Intermountain Histories

Hazel Hunkins-Hallinan: Silent Sentinel Suffragist

2024-10-21T17:33:32+00:00

Billings native Hazel Hunkins-Hallinan, alongside other members of the National Women’s Party, peacefully picketed the White House fence from 1917-1919 to advocate for a federal amendment for women’s right to vote. Known as the “Silent Sentinels,” they proved to be a continual reminder to President Woodrow Wilson of the issue of suffrage.

Hazel Hunkins grew up in Billings, Montana, and as a young girl, she was seen as “different” because she wanted to do what boys could do from climbing trees to becoming a doctor. After graduating valedictorian from Billings High School, Hunkins obtained her chemistry degree from Vassar College. However, when she applied to chemistry labs across the country they all replied that although she was qualified, they “don’t hire women.” This response sparked a fire in her, and when she met Anne Louise Rowe of the National Women’s Party (NWP), Hunkins realized that she “was one of millions who had been shoved aside because of my sex” and she had to do something about the exclusion of women. Within six months of joining the NWP, she became the Montana State Chairman. When the NWP began their constant picketing of the White House in 1917, Hunkins participated in the demonstrations. The pickets were peaceful—holding purple, gold, and white suffrage banners and signs like “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?” Hunkins led a protest at Lafayette Square, carrying the American flag and leading the way to the Park. Once at the statue, she made the simple statement: “Here, at the statue of Lafayette, who fought for the liberty of this country, and under the American flag, I am asking for the enfranchisement of American Women.” She was immediately arrested. Other women followed Hunkins’ lead, each suffragist making her own statement until 47 women were arrested. Lafayette Square confirmed the NWP efforts were unpopular; however, once World War started, they were scrutinized even more, as people thought the women needed to support the war effort rather than picket a wartime president. The NWP, instead of wavering in their resolve, started new demonstrations like the watchfires of freedom—where President Wilson’s speeches about democracy in Europe were read aloud and burned because American women did not have democracy at home. The arrests of NWP women continued, often being charged with newly fabricated crimes like “obstruction of a public sidewalk.” Rather than paying fines, they chose jail because as Hunkins stated, “Women cannot be law-breakers until they are law-makers.” The prison conditions were awful—cold, damp areas, without proper clothing, blankets, and food—so the suffragists would often go on hunger strikes to protest these conditions, and in some cases, they would be force-fed. After one such hunger strike, Hunkins left the prison hardly able to walk. Despite all of the challenges they faced fighting public opinion and police officers’ efforts to stop their protests, in 1920 the 19th Amendment was finally ratified, giving American women the right to vote. After this triumph, Hazel Hunkins continued to push for women’s rights. When she moved to London with her husband, Charles Thomas Hallinan, she joined the British feminist Six Point Group. At age 87, Hunkins-Hallinan returned to America to participate in the March for Equal Rights. There she stated what she fought her whole life for, “Equal Rights is so clear cut; it’s fundamental—a basic change… For half a cent I would stay here and campaign.”

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Molly Brown: The "Unsinkable” Suffragist and Workers’ Rights Activist

2024-10-18T23:42:20+00:00

Famously called the “Unsinkable Molly Brown” for surviving the Titanic, the suffragist had a remarkable life before and after the tragedy.

