History Colorado

Denver Public Library, Special Collections and Archives

See, think, and wonder about how people voted in the past.  There were a lot of obstacles in the way for women in their attempt to vote, one was transportation.

Polling In the Past

This article discusses how suffrage has progressed.  Highlight and comment on the points of the discussion?  Is this a convincing article?

Has suffrage progressed? 

Learn about key leaders of the Women's Vote movement.  

Women's Vote Change Makers 

This article discusses how suffrage has stalled.  Highlight and comment on the points of the discussion?  Is this a convincing article?

Has Suffrage Stalled?

Explore Minnie Reyolds desk at the Denver Women’s Press Club.

Working on Suffrage

Explore a timeline of key dates of the Women’s Vote Movement.

Women's Vote Movement Timeline

Review the Parties and Symbols on the 1893 ballot.  Add text to explain what each of the parties and symbols mean and how they compare to today.

Political Parties in 1893

Women's Vote in Colorado

Over 100 years ago, the 19th Amendment was passed. Our collective understanding of what this means to us as citizens and a nation have shifted throughout time. In this kit we will explore changing perspectives on, citizenship and exclusion, and the legacies of this moment in our state and federal history. 


Elected Women in Colorado Teacher’s Guide

“This Shall be the Land for Women!-The Struggle for Western Women’s Suffrage”

Caroline Nichols Churchill, Active Footsteps (Colorado Springs, 1909). 

, Denver Public Library, Western History Collection (DPLWHD). 

Women's Voting Rights in Colorado-High School

Civics and Government

Social Studies

U.S. History

Women’s suffrage referendum was put before Colorado voters for the first time. It failed to pass but did give women the right to vote in school elections and to hold school offices in Colorado. Mrs. Nathan Meeker was an important advocate for this first referendum with voting for women.

Mrs. Nathan C. Meeker was an 1877 suffrage supporter.

Inscription: Mrs. N.C. Meeker///W.H. Jackson, Denver, Col.

Photograph, Mrs. Meeker

1st Referendum

Colorado women’s suffrage referendum was held on November 7, 1893, to ratify a proposed constitutional amendment to prohibit discrimination against women voting. The referendum passed, making Colorado voters the first to extend voting rights beyond men. This took place more than a quarter century before the national women’s suffrage act in 1920. 

1903 General Election Ballot Box.  NATIONAL BALLOT BOX / PATd / JUNE 17, 1884 / MF'D BY AMOS PETTIBONE / CHICAGO

Ballot Box, General Election 1903 (Image 1)

Ballot Box, General Election 1903 (Image 2)

Ballot Box, General Election 1903 (Image 3)

Ballot Box, General Election 1903

2nd Referendum

Passed by Congress on June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment granted most American women the right to vote. Colorado was one of 35 states that already recognized women’s voting rights before the passing of the 19th Amendment.

Photograph, Suffrage Billboard

19th Amendment

The Supreme Court ruled that people of Japanese ancestry are not eligible to become naturalized citizens.

This gelatin dry plate negative was taken by in the Aultman Studio (Trinidad, Colo.) by Oliver E. Aultman (1867-1953) in 1910. The Aultman Studio register identifies the individual who ordered the portrait as Harry O'Khiro. Names recorded in the Aultman Studio register may be misspelled or inaccurate. The image depicts a group composed of two men, a woman, and a child. They are likely a family.

Gelatin dry plate negative, Harry O'Khiro Family Portrait

Who Can Be a Citizen?

The Indian Citizenship Act grants citizenship to Native Americans but many western states limit voting rights.

A round button, the back is silver with a pin towards the top, the front is white with light blue/gray native style geometric design behind red lettering. The log below the lettering is blue text with a red feather and a rectangle with a white headdress in profile.

Button used for National Congress of American Indians at the 2008 Denver Democratic National Convention

Campaign Button, Democratic National Convention

Limits for Voting 

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited citizenship for people with Chinese ancestry, is repealed in an effort to strengthen World War II alliance between U.S. and China

Chinese Exclusion Act

The Luce-Celler Act allows Filipino Americans and Indian Americans to naturalize and become U.S. citizens; the Act also establishes quotas that allowed 100 people from India and 100 people from the Philippines to immigrate to the U.S. each year.

