, 2019 as Wyoming Women’s Suffrage Day. On December 10th, 1869 the territory of Wyoming ratified into women’s suffrage. Stories abound across the state regarding the reasons why the state of Wyoming recognized women’s inherent right to vote and seek office 150 years ago—50 years before the rest of the United States.

Was it a question of statehood; or did citizens respect the vital role women played in ranching, farming, community, business and family rearing; or did it have to do with a tie breaking vote by a controversial brothel owner from South Pass City? These are all questions that WyomingPBS, in partnership with Caldera Productions, address in The State of Equality: Wyoming Women Get the Vote. On December 10, 2019, in honor of Wyoming Women’s Suffrage Day, several events will take place across the Equality State and in Jackson to honor this historic milestone.

Join the Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum for a lunchtime reading of the short play Wonderful Wyoming Women Voters, written by Mary Guthrie and Rosaline Schliske for the Wyoming League of Women Voters. Bring your own lunch and listen to this short play inspired by the women who made Wyoming the Equality State. The play revolves around four Wyoming women critical to passing the first legislation giving women the right to vote and hold office…then to defending the effort to repeal it…and, finally, to refusing to deny women’s suffrage in exchange for statehood.

They include Julia Bright and Esther Hobart Morris, of South Pass City, and Amalia Post and Theresa Jenkins, of Cheyenne. Three of these women also had the most important roles in the celebration when Wyoming became a state on July 10, 1890. Helping to tell their stories is a time-traveling researcher/narrator.

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