Margret Tobin Brown was born in Hannibal, Missouri in 1867 to Irish immigrants. Life in Hannibal greatly influenced her outlook, as she was surrounded by diversity and saw the struggles of the working class. Her parents valued education, so Margaret was able to attend school until she was 13 when she had to drop out to work in a factory. Like her father and countless others, she experienced low wages, instability, and dangers at work. Margaret dreamed of going West, and at age 18, she followed one of her older brothers, Daniel, who had moved to Leadville, Colorado, to strike rich in the mines. Women were not allowed to work in the mines, so they had to find jobs in the mining towns, as cooks, nurses, saloon girls, or store workers. Margret worked in a store, and while she did not have much, she participated in causes she believed in, like volunteering in soup kitchens. It was in Leadville that she met her husband James Joseph Brown, a mining engineer. They got married in 1886 and soon had two children. Surprisingly, in 1893, they became millionaires when the Little Jonny Mine that J.J. invested in struck gold. Now wealthy, they moved their family and built their home in Denver, Colorado which can be visited today. They became prominent figures in Denver, Margaret in the political realm and J.J. in the business sphere. Denver was rampant with various social issues—poverty, homelessness, and workers’ rights issues—and now Brown held a position where she could promote political action. She advocated for labor reform and became an involved member of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Margaret’s situation was unique because she separated from her husband in 1909 to live independently. In 1912, she embarked on the Titanic. When tragedy struck, she was pushed onto a lifeboat, even though she was still trying to help others. After the lifeboat was deployed, she protested, saying they needed to save more people, but the sailor refused. Although not allowed to testify in court because she was a woman, she became one of the most famous survivors. With her newfound fame after the Titanic, Brown used her position to raise awareness of the Ludlow Massacre of Colorado miners, who were striking for more rights. She understood the challenges workers and families faced, so she not only helped the affected families but also advocated for workers' rights and spoke about how women having the right to vote could help pass necessary reforms across the country. Brown did important work for Colorado and people began encouraging her to run for Congress in 1914. However, with growing tensions with World War, she decided not to run and shifted her focus to war relief programs. She became the self-sufficient woman of the 1920s, continuing to advocate for women’s and laborer’s rights until her death on October 26, 1932.

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Elizabeth P. Ensley: Suffragette and African American Women’s Club Leader

2019-01-18T07:58:47+00:00

An active leader in African American women’s clubs and the women’s suffrage movement in Colorado, Elizabeth Piper Ensley worked to improve the rights of women and African Americans.

Elizabeth Piper Ensley came to Colorado in the 1890s. Born in Massachusetts in 1847, she studied abroad in Europe, taught school in Boston, and established a circulating library. In the 1880s, she and her husband, Howell N. Ensley, moved to Washington, D.C. and taught at Howard University, one of the top African American universities in the country. In the 1890s, the Ensleys moved to Denver, which had the largest African American population in the state. Elizabeth immediately became involved in activism, social work, the women’s suffrage movement, and local women’s clubs.
Elizabeth P. Ensley was one of the key members of the Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association of Colorado. She was one of the twenty-eight original members when the association was created in 1893 in the face of the campaign for the popular referendum. Ensley was elected treasurer of the Association, which had only $25.00 at its inception. As treasurer, she would have handled and overseen things like fundraising, management of funds, donations from national suffrage organizations, and funding for leaders who spoke around the state such as Carrie Chapman Catt. Under Ensley’s guidance, the Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association of Colorado became financially secure and carried out a successful statewide campaign, even in the midst of an economic depression in Colorado. Ensley was also instrumental in mobilizing African American women to join the suffrage campaign and persuading African American men to vote for women’s suffrage. When the popular referendum came in November of 1893, male voters passed women’s suffrage by a margin of six thousand votes, giving both black and white women the right to vote in Colorado.
Along with her leadership in the campaign for women’s suffrage in Colorado, Elizabeth Ensley was an active leader of African American women’s clubs. In 1894, the first year women could vote in Colorado, Ensley helped found both the Colored Women’s Republican Club and the Woman’s League of Denver, which worked to mobilize African American women to vote. That year, Elizabeth Ensley and the African American women of Denver voted to elect Joseph Henry Stuart to the Colorado Assembly, where he became one of Colorado’s first African American legislators and passed an important civil rights bill. Ensley noted the power of the African American women voters and their clubs in Colorado in an article she wrote entitled “Election Day” in December 1894 for The Woman’s Era, the official publication of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and the first national newspaper written by and for African American women. She wrote, “The readers of the ERA will be interested to know what special part the colored women have taken in the election. Most of them have done admirable work in the interest of the Republican party. They also formed clubs of their own and heroically helped their brothers to elect a representative to the legislature.” Elizabeth Ensley continued to be an active member of women’s clubs in Colorado. In 1904, she called for the African American women’s clubs of the state to organize, and founded the Colorado Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, of which she was later vice president. The association's song, written by Eva Carter Buckner, well encapsulates Elizabeth Ensley’s lifelong mission to fight for the rights of women and African Americans:
“We’re Colorado’s colored women struggling for a place;
We’re loyal to our country and we’re loyal to our race;
We’re holding high the banner, in the dust it must not trail,
As we go marching on.
Onward, upward to the summit,
Onward, upward to the summit,
Onward, upward to the summit,
We’re advancing step by step.”
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First to Vote: Women’s Suffrage in Wyoming

2019-01-18T07:45:55+00:00

In 1869, Wyoming’s territorial legislature passed a bill approving women’s suffrage, making the women in Wyoming the first in the United States to have the right to vote. Although debates continue over who should receive the credit, Wyoming’s status as the first territory and state to grant full suffrage for women remains a source of state pride.

