Louisa Swain—history maker in 1870 She came. She left her mark. She left.
When retirees Louisa G. (1801-1880) and Stephen Swain (1798-1872) arrived in Laramie City in 1869, it was for a temporary stay. After all, no one knew for sure whether the town itself would be permanent.
They probably ventured west to aid their son Alfred Gardner Swain (1839-1916) who had married around 1865. In 1867, wife Harriet (Hattie) C. Swain (1846-1917) gave birth to their first child in Ohio. Soon they relocated, and in Laramie son Alfred Plaisted Swain was born in 1870.
In 1870, Alfred G. is listed in the census as a bookkeeper, he also advertised as a notary public at H.J. Rogers & Co. bank, and clerk of the school board. The year 1870 also marked a significant event in his mother’s life. She gained slow celebrity status as the “first woman to vote in the world.”
First?
But that “first” status depends on how you qualify it. The Wyoming Territorial Legislative Assembly had earlier given women the right to vote. Governor John Campbell signed the Suffrage Act into law on December 10, 1869. Thus it became the first government in the U.S. States or Territories to do so. And it beat out governments in Europe, Australia, and, so far as we know, on other continents.
Maybe Wyoming really was the first in the world, but such statements need diligent research to back up the claim. No doubt news of the Wyoming event reached other countries. However, there is another problem regarding that “first” claim—there was no election in Wyoming until September 6, 1870.
What about contemporary egalitarian societies, where women participated in decision-making? Is that not voting? Does their method of governing not count because they were not recognized as being on a par with other world governments? Even more to the point, what about the women of Utah Territory, who cast ballots before Louisa?
Equal with male voters?
So while Wyoming was first to enfranchise women, the most unique thing is that they did it with the right to hold office. Thus, there was to be essentially no distinction between the rights of men and women—a quick study of Territorial laws shows frequent use of the masculine “he.” However, citizens are usually referred to first as the gender-neutral “person(s).” There was an exception regarding jury duty—more about that later.
Other places in America allowed women the right to vote but not to hold office or serve on juries. Some localities in colonial days let women vote, but only on local issues like schools. Some allowed voting if women were single or widowed; some also required property ownership. New Jersey did allow single women to vote—for about 30 years until disenfranchised in 1807—but they had to have a substantial amount of property. Generally, before 1870 the franchise did not extend anywhere to married women like Louisa.
Furthermore, not all women born in America were legal citizens. American Indian women didn’t gain citizenship until 1924; some women of Asian heritage didn’t get to vote until 1952. Thus the women who voted for the first time in 1870 didn’t represent ALL American-born women of Wyoming.
Utah gains glory
Another U.S. Territory, Utah, followed on the heels of Wyoming. The acting Governor, S.A. Mann, signed a Suffrage Act on February 12, 1870. The Act was not as sweeping as Wyoming’s—it only gave women the right to vote, not to hold office.
Just two days later, the City of Salt Lake had a municipal election. The Deseret Evening News said: “We believe the first one who recorded her vote was Miss Seraph Young.” That claim sounds a little tentative but writers have now adopted Seraph, a relative of Brigham Young, as a suitable “first voter” for Utah and America.
Regardless of who was first, it is clear that about 25 women in Utah did cast ballots on February 14, 1870—six months earlier than Louisa Swain. Thus Utah historians tend to say: “Utah Territory women were the first to EXERCISE the right to vote.”
In contrast, it could be said that Wyoming Territory’s women were the first to ACHIEVE the right to vote. Utah women were disenfranchised in 1887 and reinstated in 1896. So Louisa was the first woman to vote where the right was CONTINUOUS, but that qualifier is a bit nit-picky.
Colorado First?
The State of Colorado can claim to be the first state BY POPULAR REFERENDUM to grant women the right to vote—in 1893—about 17 years after statehood. But Wyoming was admitted to the union in 1890, retaining women’s suffrage in its new state constitution, so it was also the first STATE to grant women suffrage.
It is important to remember that in both Wyoming and Colorado women’s suffrage was obtained through a vote of men—only men served in the 1869 Wyoming Territorial Legislature; and only Colorado men could vote in the 1893 referendum.
Regional tourism promotion spurs competition. In 2020 we celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage nationwide with passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
Of course, now that tourism has all but stopped in 2020, it appears that the signal achievement will be marked quietly in Laramie and elsewhere, despite its being 150 years since the first woman voted in Wyoming, the first state to allow women’s suffrage.
First in Wyoming?
Some say Louisa Swain’s claim to fame should be downgraded to “First woman to vote in Wyoming.” Others say her vote could be stated as “First woman to vote on the same basis as men.” But a Wyoming Territorial Act three days earlier than the Suffrage Act gave the qualifications for MEN to serve on juries. Although the first juries with women did meet in Wyoming in 1870, it was later ruled that because that statute only mentioned men, women could no longer be on juries. That ruling stood until 1949.
Also, there was a challenge to the claim of Louisa’s being first in Wyoming. “The World Almanac & Book of Facts” of 1871 estimates that in the Wyoming election of 1870: “about 600 women voted.” Which woman might have been the first to cast a ballot depends on the exact second when the polls opened.
