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Women's Suffrage on the Western Frontier

National Endowment for the Humanities
2008 Landmarks of American History and Culture:
Workshops for School Teachers

 

Sponsored by the American Heritage Center and College of Education, University of Wyoming, and by the Wyoming Humanities Council

 

Dear Colleague:

Imagine living in South Pass City in 1869, a gold mining town with a half-mile main street, five hotels, three meat markets, two bakeries, four law firms, thirteen saloons and other businesses that served 460 citizens. This was the residence for both the legislator who introduced the new Wyoming Territory’s women’s suffrage bill and for the first woman justice of the peace in the U.S., Esther Hobart Morris. Morris and her involvement in Wyoming’s women’s suffrage effort hold a central place in our historical inquiry about Women’s Suffrage on the Western Frontier. By 1880 the community of South Pass City was a ghost town, but today it is preserved as a state historic site with 30 historic buildings remaining on 39 acres. The remote location appears much the same today as it was in 1869, near South Pass National Historic Landmark, the primary route on the Oregon Trail, where almost 500,000 people passed through a 150-mile break in the Rocky Mountains, following dreams of success in the West.

Why did the West embrace political equality for women long before the East?  What considerations of sense of place are there?  Did the myths and the realities of the West contribute to early suffrage?  How has the issue of equality played out for Wyoming women over time? Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities' We the People initiative, our Landmarks of American History Workshop, Women’s Suffrage on the Western Frontier, will examine these challenging historical questions from the nineteenth century to the present, with multiple interpretations and open dialogue with peers in authentic historical inquiry.

The workshop will be offered for up to 40 teachers at each of two different times during the summer of 2008; July 20-25, and July 27-August 1.  Each of the programs opens on Sunday at 5 p.m. with a welcome reception and introductory session, and concludes by 5 p.m. on Friday.  The workshop offers:

  • Academic content about place-based western history and women’s suffrage on the western frontier, juxtaposed with myths of the West and contemporary women’s issues in the West.
  • Opportunities to engage in study and conversation with leading scholars.
  • Introduction to four forms of primary historical sources—the built environment, artifacts, government records, and private papers—all of which have application in all history classrooms.
  • A $500 stipend to assist with housing and meal costs, materials and transportation.
  • In addition, a transportation allowance for those traveling long distances to be determined on a case-by case basis after the conclusion of the week-long workshop, with reimbursements sent to participants approximately one month after the workshop.
  • Networking with other social studies, history, English, and other subject matter teachers, librarians and media specialists, from grades K-12 representing a variety of states.

 

Workshop Content and Schedule

Why did the West embrace political equality for women long before the East?  This central question will be posed at the opening reception and introductory session on Sunday evening at the American Heritage Center, from 5-7 p.m.  Bright and early on Monday morning of the first workshop and Tuesday morning of the second workshop, participants will board the bus for South Pass National Historic Landmark and South Pass City State Historic Site, located near Lander, about four hours from Laramie.  Along the way, participants will experience the still remote landscape of Wyoming, with faculty members Phil Roberts and Frieda Knobloch providing narration and interaction.  Travel time will be used to create the context for elaborating the West’s economic, social, cultural, and political issues, and the ongoing influence of landscape.  The bus route will intersect the overland trails that carried settlers to South Pass City.

South Pass City State Historic Site tours, activities, and lectures will be featured on Tuesday with Curator Jon Lane and Superintendent Joe Ellis.  On Wednesday, David Wrobel’s overview of historical themes of the American West will be a highlight. Wrobel’s research on boosterism in the West will contrast western promoters’ visions with pioneer memories of the actual experience of the West, focusing on women’s roles, thus framing discussion of still present myths of the West. With participants, scholars will begin to address why South Pass City—and Wyoming—set the pace for suffrage in the U.S. Discussion with the faculty will juxtapose the original and reconstructed buildings of South Pass City with the reality and legend of Esther Morris, providing an opportunity to explore not only the multiplicity of historical interpretations, but the extent to which history is consciously built and rebuilt.

Required readings for this three-day field trip portion of the workshop will include Promised Lands, articles in the required reading list, and selected materials such as facsimiles from South Pass City newspapers, facsimiles from the 1869 Wyoming Territorial Census, and the 1869 Wyoming Suffrage Act facsimile. Regional culture will be noted by participants during meals at local food establishments and during evening free time in Lander where the group will stay. The group will return to Laramie on Wednesday afternoon of the first week and Thursday of the second week.