Wyoming was organized as a territory of the United States in 1868. When the first territorial legislature met in the capital of Cheyenne in the late 1869, William H. Bright introduced a bill to give women the right to vote in Wyoming. Passed by both chambers of the territorial legislature, the bill proposed: “That every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in this territory, may, at every election to be holden under the laws thereof, cast her vote. And her rights to the elective franchise and to hold office shall be the same under the election laws of the territory, as those of electors.” Approved on December 10, 1869, the bill became a law and women in Wyoming became the first in the country to legally have the full right to vote.
When women in Wyoming gained the right to vote in 1869, they did so without an official campaign. Unlike most states, Wyoming did not have a suffrage association or organization prior to the passage of women’s suffrage. Still, the people of Wyoming knew about the idea of women’s suffrage. Female circuit lecturers, such as the nationally acclaimed orator Anna Dickinson, came to Wyoming and spoke on women’s rights and suffrage. Newspapers throughout the territory included news and information about the women’s suffrage movement across the country. Even without an organized women’s suffrage movement in Wyoming, supporters of women’s suffrage helped push the territorial legislature to take action.
It is unsure who was most responsible for the passage of women’s suffrage in Wyoming. Some argue that the legislators like William H. Bright who introduced and passed the bill should be given credit, while others claim that the Wyoming women who supported women’s suffrage had an instrumental role in influencing the legislators. Popular Wyoming history credits Esther Hobart Morris, who became the first woman elected to judicial office in the United States with her appointment as a justice of the peace in 1870, as the “mother of woman suffrage,” but historians debate the extent of her influence. A compromise between these two ideas about who was responsible for the passage of women’s suffrage in Wyoming can be seen in the women’s suffrage commemorative statue in front of the state Capitol Building in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The statue depicts Esther Hobart Morris and the inscription reads: “Esther Hobart Morris: Proponent of the legislative act which in 1869 gave distinction to the territory of Wyoming as the 1st government in the world to grant women equal rights.” Thus, the statue highlights the importance of women like Morris in pushing for women’s suffrage while also acknowledging the role of the territorial legislature both in the inscription and in the placement of the statue in front of the Capitol Building.
Women’s suffrage is an important part of Wyoming’s history and identity. During the process of applying for statehood, Wyoming women successfully demanded that female enfranchisement be officially included in the state constitution. When the United States Congress threatened to withhold statehood from Wyoming because of that clause in the state constitution, the territorial legislators sent a telegram stating that Wyoming would rather remain out of the Union for one hundred years rather than join without women’s suffrage. When Wyoming did gain statehood in 1890, it became the first state where women had the full right to vote. Wyoming’s support of women’s suffrage led to its nicknames as “The Suffrage State” and “The Equality State.” The state’s history of equal suffrage led Wyoming to send a copy of the Esther Morris statue to Washington, D.C., where it is displayed in the National Statuary Hall at the United States Capital. Even though debates continue over which historical individuals deserve credit, Wyoming’s status as the first territory and state in the United States where women had the right to vote remains a source of state pride.
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Frances Munds and Pauline O’Neill: Suffrage Leaders in Arizona

2019-01-18T07:32:52+00:00

Meeting through their mutual involvement in women’s clubs and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Frances Willard Munds and Pauline O’Neill worked together to lead the campaign for women’s suffrage in Arizona and served as some of the first women in Arizona’s state legislature.