Twenty years later, Editor Hayford of the Laramie Sentinel claims the Laramie polls “were opened rather early” because there was “a little ambition for the distinction [of being first]. There were only four counties at the time, and they went the entire north/south length of the state. Not all communities had newspapers; no one came forward to claim the honor except the Laramie Sentinel and the Cheyenne Tribune, each promoting different women.
Those two newspapers seem to have been the only ones making it a contest. The Cheyenne Tribune gave up, as the Laramie Sentinel reported on September 19, 1870. In a brief paragraph, the Sentinel states that the Cheyenne paper has had the “honesty” to correct its mistake in claiming that the wife of Marshal Church Howe of Cheyenne was the first woman to vote for a delegate to Congress. “The venerable Mrs. Swain, mother of A.G.Swain, Esq. of Laramie, is entitled to the honor, she having voted the straight Republican ticket, some thirty minutes before Mrs. Howe,” reports the Sentinel. Regardless of who won the congressional seat, it seems to indicate Louisa Swain was first woman to vote, period.
A Reluctant Claimant?
There are some hard-to-substantiate tales about Louisa’s voting on September 6, 1870. One widely circulated tale is copied in Wikipedia and on the website “Find A Grave.com.” It claims that she was venturing downtown early that morning with a small bucket to buy some yeast, when she noticed the polls were opening and decided to go vote.
A brief resource-limited search on my part failed to substantiate this—in 1919 the Meeteetse News reported that “Grandma Swain” was “on her way to market to buy groceries,” though how they got that information nearly 50 years later is unknown. Another tale is that the women of Laramie selected the “venerable” Quaker lady, aged 69, to be the first voter. [Many sources erroneously give her age as 75.]
They reasoned, so the theory goes, the tipsy if not outraged men hanging around the polls would shy away from being rude toward her. Again, no newspaper substantiation exists. In fact, the Laramie Sentinel of September 7, 1870 says: “There was too much good sense in our community for any jests or sneers to be seen . . .”
There was only scattered mention of Louisa Swain in Wyoming newspapers following her vote. In 1871 the Sentinel reported that her portrait was placed in the cornerstone of the Albany County Courthouse, to commemorate her vote as the “first female in Wyoming Territory or the world [to vote].” In 1920, the Laramie Republican paper reported that the Colorado Historical and Natural History Society had been given a portrait of her. Donor was Mrs. A. (Susan) Fisher, Denver resident since 1870.
By September 19, 1870, Louisa Swain knew that her claim to fame had been solidified. But it was not enough to keep her tied to Laramie.
Louisa leaves
Louisa Swain was an easterner, born in Virginia—raised in Baltimore in the home of an uncle. She married Massachusetts native Stephen Swain in 1827 at age 26; he was five years older. Their first two children were born in Baltimore. Eventually the family relocated to Ohio where he worked as a carpenter. In the 1850 U.S. Census, they lived in Cincinnati with their five surviving children, including two girls, Sarah and Mary Louisa. By 1860, still in Cincinnati, only two of their children, Edward, age 23 and Alfred G. age 21 remained at home. Their oldest son William died in 1868.
It is possible that a married daughter lived in Maryland. So it is likely the elderly Swains moved back to be near family soon after Louisa’s historic Laramie vote in 1870.
Stephen died in 1872 in Baltimore, and Louisa herself passed away there in 1880. Both are buried in historic Friends Burial Ground in Baltimore. Among the errors circulating about Louisa is one on the cemetery’s website, which places the date she voted 10 years later than when it happened.
The clan grows
Meanwhile, son Alfred Gardner Swain and family remained in Laramie a little longer. In 1873 they had another daughter. In 1874, Alfred advertised a new grocery story in Laramie co-owned with a partner—“Swain & Little Grocery.” Alfred appeared in newspaper accounts, along with partner Little, as an amateur actor in the first performance at the Laramie Opera House in 1874, as chronicled by Hollis Marriott in the Boomerang May 17, 2020 (“Laramie’s earliest opera houses . . .”)
However, soon after that the grocery store folded. Louisa Swain’s next grandson was born in Oakland, California in 1875. Thus, the family had already left Laramie.
Louisa’s son, Alfred G. Swain, is listed in the 1900 Census for Oakland, California, where he was a bookkeeper. He and his wife had at least 9 children by then. There were 5 girls and 4 boys, so the Swain name continues. No doubt there are many descendants who can count Florence, Alfred P., Louise, Lincoln, Edith, Luther, Normand, Ann or Alice Swain as their great-grandparents.
Arthur Gardner Swain died on April 20, 1916; wife Harriet died in November of the following year. Both are buried in the San Francisco National Cemetery—Alfred with the rank of Sergeant.
By Judy Knight
Source: Laramie Boomerang file photo
Caption: “The Franchise,” a statue of Louisa Gardner Swain carrying a yeast bucket with a ballot in her hand, is by Laramie artist John Baker. It is outside the Wyoming House for Historic Women, operated by the Louisa Swain Foundation, at 317 S. 2nd St. in Laramie
Source: Laramie Independent, April 6, 1874
Caption: First ad for the grocery store operated by Louisa Swain’s son Alfred in Laramie after his parents Louisa and Stephen Swain had left Laramie. The partnership dissolved in December 1874, and soon no one named Swain was left in Laramie.