History Colorado

Denver Public Library, Special Collections and Archives

Review each of these objects and consider these questions.  What do I see in this picture?  What do I think is happening in this picture?  What questions do I have about this picture?

Getting to the polls

Even with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, many people were still excluded from voting in the United States. Explore ...


Voting Rights Timeline

Colorado Suffrage

Many people worked together to fight for voting rights for women in Colorado and across the United States. Learn about key leaders of the Women's Vote movement and how they helped shape this important movement.  

People Power

Democracy in our country relies on members of the community to participate in making and changing laws that are unjust or cause problems for society. Explore... 



This Is What Democracy Looks Like 

Explore Minnie Reynolds desk at the Denver Women’s Press Club

Suffrage work in action! 

In 1893, Colorado passed a law that expanded voting rights to some women nearly 25 years before a national law was passed. This changed the course of history in Colorado and continues to inspire social, economic, political and cultural advancements today. This resource kit explores the Women's Vote Movement in Colorado.


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-Elementary School

Civics and Government

Social Studies

U.S. History

Women being allowed to vote was put before male voters again on November 7, 1893. This time it 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. 


Photo printed in a newspaper of a polling place in 1893.  District and Ward 9, Precinct 1

polling place.jpg

Newspaper article

2nd Time on Ballot

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.

Women in automobile with Voting Poster attached.

Photograph, Votes For Women photo

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's 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

Native American Citizens

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

Asian American Citizens

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.

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-Elementary School

Voting Rights Timeline

Guiding Question

1893 CE

1920 CE

1922 CE

1924 CE

1952 CE

1965 CE