In the late nineteenth century, Frances Willard Munds and Pauline Schindler O’Neill both moved to Prescott, Arizona, where they began a lifelong friendship and partnership in fighting for women’s suffrage and political rights. Munds and O’Neill met through their mutual participation in women’s clubs and Arizona’s branch of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU, which advocated for the prohibition of alcohol as well as for social issues like public health and prostitution, provided an avenue for women to get involved with social reform initiatives outside of the home. This led many women, including Munds and O’Neill, to join the women’s suffrage movement.
Pauline O’Neill and Frances Munds were influential leaders of the women’s suffrage movement in Arizona. O’Neill became the second president of the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association in 1899, succeeding Josephine Brawley Hughes, who had also been the president of the WCTU in Arizona. Munds acted as the association’s secretary, and the two women spent many long hours strategizing in the parlor of O’Neill’s home in Prescott along with other suffrage leaders. When O’Neill moved to Phoenix in 1901, she sold her house to Munds. The Victorian-style house, now known as the Sewall House, still stands in Prescott and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Both women continued their suffrage work and political lobbying from different cities. Pauline O’Neill took advantage of her husband’s position as state representative to serve as the suffrage movement’s legislative liaison. Frances Munds took over as president of the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association, and led the suffrage campaign until its successful end in 1912.
Although the women of Arizona had campaigned for the right to vote for decades, it wasn’t until 1912 that they were successful. Arizona became a state in 1912, but without a provision for women’s suffrage in the new constitution. Under the leadership of Frances Munds and Pauline O’Neill, the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association lobbied the new state legislature to pass a bill allowing the men in Arizona to vote on women’s suffrage, but when the bill failed by one vote, the women took the issue into their own hands. In the intense heat of an Arizona summer, Munds and O’Neill led the suffragettes in a statewide effort to collect over 3,000 signatures on a women’s suffrage petition, which allowed for the issue to be placed before the voters as a constitutional amendment in the next election. For four months, Munds, O’Neill, and the rest of the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association waged a campaign to raise support for women’s suffrage, drawing on support from Mormons, newspapers, labor unions, Populists, and Progressive reformers. They carried out rallies, parades, and speaking events across the state, while local suffrage groups campaigned door-to-door. Munds and O’Neill also led the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association in political lobbying and maneuvering, obtaining endorsements from the different political parties by leveraging the potential power of the female vote in future elections. When the election came in November of 1912, women’s suffrage in Arizona passed by a margin of 13,452 votes to 6,202.
Thanks to the leadership and political efforts of Frances Munds and Pauline O’Neill, women’s suffrage passed in Arizona in 1912. However, this was not the end of their political involvement. Pauline O’Neill served two terms in the Arizona House of Representatives, where she supported legislation to help women and children, and worked in women’s clubs and social reform movements for the rest of her life. Frances Munds went to Budapest, Hungary in 1913 to represent Arizona at the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, served as a member of the Arizona Senate, and continued in to work in politics. Munds and O’Neill demonstrated that women’s role in politics extended beyond just voting to holding political office. In their work for women’s suffrage and their political leadership, Frances Willard Munds and Pauline O’Neill helped expand the possibilities for political participation for women in Arizona.
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Jeannette Rankin: Suffragette, Pacifist, and First US Congresswoman

2019-01-18T07:15:35+00:00

A leader of the women’s suffrage movement on the national and state level, Jeannette Rankin helped lead her home state of Montana to enact women’s suffrage in 1914. She became the first woman elected to the US Congress when Montana elected her to the House of Representatives first in 1916 and again in 1940. Championing women’s suffrage, social welfare, and pacifism during her time as a Congresswoman, Jeannette Rankin remains the only member of Congress to vote against entering both World Wars, and continued her dedication to peace throughout the rest of her life.

