Question

Why were women able to vote in western states like Wyoming before the rest of the country?

Answer 1

Wyoming was only a territory when it began to allow women to vote in 1869, which led to a cascade of other western states allowing the same. Before the 19th Amendment, outside of New Mexico, every territory and state in the West allowed women to vote. However, it was not because Western states such as Wyoming thought that women deserved this privilege. It was a time of rapid Westward expansion, and in 1869 Wyoming had barely been able to become a territory. They added that these laws were aimed exclusively at white women. One lawmaker in Wyoming even tried to water down the bill by adding a text that explicitly gave women of other races the right to vote. But his amendment failed "because everyone said, 'Look, we know we're only talking about white women here.'" After Wyoming passed the law, states around the West saw it as an opportunity for them, too. And interestingly, even though Wyoming was the first to grant women’s suffrage, Utah was the first place where women cast a vote because their elections came first.