Luce-Celler Act

The Walter-McCarran Act grants all people of Asian ancestry to become citizens. 

Denver Post press photograph depicting the Japanese American Gow family looking out the window of a residence, possibly their home at 1108 Twenty-second Street in Denver. Pictured (left to right) are Tomoe Gow, Gale Gow, Larry Gow, Katsuto K. Gow, and Patsy Gow. Katsuto Gow, a World War II veteran, and his family were barred from moving to a new home at 2718 Gaylord Street by a restrictive covenant. The government refused to authorize the loan.

The original photograph has been altered with paint for publication.


Photograph, Katsuto Family

Walter-McCarran Act

New Mexico became the final state to enfranchise Native American voters.

Relief shown by hachures and spot heights. Shows the Little Colorado River as Rio de Lino or Colorado Chiquito Little. Lost county of Greenwood, Colorado is shown. Metalliferous areas and Indian tribes located in New Mexico and Arizona. Colorado counties are those of 1873.

Map, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona

Native American Voting

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 suspends literacy tests in the Deep South and provides federal enforcement of voting rights in an effort to eradicate Jim Crow Laws designed to limit African American voting.

Voting Rights Act

The 1970 Voting Rights Act prohibits literacy test in 20 states.

Golden Transcript, Volume 104, Number 164, August 6, 1970.  Article discusses the Voting Rights Act

Article, Voting Rights Act Results Dramatic

Voting rights act results dramatic

By TOM GREENE

ATLANTA (UPI 1-Five year: ago today President Lyndon B Johnson signed into law tht Voting Rights Act of 1965, described by his attorney general. Ramsey Clark, as a “bold experiment in democracy.” The experiment has produced dramatic results. The number of blacks regis tered to vote in the six southern states fully covered by the act has nearly doubled. Five years ago 72 Negroes held elective positions in the South. The figure today is 540. White politicians who defended segregation in the 1950 s headed into the 1970 s voicing concern about poverty Many who failed change wit!, the times learned that the Negro electorate, while usually not big enough to elect black candidates, often produced victories for more moderate whites. Blacks Praise Effect Charles Evers, the black man elected a year ago as mayor of

Fayette, Mis., termed the act the greatest deterrent to racial discrimination we have ever had.” Mr. ana Mrs. Thomas .Mauldin of .Selma, Ala., the first persons to register under the act, are convinced black people are far better off now than five years ago. “People have got more rights, more privileges, than they have ever had before,” said Mauldin. “They look more like citizens now’.” There now are 10,000 black voters in the Selma area, and •Mauldin figures this is why the once dusty streets in Sell.' 2 ’s Negro neighborhoods are being paved. “If it keeps up, we’re going to have all these streets black topped.” Some Conservatives Opposed George Andrews, 69, a conservative Democrat who has represented a south Alabama district in Congress since 1942, doesn’t share the Mauldins’ liking for the act. “This has been the most punitive, vindictive piece of

legislation ever passed in this country.” Andrews said. “I’ve actually seen people voting who couldn't read. We have to permit morons to vote, and that diminishes the intelligence of the electorate.” The Voting Rights Act was applied to states in which less than 50 per cent of the voting age population registered to vote. It specifically covered Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, portions of North Carolina and Alaska (the only nonsouthem state). The law suspended state literacy tests for prospective voters, empowered the Justice Department to send federal registrars to foot-dragging counties and extended civil and criminal protection to persons seeking to register. The most significant registration tool was the suspension of literacy tests in many sections of the South but in other areas blacks with doctorate degrees were rejected.

Resource Kits

Object Library

Museums

Women's Voting Rights in Colorado-High School

Women's Vote Movement Timeline

Guiding Question

1877 CE

1893 CE

1920 CE

1922 CE

1924 CE

1943 CE

1946 CE

1952 CE

1962 CE

1965 CE

1970 CE