Jeannette Pickering Rankin was born in 1880 in Missoula, Montana. She graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in biology and attended the New York School of Philanthropy to study social work. Her interest in social welfare and policy change convinced her of the necessity of women’s enfranchisement in order to implement social reform through political action. Rankin played an instrumental role as a skilled organizer and speaker in women’s suffrage campaigns in New York and Washington. She worked for the National American Women’s Suffrage Association as a national organizer, lobbyist, and field secretary. Even with all her work on women’s suffrage nationwide and in several states, Jeannette Rankin never forgot her home state.
Jeannette Rankin, with her experience working for the National American Women’s Suffrage Association and other state suffrage movements, became an important leader of the movement in Montana. Her organizational skills and renowned speaking ability proved instrumental in rallying people to the cause of women’s suffrage. In 1911, Rankin spoke to the state legislature in support of women’s suffrage, using the argument that “taxation without representation is tyranny” to argue that women, taxed like men, deserved the right to vote and represent themselves in government. In 1913, Jeannette Rankin became chair of the state suffrage organization. She obtained endorsements in support of women’s suffrage from the Democratic, Republican, and Progressive parties and personally interviewed each of Montana’s legislators. When the suffrage referendum passed in the state legislature in 1913, Rankin and the other Montana suffragettes such as Mary O’Neill and Belle Fligelman traveled over 9000 miles across the state to reach the far-flung communities of Montana and raise support for women’s right to vote. Through their efforts, Jeannette Rankin and the women of Montana succeeded in the passage of a popular referendum that granted them the right to vote in 1914.
For Jeannette Rankin, women’s involvement in politics did not end with the ballot box. In 1916, she ran for one of Montana’s at-large seats in the US House of Representatives and became the first woman in the United States elected to Congress, four years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Soon after, in April, 1917, Congress was called to an emergency session to vote on declaring war on Germany and entering World War I. Jeannette Rankin became one of fifty members in the House who voted against the war, declaring “I wish to stand for my country, but I cannot vote for war.” Speaking later in life about her decision, she declared “I felt the first time the first woman had a chance to say no to war, she should say it." Her vote gained both criticism and praise, including from within the women’s suffrage movement.
In addition to her important vote on World War I, Rankin used her time in Congress to continue to fight for women’s suffrage. As part of the U.S. House of Representatives, she had the unique opportunity to be the only woman to argue for national women’s suffrage as a member of Congress. Jeannette Rankin advocated for the creation of the Committee of Woman Suffrage and became a founding member. In 1918, she opened the debate in Congress over a national women’s suffrage amendment, asking, “How shall we answer their challenge, gentlemen? How shall we explain to them the meaning of democracy if the same Congress that voted for war to make the world safe for democracy refuses to give this small measure of democracy to the women of our country?”
After her first congressional term, Jeannette Rankin continued to be an ardent pacifist and advocate of social reform. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, she participated in international peace organizations and lobbied for the passage of social welfare programs like the Sheppard-Towner Act. Rankin won a second term in Congress in 1940, and was the only member of Congress to vote against declaring war on Japan. This decision made her the only person in U.S. history to vote against entering both world wars. Widely reviled by members of Congress and across the country, Rankin nevertheless stood by her decision and her pacifist ideals. After her second term, she traveled the world advocating for peace. In the 1960s and 1970s, she mobilized once again to protest the Vietnam War. In 1968, she led an anti-war march in Washington, D.C. with a coalition of women’s peace groups named the Jeannette Rankin Brigade. Jeannette Rankin’s activism did not end with women’s suffrage or her Congressional terms, but continued throughout her life.
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The Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association of Colorado

2019-01-18T07:01:55+00:00

In 1893, the Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association of Colorado led a campaign for women’s suffrage that mobilized women across the state. The suffragettes worked with multiple organizations and political parties to pass a popular referendum granting women the right to vote over two decades before the Nineteenth Amendment.

