On November 7th, 1924, the nation’s first female governor was elected. Her name was Nellie Tayloe Ross. She was chosen to replace her husband, William Bradford Ross, who had been the governor of Wyoming. William died suddenly of complications of appendicitis.
Ross, a Democrat, defied odds in a year when the Democratic presidential candidate was soundly defeated. She was sworn in as Wyoming’s thirteenth governor.
One of the first pieces of legislation she was eager to see enacted was banking reform. There had been several bank failures in Wyoming, leaving customers penniless and without recourse. Ross was also a proponent of prohibition. It was perhaps her support of that which caused her to lose her bid for re-election in 1926.
Read the Nellie Tayloe Ross papers at UW’s American Heritage Center to learn more about her remarkable years serving as Wyoming’s first and only female governor.