Participants will spend time on Thursday at the American Heritage Center in Laramie with Carol Bowers and Rick Ewig of the center, working in groups and applying their knowledge gained from the two-day field trip to the historical manuscripts at the American Heritage Center, including the Nellie Tayloe Ross Papers, 1920-1972, papers of the first woman governor in the U.S; and the Grace Raymond Hebard Papers, 1889-1934, papers of a noted Wyoming historian and early researcher on Wyoming suffrage. These sources will relate to the overarching question for the workshop—why the West embraced political equality for women long before the East—and provide participants an information base for proposing possible explanations.  Participants will experience firsthand the work of sorting through various and sometimes conflicting evidence and recognize that history is not a set story, but rather an array of stories, each of which has its own merit and its own limitations.  At this point, participants will also be given specific contact information for finding and using similar primary sources in their own states. Master Teacher Dave Peterson will also provide leadership on Wednesday and Thursday regarding lesson plans.

Discussion will culminate on Friday of the first week with interactions between scholars Virginia Scharff and Kathy Jensen.  Scharff conducted research in Wyoming about women's suffrage and South Pass City.  Jensen will present contemporary Wyoming and American West perspectives about women's equality.  For instance, she will address Wyoming’s response to the Equal Rights Amendment in 1977.  During the second week of the workshop, Scharff and Jensen will provide their presentation on Monday, the first day of the workshop.  The weight of Wyoming’s history as the first state to grant full suffrage to women, and the resulting state motto, The Equality State, was enough to support a “yes” vote. Scharff and Jensen will lead discussion about contemporary women’s issues in the Equality State of Wyoming, exploring additional examples of how Wyoming’s embrace of equality has, and has not, echoed down to the present day.

Finally, a "fish bowl" discussion activity will include participants and visiting scholars, concluding discussion of the central workshop question.  Participants will demonstrate in dialogue how they tied historic sites, readings, and primary source material together. Group or individual lesson plans, modeled on National Register of Historic Places lesson plans, will be due one week after the conclusion of the workshop, and may be submitted to the National Historic Places and NEH EDSITEment Web sites (EDSITEment.neh.gov).

Approaches, Assignments, and Requirements

Workshop participants are required to attend all scheduled meetings and to engage in all project activities.  Reading packets will be sent in advance of the workshop. Work with primary materials and small group activities and discussions will be integral to the workshop format.  Participants will be assigned to small groups on Monday for group project assignments.

Reading Assignments

Reading packets will include all of the following with the exception of books, which will be provided to participants the first day of the workshop.

Required Readings

Lynne Cheney, "It All Began in Wyoming," American Heritage 24, no. 3 (1973): 62-66, 97.
Sidney Howell Fleming, "Solving the Jigsaw Puzzle: One Suffrage Story at a Time," Annals of Wyoming 62, no. 1 (1990): 23-72.
------, "Petticoats at the Polls Woman Suffrage in Territorial Wyoming," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 44, no. 2 (April 1953): 74-79.
------, "Woman Suffrage in Western America," Utah Historical Quarterly 38, no. 1 (1970: 7-19.
National Parks Service, Teaching with Historic Places, http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/twhp
Virginia Scharff, "The Case for Domestic Feminism: Woman Suffrage in Wyoming," Annals of Wyoming 56, no. 2 (1984): 29-37.
Virginia Scharff, "Empire, Liberty and Legend: Women's Suffrage in Wyoming," Twenty Thousand Roads, University of California, 2003.
Virginia Scharff, "Marking Wyoming: Grace Raymond Hebard and the West as Women's Place," Twenty Thousand Roads, University of California, 2003.
Women of the West, http://www.autry-museum.org/explore/exhibits/suffrage/suff_resource.html
David Wrobel, Promised Lands: Promotion, Memory and the Creation of the American West, University Press of Kansas, 1997.