As in many states and territories, women in Colorado worked for years to achieve women’s suffrage. Attempts to secure the right to vote for women in Colorado began in the 1870s, soon after Wyoming and Utah enfranchised women. Although several bills on women’s suffrage came before the legislature, none passed until 1877, but the men of Colorado voted against it in a popular referendum. In 1893, the issue of women’s suffrage came before the state legislature once again. With support from the Populist party, a bill was passed in April through both Houses and the legislature authorized another popular referendum. By this time, Colorado activists and suffragettes had organized again and formed the Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association of Colorado.
The Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association of Colorado had only a few months to organize and conduct their campaign to convince the male voters of the state to vote in favor of women’s suffrage in November of 1893. Prominent leaders of the Association included journalists Ellis Meredith and Minnie Reynolds, teacher Martha Pease, physician Mary B. Bates, African American club leader Elizabeth P. Ensley, and American Woman Suffrage Association organizer Louise Tyler. With few funds, the Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association of Colorado met at first in the houses of members, but relocated its headquarters to rooms in Denver’s Tabor Grand Opera House after Elizabeth B. “Baby Doe” Tabor, wife of mining millionaire Horace Tabor, donated the use of the rooms. The Association also appealed to national suffrage leaders for assistance, sending Vice President Ellis Meredith to the annual National American Woman Suffrage Association convention in Chicago in June. She convinced NAWSA’s best organizer, Carrie Chapman Catt, to come assist in the Colorado campaign by arguing, “If Colorado goes for woman suffrage, you may count on a landslide in that direction throughout the West.”
In the campaign for women’s suffrage, the Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association of Colorado utilized a number of tactics. The Association worked together with multiple organizations, such as the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Young Women’s League, the City League of Denver, and several women’s clubs, and also auxiliary suffrage organizations throughout the state to manage the campaign on a local level. The Association sent speakers to raise support, particularly Carrie Chapman Catt, who toured the state speaking at small meetings and large public rallies. Colorado suffragettes also utilized the press: Minnie Reynolds, as Chairwoman of Presswork, convinced the majority of Colorado’s newspapers to commit to the cause and reserve space in their papers for articles about the women’s suffrage campaign, which she and her fellow suffragette journalists like Ellis Meredith and Caroline Churchill wrote. The Association also worked across political and economic lines to appeal to the greatest number of male voters. The suffrage referendum was widely supported by the Populist party--but the Republican and Prohibitionist parties also endorsed the campaign for women’s suffrage. In addition, the Association appealed to men and women of all classes by working with trade unions and labor organizations, tying women’s suffrage to the cause of “free silver” as a way to enact economic reform, and presenting suffrage as social welfare measure that would help the working-class. Indeed, while middle and upper-class women made up the majority of the Association’s top leadership, working-class women did the work of canvassing home to home, distributing suffrage literature, and participating in local suffrage organizations.
By the time the popular referendum came in November 1893, the women of Colorado had worked to raise support for female enfranchisement by speaking across the state, organizing rallies, distributing suffrage literature, creating local suffrage organizations, getting political endorsements from various political parties, partnering with trade unions and women’s clubs, and writing newspaper articles. The Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association of Colorado acted as a central organization and headquarters for the movement throughout the state. On the day of the vote, the Association’s headquarters at the Grand Tabor Opera House in Denver remained open all day and organized groups of women to go to the polls, where they handed out suffrage literature and personally appealed to male voters. Early results were published the next morning, showing that the referendum for woman suffrage had passed by a margin of 35,798 to 29,451. Women across the state rejoiced, and the Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association of Colorado held an informal reception at their headquarters in the Grand Opera House, celebrating a success over twenty years in the making that resulted in Colorado becoming the first state to pass woman suffrage by popular referendum.
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Women’s Suffrage and Temperance in Idaho

2019-01-18T03:43:46+00:00

The fight for women’s suffrage was closely tied to the temperance movement. Many women in Idaho supported both temperance and women’s suffrage, and although some suffragettes like Abigail Scott Duniway worried that the association between the two would prompt greater opposition from men, the WCTU helped win the right to vote for women in Idaho in 1896.

In Idaho, like most states in the West, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union played an important role in the women’s suffrage movement. The WCTU advocated a variety of social reforms, such as prohibition of alcohol, for the purpose of creating a moral and clean society. Many Idaho women first became involved in the public sphere through participation in the WCTU, and later became suffragettes. The President of the Idaho Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Henrietta Skelton, encouraged local WCTU chapters in Idaho to incorporate women’s suffrage into their cause. The Idaho WCTU also helped push the territorial government to consider women’s suffrage. During Idaho’s Constitutional Convention in 1889, Henrietta Skelton gave a speech to the legislature requesting the following two clauses in the new state constitution: “No discrimination on account of sex shall be made; but citizens of both sexes, possessing the necessary qualifications, shall be equally eligible as electors;’ and “that manufacture, sale, or keeping of intoxicating liquors for use as a beverage is hereby prohibited.” For temperance activists in Idaho, women’s suffrage and prohibition were inseparable.
However, the connection of women’s suffrage to prohibition of alcohol by the WCTU created some problems. Due to this connection, liquor companies became some of the main opponents of female enfranchisement and some men viewed women’s suffrage in a negative light. When Henrietta Skelton argued for both suffrage and prohibition amendments in Idaho’s new state constitution, some suffragettes feared this would endanger the cause of women’s suffrage. One such suffragette was Abigail Scott Duniway. Abigail Scott Duniway had spent decades working for women’s suffrage in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho as a speaker and newspaperwoman, and previously spoke before Idaho’s legislature in 1887 in favor of women’s right to vote. In her autobiography, she recalled her reaction to the WCTU’s speech to the legislature: “I received a message from my Equal Suffrage co-workers in Boise, urging me to come to them at once. “The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union is spoiling everything,” the letter said. “They have arranged for a hearing before the convention, in advance of ours, asking for a clause in the new Constitution to prohibit the liquor traffic. They won’t get it, of course, but they will prohibit us from getting a Woman Suffrage plank, if you don’t come!” Duniway gave a speech to the legislature right after Skelton in which she attacked the idea that women’s suffrage and prohibition were connected and instead argued for the adoption of an independent women’s suffrage clause. Idaho did not give women the right to vote in the new state constitution, but Skelton and Duniway’s speeches reveal some of the tension in the relationship between women’s suffrage and temperance.
Despite the misgivings of Abigail Scott Duniway and other suffragettes, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union remained an active part of the women’s suffrage movement in Idaho. The next president of the WCTU in Idaho, Rebecca Mitchell, convinced Lewis E. Workman, a Republican member of the state’s House of Representatives, to introduce another women’s suffrage bill to the legislature in 1893. Although that bill was not successful, the WCTU kept working with Idaho’s Equal Suffrage Association until women’s suffrage was successfully passed in 1896. The WCTU continued its social reform efforts with continued strength after women in Idaho won the right to vote. As public services and symbols of prohibition, they erected temperance water fountains, one of which still stands outside of Boise City Hall. In 1916, the WCTU achieved one of its main goals in Idaho when Governor Moses Alexander approved statewide prohibition.
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Prostitution in the Mining Community of Wallace, Idaho

