Pat Pascoe - Helen Ring Robinson

Stephen J. Leonard and Thomas J. Noel, editors

The Beast, Benjamin Barr Lindsey with Harvey J. OHiggins

Colorados Japanese Americans, Bill Hosokawa

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

Pat Pascoe

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO

2011 by the University Press of Colorado

Published by the 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 proud member of
the Association of American University Presses.

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

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.481992

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pascoe, Pat.
Helen Ring Robinson : Colorado senator and suffragist / Pat Pascoe.
p. cm. (Timberline books)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9781-60732146-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 9781-60732147-7 (e-book)
1. Robinson, Helen Ring, 18601923. 2. Women legislatorsColoradoBiography. 3.
LegislatorsColoradoBiography. 4. ColoradoPolitics and government18761950.
5. Colorado. General Assembly. SenateBiography. I. Title.
F781.R63.P37 2011
328.73092dc23
[B]
2011030828

Design by Daniel Pratt

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Helen Ring Robinson (18601923) was the second woman state senator in the United States. An activist senator serving from 1913 to 1917, she pushed through the Colorado legislature a minimum-wage law for women and tenaciously fought for other causes, including repeated but unsuccessful efforts to pass a law allowing women to serve on juries. A popular and eloquent proponent of national womens suffrage, she traveled and lectured through the country.

Robinson proclaimed government and politics in need of motherliness and welcomed womens roles as the housekeepers needed to clean up government and make it more efficient. As Robinson was in the middle of many pacifist, reform, and womens issues of the early twentieth century, this biography provides unique national as well as local perspective on progressive age battles. Sadly, Robinson is a little-known public figureeven her marriage is a puzzle.

The University Press of Colorados Timberline Series is proud to publish the second full-length biographical study of a female Colorado legislator. We are especially proud to have an illustrious state senator in her own right, Patricia Hill Pascoe, do the researching, writing, and polishing. As a state senator, Pascoe was devoted to the same causeswomen, families, children, health, and educationthat state senator Helen Ring Robinson embraced.

Pat Pascoe is also a scholar, a Phi Beta Kappa with a PhD in English literature from the University of Denver. After graduating, Dr. Pascoe taught English at Kent Denver and Metropolitan State College of Denver. She also worked as a professional writer, specializing in education and politics.

First elected to the state senate from Denver in 1988, Pat Pascoe served twelve years until term limits prevented her running again. In the legislature she sponsored many bills on education improvement (preschool, child care, truancy, bilingual education), freedom of press for students, teen pregnancy, wood-smoke pollution reduction, planned growth, organ donations, marital maintenance, spousal protection, domestic partners, and other topics. She chaired the Senate Public Policy and Planning Committee and the Senate Education Committee. Her fellow Democrats elected her caucus chair.

Pascoe writes and speaks widely on women in politics, sometimes in the costume and character of Helen Ring Robinson. After five years of researching her heroine, Senator Pascoe has produced an intimate, knowledgeable look at a woman who made a big difference. This warm, readable biography resurrects a forgotten but major role model not only for women but also for anyone interested in politics, reform movements, and Colorados past.

THOMAS J. NOEL,

coeditor with Stephen J. Leonard of the Timberline Series
Professor of History and director of Colorado Studies, Public History,
and Preservation at the University of Colorado of Denver

The fascinating story of Colorados first woman senator came to my attention when I sponsored a resolution in the Colorado State Senate to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Colorado women receiving the right to vote in 1893. A Legislative Council staff person, Elizabeth Haskell, found interesting information about her, so that I could read my resolution as if I were Helen Robinson making a return visit to the senate. The resolution passed, and I was captivated by her story.

As I learned more about Helen, I realized that she and I led parallel lives. Both of us had rather humble beginnings, became high school English teachers, wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, married lawyers, and were elected to the Colorado State Senate from Denver. We lived in the same Denver Capitol Hill neighborhood. We were both members of the Denver Womans Press Club, and both of us served as president of that club, though a hundred years apart. In our senate careers, we both focused on education and on the treatment of women and children.

When progressive Democrat Helen Ring Robinson was elected to the Colorado State Senate in 1912 at age fifty-two, she was the second woman in the United States to be elected to such an office. In this role, she had more impact on Colorado and the nation than any other woman of her time, in part just by modeling what a woman officeholder could do. As what she called the housewife of the Senate, Senator Mrs. Robinson worked for social and economic justice through bills that would establish a minimum wage for women and children, the right of women to sit on juries, and the protection of children committed to the state home. This biography reviews the events of each of the legislative sessions in which she served (1913, 1914, and 1915). During her four-year term of office she made a place for herself on the world stage as a worker for woman suffrage. When her term ended in early 1917, she labored first for world peace and then for the American war effort.