Selection of Primary Sources

Selected facsimiles from the Grace Raymond Hebard Papers, 1889-1934. Noted Wyoming historian and early researcher on Wyoming suffrage. American Heritage Center.
Selected facsimiles from the Nellie Tayloe Ross Papers, 1920-1972. First woman governor in the U.S. and later director of the U.S. Mint. American Heritage Center.
Selected facsimiles from South Pass City newspapers. South Pass City State Historic Site.
Selected facsimiles from Census Records: 1869 Wyoming Territorial Census, 1870 U.S. Censuses for Wyoming. Wyoming State Archives.
Selected facsimiles from files and court journals for Laramie/Albany County District Court cases in which the all-woman jury participated, 1870. Wyoming State Archives.
Selected facsimiles from Governor John Campbell’s diaries, 1869-1876. Wyoming State Archives.
Selected facsimiles from Secretary of State-legislative records, Suffrage Act, 1869. Wyoming State Archives.
Selected facsimiles from Wyoming Commission on Women, 1966-1995. Wyoming State Archives.

Suggested Readings

Works by previous visiting faculty that you may wish to read include:
Paula Petrik, No Step Backward: Women and Family on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier. Helena, MT.: Montana Historical Society Press (1987, 1990).

Assignments

One formal assignment and one informal assignment are required:

Informal assignment--

  • Individual participants will keep a travelogue of their journeys, both physical and intellectual, throughout the workshop.  The travelogues can include daily written entries, reactions to place and content, questions, and your speculations as to why women's suffrage first took hold in the West.  Travelogues could also include photographs and video footage, if you wish.  Excerpts will be collected onto a CD and given to all participants at the end of the workshop.

Formal required assignment--

  • Group lesson plans, modeled on National Register of Historic Places lesson plans, will be due after the conclusion of the workshops, on August 15. 

Faculty

We look forward to working with featured visiting faculty, Virginia Scharff, and David Wrobel. 

  • Virginia Scharff is professor of history and director of the Center for the Southwest, University of New Mexico.  She is president of the Western History Association and has been a recent Mellon Fellow at the Huntington Library.
  • David Wrobel is professor of history at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and  was a Senior Fellow in Western History at Yale University for the 2005-2008 school year.  He recently co-directed an NEH institute for school teachers titled Perceiving the American West: Expectations and Outcomes.  He is the author of Promised Lands: Promotion, Memory, and the Creation of the American West.

 

University of Wyoming faculty also will bring strong interest and background to the central workshop questions.

  • Kathy Jensen is professor emerita of women's studies and sociology at the University of Wyoming.  Areas of emphasis are women's work, rural and western women, western women and education, and women in developing countries.
  • Phil Roberts is associate professor of history and a well-known specialist in Wyoming history.  He is also active in a number of public history projects and has served as editor of the Annals of Wyoming.
  • Frieda Knobloch is professor of American Studies at the University of Wyoming.   She specializes in cultural and intellectual history with emphasis on American identities and environments.
  • Also assisting with instruction will be Carol Bowers, head of reference services and Rick Ewig, associate director, at the University of Wyoming American Heritage Center.  Bower's subject expertise is women of the West.  Ewig is editor of Annals of Wyoming.
  • Master teacher David Peterson is Wyoming state coordinator for the National Council for the Social Studies, Social Studies Programs of Excellence Awards. He is a teacher at Niobrara County High School, Lusk, Wyoming.
  • Carol Bryant is associate professor of secondary education at the University of Wyoming.  Her expertise is social studies education and curriculum studies.

 

Eligibility

Full-time and part-time classroom teachers (grades K-12) in public, private, parochial, and charter schools, as well as home-schooling parents, are eligible to participate and are invited to apply.  Other grades K-12 school personnel, including administrators, substitute teachers, classroom paraprofessionals, and librarians, are also eligible to participate, subject to available space.  Applicants must complete the NEH application cover sheet and provide all of the information requested below to be considered.  An individual may apply to and participate in no more than two Landmarks workshops.  Preference will be given to those participants interested in attending a NEH Landmarks workshop for the first time.

Application Process and Selection Criteria

Applicants will submit an application form, essay, resume, and one letter of recommendation.  The letter should be from the principal or department head of their teaching institution or head of a home schooling association and be written in support of the applicant’s application.  Letters of recommendation should be sent in a sealed envelope with the signature of the recommender signed across the seal.  

The application cover sheet must be filled out online at this address: http://www.neh.gov/online/education/participants/.  Please complete the form on line as directed by the prompts.  When you have finished, print it out.  At that point you will be asked if you would like to apply to another workshop.  If you would, follow the prompts and select another workshop.  Then print out the cover sheet for that workshop. 

