On September 6, 1870, a Laramie resident became the first woman to vote in a U.S. general election more than 50 years before women were granted the right to vote nationally.
Louisa Swain woke up early on that day. She was on her way to buy yeast when she stopped in at a polling place to cast her ballot.
The anniversary of that vote comes as many say Wyoming has considerable work left to do to support women.
Swain was able to vote because of a state law granting women equal and unrestricted voting rights with men, the world’s first such law. Before the passage of the measure, it had been over 60 years since women voted in the U.S., when in 1807, New Jersey banned women’s suffrage.
Swain voted decades before the passage of the 19th amendment in the 1920s and well before many Black and Native American women could vote.
Micah Richardson, an associate director of policy for the Wyoming Women’s Foundation, said that Swain’s vote should be a reminder of the importance of participating in state elections, especially after low turnout in this year’s primary election.
According to Richardson, there’s a lot more the state should be doing for the women who call it home.
“We just lag behind, and there are ways that we can start to move forward,” she said. “So we think about the wage gap in Wyoming, women make 75 cents for every dollar a man makes here in the state. How can we get more women attending college? How do we encourage women to negotiate for their wages? Can we get some wage transparency?”
Another area for improvement that Richardson and others point to is helping to reduce maternal healthcare deserts in Wyoming.
“The rural and frontier nature of our state just makes that a really tough nut to crack, right, when you have low population centers and if your birth rates are low,” she said.
The Health Task Force OB Subcommittee started by Gov. Mark Gordon has been exploring several ways to fight a lack of maternal health centers.
One option, used by the state of Alaska, would prioritize transporting pregnant women who are considered high-risk to nearby hospitals.
“They had … real strong plans in place for low risk,” Richardson said. “So maybe that's more midwives, maybe that's family practice, doctors who are doing the births, things like that. And then maybe there's a middle level as well.”
However, the most recent meeting of the Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee has yet to produce concrete legislative solutions to the issue of maternal health deserts for the upcoming 2025 general session.
Meanwhile, yet another quandary affecting the lives of Wyoming women lies in how to provide access to child care resources for families across the Cowboy State.
“Our Legislature could potentially look at [options] that help ensure that there are high quality child care providers in every county, so that no families are scrambling to figure out, you know, who's going to work today, who's staying home with kids,” said Richardson.
“We have a number of ideas around that, and some of them cost money,” she continued. “It's how it goes. I think sometimes we're averse to spending anything but recognizing that putting money into something as important as education and child care will reap the benefits in the long run.”
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation For Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