2018-01-27T05:54:53+00:00

In the late-nineteenth century, silver was discovered in northern Idaho and mining quickly became a thriving industry in the region. The town of Wallace, Idaho, was established to meet the needs of the incoming miners to the area. With this influx of young, single men there was a perceived “lack of women.” The few women that were there provided many services to the miners such as laundry, cooking,and sex work.

In the period between the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, silver mining in Wallace, Idaho was in full swing. During this era, many brothels were established. Prostitution contributed a great deal to the economic prosperity of Wallace by meeting miner's desires, contributing to local industry, and providing economic opportunities for women.
Prostitution was central to the economic system of many small mining towns. Wallace recognized this fact and decriminalizing prostitution while remaining illegal at the state level. Prostitution in Wallace was highly regulated to appease the consciousness of some citizens. Houses of prostitution operated with a strict code of conduct, paid taxes, and workers submitted to frequent health examinations. These regulations pacified critics without eliminating the practice of prostitution.
The main argument for the need of prostitution was that it kept other “respectable” women safer from the rugged miners. According to the mayor of Wallace in 1905, prostitution was a “necessary evil” to keep refined women from being raped by uncontrollable male sexuality. Ultimately, by allowing women to participate in sex work, Wallace officials ensured a strong economy. Another major factor that led to community acceptance was the income and tax revenue made by prostitutes. In 1913 “tax revenues form prostitution, gambling and the sale of liquor enabled Wallace to pave its streets and fund a general infrastructure upgrade” making the town better for everyone. Because of regulations put on brothels at the turn of the century, Wallace generated considerable revenue.
Prostitution in this period gave women economic opportunity and even political influence in a society where the same were sometimes limited. The struggles and the risk of disease and pregnancy, however, made it a difficult way to earn a living. At the Oasis brothel, for example, women could have up to sixty customers a night and worked long, unrelenting shifts. The women would also be seen by a doctor weekly to check for diseases and pregnancy. If a prostitute contracted an STD or fell pregnant she could be out of a job. For some, these risks outweighed the economic incentives of sex work while for others, it did not.
Prostitution was not officially criminalized in Wallace until the early 1990s.
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Investigating Women's Labor on the Stonebraker Family Homestead

2018-01-27T05:14:29+00:00

Situated in a remote corner of the Payette National Forest, the Stonebraker family homestead and ranch came to represent many firsts for westering families in central Idaho. The men of the migratory family that called the Chamberlain Basin home flexed their entrepreneurial talents, prospering from opportunities supplied by nearby mining communities. Their well-photographed history portrays the complicated work of homesteading Stonebraker women.

