Gail M. Beaton - Colorado Women: A History

The Beast, Benjamin Barr Lindsey with Harvey J. OHiggins

Colorados Japanese Americans, Bill Hosokawa

Colorado Women: A History, Gail M. Beaton

Denver: An Archaeological History, Sarah M. Nelson, K. Lynn Berry, Richard F. Carrillo, Bonnie L. Clark, Lori E. Rhodes, and Dean Saitta

Dr. Charles David Spivak: A Jewish Immigrant and the American Tuberculosis Movement, Jeanne E. Abrams

Enduring Legacies: Ethnic Histories and Cultures of Colorado, edited by Arturo J. Aldama, Elisa Facio, Daryl Maeda, and Reiland Rabaka

The Gospel of Progressivism: Moral Reform and Labor War in Colorado, 19001930, R. Todd Laugen

Helen Ring Robinson: Colorado Senator and Suffragist, Pat Pascoe

Ores to Metals: The Rocky Mountain Smelting Industry, James E. Fell, Jr.

A Tenderfoot in Colorado, R. B. Townshend

The Trail of Gold and Silver: Mining in Colorado, 18592009, Duane A. Smith

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO

2012 by University Press of Colorado

Published by University Press of Colorado
5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C
Boulder, Colorado 80303

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, Utah State University, and Western State Colorado University.

This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beaton, Gail Marjorie.
Colorado women : a history / Gail M. Beaton.
p. cm. (Timberline books)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60732-195-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-60732-207-8 (ebook)
1. WomenColoradoBiography. 2. WomenColoradoHistory. 3. Colorado
Biography. I. Title.
CT3262.C6B43 2012
920.72dc23
[B]

2012024898

Design by Daniel Pratt

21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To my mother,
Alice K. Beaton,
and in memory of my father,
Arthur P. Beaton,

who instilled in me a deep
appreciation for history

and to
my nieces and nephews,
Brian, Anna, Alice, Caroline, Matt, and Abbey Beaton
May you embrace lifes opportunities
and challenges

Colorado history has been mostly his story. Her story has been seldom told. Bohdan Wynars exhaustive 1980 Colorado Bibliography lists 9,181 publications on Colorado, only 10 of which focus on women. Perhaps 25 other general works published since then concentrate on women. A third of those are devoted to Colorado prostitutionthe only womens field that seems to titillate authors and publishers.

The official state website, Colorado.com, covers Outstanding Women in Colorado History in a paragraph that is less than 200 words long. Yet Colorado way back in 1893 became a global pacesetter by being the first state where men voting solely on the issue of womens suffrage fully approved that then-radical idea (Wyoming men had earlier approved womens suffrage but only as part of a much larger constitutional package on which they were voting). Colorado became the first state in the union to elect women to its legislature and as of 2011 led the United States in the percentage (41%) of female legislators. In 1894 Clara Cressingham, Carrie Clyde Holly, and Frances Klock were elected to the Colorado House of Representatives. Helen Ring Robinson became Colorados first female state senator in 1913. Oddly, Colorado has never had a female governor or US senator and has had only four US representatives.

Nevertheless, women have come a long way since the male mining frontier days and an 1860 census count of 32,654 males and 1,577 females. The Colorado Womens Hall of Fame, founded in 1985, has inducted more than 200 ladies and thus introduced the public to worthy but little-known heroines in various fields.

Architects drew up grandiose plans for a Women in the West Museum in Boulder during the 1980sit never happened because of a lack of funding and interest. Of 1,900 Colorado sites listed on the National and State Register of Historic Places, only a handful commemorate women. Residences, ranches, farms, even mausoleums are nearly always named for the male with little, if any, mention of his female partner. Although women typically took the leading role in establishing churches, hospitals, libraries, and schools, these institutions are generally named after or associated with a male clergyman, head librarian, or school principal.

This book is a pioneering attempt to cover a broad spectrum of women and womens roles in a statewide perspective. Chronologically, it stretches from prehistoric Native Americans to todays immigrant and refugee women.

Author Gail M. Beaton is a teacher, scholar, and re-enactorher favorite role is Rosie the Riveter, and she wears a T-shirt with Rosies World War II slogan for women: We Can Do It. Gail does it with this book. She completed two MA theses, one in history and another in public history, at the University of Colorado at Denver: The Literary Study and Philanthropic Work of Six Womens Clubs in Denver and Making Visible the Invisible: Her Story in Colorados Queen City. Gail has since broadened her horizons to explore the statewide role of women and has written various articles and given many talks.

A Boston Marathon runner, she has the stamina and courage to finish this monumental task. As a teacher at the high school and college levels, she is experienced and knowledgeable about how to make history appealing, as you will discover in these pages.

The Timberline Series of the University Press of Colorado, which takes pride in publishing the best new scholarship on Colorado as well as classic reprints, proudly adds this candidate to the shelf of important books on the Highest State.

Thomas J. Noel, professor of history and director of
Colorado studies, University of Colorado at Denver

Co-editor with Prof. Stephen J. Leonard of
the Timberline Series, University Press of Colorado

Colorado Women: A History is a history of womens lives in, and contributions to, Colorado. At the beginning of each chapter, an essay places Colorado women in historical context. In ten of the twelve chapters, vignettes on individual women or organizations follow the narrative.

As with any major undertaking, there were challenges in the preparation of this book. One was deciding where to divide the chapters. Because the usual historical divisions are not necessarily appropriate for womens history, I chose to delineate the chapters at important crossroads for women in Colorado. addresses women in the modern era.

A recurring challenge was whatand whomto include. Given the constraints of space, neither everything nor everyone could complete the trek from research to written page. Throughout history, migrating women chose what to include on their journeys. At times the piano or grandmas rocking chair was packed, only to be discarded along the trail as too cumbersome or heavy. There it remained to suffer the vagaries of weather or perhaps to be adopted by another pioneer family to complete the journey westward. I view this book in much the same way. While I gleaned and edited, it was consoling to know that other historians will find different avenues of research to explore.