How Colorado women won the right to vote and led the way for all Americans

DENVER — As Americans head to the polls to vote this year, Denver7 is looking back at Colorado’s part in securing women the right to vote.

Not only was Colorado the first state to grant women voting rights through a popular vote, but its leading ladies also made it possible for the rest of the country.

“The western United States was leading the way,” said Shaun Boyd, a curator for the History Colorado archives, where photographs, newspaper clippings, pamphlets and flyers paint a picture of what happened.

“The women in the West had proven that they were equal as far as, like, doing the work and homesteading,” she said. Giving women the right to vote could expand the political power of the West, increasing its voter base and giving those places a bigger stake in the U.S. Congress.

Women’s enfranchisement started with the territory of Wyoming in 1869. Then after several failed attempts, Colorado’s men voted to extend that right to women in 1893.

“There were women in every county pushing for this,” Boyd said, and “the Colorado folks became part of the national movement.”

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