William Allan Stonebraker and his family were among the first non-Native American migrants to homestead in Idaho’s Chamberlain Basin along the Salmon River. Their 409-acre homestead and ranch, established in 1898, generated lucrative ventures for the Stonebraker family. In its early days, the homestead survived by raising beef cattle for neighboring gold rush communities like Thunder Mountain. In 1900, William, already a practiced freighter, struck gold when he won a trail construction contract connecting Grangeville to Thunder Mountain— later known as the Three Blaze Trail. Eventually, he worked as a pack train operator along this route, started his own pack train business in Stites, and lead hunting excursions from his homestead. In the 1920s, following these endeavors, he adapted his homestead into a dude-ranch. All the while, William brought along his camera.
The experiences of the Stonebraker men and their expeditions in mining, ranching, and big game hunting are well documented in the Stonebraker Photograph Collection, donated to the University of Idaho library in 2003. However, little is shown of the Stonebraker women who remained on the family homestead during their husband’s and brother’s entrepreneurial outings. Out of 540 photographs, less than 50 images of William’s first wife, Lillian Carter, second wife, Golda, and various sisters, friends, and daughters survive in the collection taken by William between 1900 and 1934. The photographs that exist offer a glimpse into these women’s lives as homesteaders.
In the late nineteenth century, white women in working-class families traditionally performed homemaking tasks like child rearing, cooking, cleaning, baking, sewing, and laundry. For women homesteaders, household labor also included planting, feeding, plowing, herding, cultivating, harvesting, culling, gathering, processing, storing, preparing, and selling or serving the food products gleaned from their homesteads. Photographs in the collection depict the Stonebraker women in trousers and work boots, indicating that they worked outside and handled livestock, particularly in the homestead’s later years as a dude-ranch. Farm work and interactions with livestock signify that the Stonebraker women occasionally transcended the rigid gender notions of nineteenth century homemaking.
Homesteading often demanded from the Stonebraker women increased responsibilities in outside work that surpassed the antebellum domesticity ideals of the time. Their work in the Chamberlain Basin would end abruptly following William’s death in 1932. Golda sold the Stonebraker homestead shortly thereafter and, eventually in 1975, the homestead was acquired by the Forest Service. The cabin on the Stonebraker property still stands today, however it is reachable only by “horseback, foot, or air”, serving to remind of the homestead’s remoteness and enduring testament to the forgotten women who worked to keep it operating.
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The Horse Heaven CCC Camp: Life, Work, Masculinity and Education in the Northern Idaho Forest

2018-01-22T20:21:54+00:00

Horse Heaven was one of the most remote CCC camps in North Idaho. It was constructed to be a ‘forest camp’ meaning that the majority of projects conducted by the workmen were related to forestry.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was one of the most popular of the 1930s New Deal programs, designed to employ young me, promote economic recovery by sending funds back to their families, and completing public works projects. The Horse Heaven camp, like many of the Pacific Northwest’s CCC camps, was dedicated to forestry and conservation projects. Its location near Enaville, Idaho in the Coeur d’Alene National Forest, allowed for easy access to areas in need of forestry projects. Men at this camp had loaded into cars and driven deep into the wilderness with 40,000 pounds of supplies to build the camp from the ground up. Due to the rugged trail they had to traverse, the thirty mile trip took them six hours by car. After their trek deep into the dense woodland, the caravan camped in a clear valley meadow that had been set aside for the CCC. They had to build their camp, number F-156, from nothing but the supplies they brought with them. Once they were finished one of the camp’s leaders, Major Clarke, called it one of the most beautiful in the area. Form their central location, the men of the camp were able to work on projects like road building and limiting the spread of blister rust, a deadly fungus, in the white pine population. More than just the effect on the local forest and the education of the men at the camps, the CCC was known for improving their outlook as well.
The Great Depression challenged concepts of masculinity of the time, but through camp activities the workmen of the CCC were able to rebuild their confidence. Men who had no work could not fulfill their prescribed roles as breadwinners, and those same men with little no money for food found themselves weakening physically. The CCC worked to effectively combat these doubts. It gave young men food and a steady job that allowed them to send money home to their families. The work they did was largely outdoors and very physical. When this was coupled with a steady nutritious diet, it allowed formerly weak and sickly men to regain their strength, further improving their self-image. Along with that, the residents of the CCC camps had the opportunity to educate themselves when not at work. Each camp in the CCC had a library and offered classes in diverse topics like public speaking and radio operation. Some classes would even be taught from visiting professors from nearby colleges. This gave the workmen at Horse Heaven camp the opportunity to exercise their minds as well as their bodies.
Horse Heaven camp was one of many CCC camps in North Idaho and across the United States. These camps served as the center of conservation efforts in their time, but their impact was far larger than just environmental. These camps served to preserve the self-respect of men who had been struggling with economic circumstance.
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