Wyoming Women’s Political History: It’s Complicated with Virginia Scharff

thursday, June 12 at 6 pm | doors open 5:30 pm

Although Wyoming calls itself “The Equality State,” Wyoming women have repeatedly had to fight for their rights, and their struggles have been complicated, to say the least.

In this lecture, Virginia Scharff – Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Southwest at the University of New Mexico – will tell four stories that reveal both women’s courage and determination to defend and expand democracy, and their  sometimes unexpected and contradictory motives and consequences of their actions.

From the 1869 territorial establishment of women’s voting rights, to the national fight for women’s suffrage, to the election of Nellie Tayloe Ross as the first woman Governor in 1924, Wyoming women have been in the vanguard of American women’s political history. But their actions came at a cost for many women who called Wyoming home.

More recently, Wyoming’s former Representative Liz Cheney, an arch-conservative and rising Republican star, demonstrated extraordinary courage in the face of the January 6 insurrection, and became an unlikely lightning rod in the struggle for democracy. Each of these stories reveals the complexity of women’s historic efforts to claim their rightful place in American politics.

This free event is part of The Rest of the West Series co-presented by Teton County Library and History Jackson Hole and has been made possible with partial funding by Wyoming Humanities and Teton County Library Foundation.

Visit Virginia Scharff’s site to learn more about her work.