Perhaps the most important part of the completed application is an essay of up to one double-spaced page.  This essay should include information about your professional background and interest in the subject of the workshop; your special perspectives, skills, or experiences that would contribute to the workshop; and how the experience would enhance your teaching or school service. Completed applications should be collated, packaged, and postmarked no later than March 17, 2008, and sent to the following address:

Marcia Wolter Britton
Wyoming Humanities Council
1315 E. Lewis Street
Laramie, WY 82072

The following items constitute a completed application:

  • Three copies of the completed application cover sheet.
  • Three copies of an application essay (no longer than one double-spaced page).
  • Three copies of your resume.
  • One copy of your letter of recommendation.

Please collate and staple your application in the following order: cover sheet, essay, and resume.

For NEH:

For Wyoming Humanities Council:

  • Mailed three copies of completed cover sheet, application essay, and resume (stapled in that order) as well as your letter of recommendation to Marcia Wolter Britton.

A selection committee will read and evaluate all properly completed applications.  Special consideration is given to the likelihood that an applicant will benefit professionally and personally from the experience.  Successful applicants will be notified of their selection by April 16, 2008, and they will have until April 23, 2008 to accept or decline the offer.  Applicants who will not be home during the notification period should provide an address and phone number where they can be contacted.  No information concerning the status of an application will be available prior to the notification period.

Conditions of Award

Teachers selected to participate will receive a stipend of $500.  Stipends are intended to help cover books and ordinary living expenses, and to help defray travel expenses.  Additional travel supplements for those traveling long distances are available but will be determined after the workshop, on a case-by-case basis.  Stipends and travel supplements are taxable.

Workshop participants are required to attend all scheduled meetings and to engage in project activities.  Participants who, for any reason, do not complete the full tenure of the project must refund a pro-rata portion of their stipend.

Participants will provide NEH with an assessment of their workshop experience, especially in terms of value to their personal and professional development.  You will be asked to complete a confidential evaluation at the close of the workshop.

Equal Opportunity Statement

Endowment programs do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, or age.  For further information, write to NEH Equal Opportunity Officer, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506.  TDD: 202-606-8282 (this is a special telephone service for the deaf).

Credit

All participants will receive a certificate of participation and statements of participation suitable for requesting continuing education units. Graduate credit is available from the University of Wyoming for those requesting it.  Three graduate credits from the UW College of Education are available at the cost of $164 per credit; additional work will be required.  Three continuing education credits are also available for $40 per credit.  Continuing education credit may be useful for salary increases and recertification.

Housing

Housing is available at reasonable cost on the University of Wyoming campus and from local motels. Any participants who choose to bring family members or dependents will be responsible for their own motel arrangements.

Academic Resources

Primary source materials at the University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center are close at hand on the University of Wyoming campus, and the Wyoming State Museum and State Archives locations in Cheyenne are a 45-minute drive away. The American Heritage Center is one of the largest manuscript repositories in the United States, attracting more than 7,000 researchers annually from approximately 11 foreign countries and 45 states. University of Wyoming library resources will be available to participants in addition to access to the Internet and e-mail. The American Heritage Center is a WiFi hot spot, and limited access to desktop PCs will be available at the University of Wyoming Library computer lab.

Recreational and Cultural Resources

Recognized as a cultural and recreational hub in Wyoming, Laramie sits at an elevation of 7200 feet on the high plains between the Laramie and Medicine Bow Mountains in southeastern Wyoming, approximately two hours north of Denver. The small community of 26,000 is home to the state’s only provider of baccalaureate and graduate education, research, and outreach services, combining major university benefits and small school advantages. In addition to the American Heritage Center exhibitions, the University of Wyoming Art Museum offers outstanding art exhibitions and is also located in the Centennial Complex, a building designed by renowned architect Antoine Predock.

Participants will stay two nights in the picturesque community of Lander, located 15 miles from the Wind River Reservation, home to the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone American Indian people. Wyoming is a beautiful place where you may have time to explore such areas as national parks before or after the workshop. Participants are reminded that elevation is 7200 feet in Laramie, and some people may experience discomfort as they accommodate to the mountain elevation. Air travel to Laramie is accessible via Denver International Airport or the Laramie Regional Airport.

Thank you for your interest. If you have additional questions, you may contact Marcia at marciab@uwyo.edu or 307-721-9244. We encourage you to apply for Women’s Suffrage on the Western Frontier! 

 

Sincerely,

Marcia Wolter Britton
Executive Director, Wyoming Humanities Council

 

Carol Bryant
Assistant Professor, College of Education, University of Wyoming