Nellie Tayloe Ross: How The Governor Wore Heels

by Linda Harris Sittig

As I write this in late August for the September blog, I am well aware that 104 years ago, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted, giving American women the right to vote. *

Then, four years later, a woman was voted in to become the first female governor in America.

That woman was Nellie Tayloe Ross, Governor of Wyoming.

NELLIE’S BACKGROUND STORY

Nellie Tayloe was born in 1876 in St. Joseph, Missouri. Her mother’s family had owned a large plantation before the Civil War but never recovered from the war’s devastation. Nellie’s father took up farming but only managed to make ends meet by selling off parcels of the plantation. With only a modest bankroll, he moved the family to Kansas and opened a small grocery store. That did not succeed either.

Finally, her father moved the family to Omaha, Nebraska. There, Nellie gave piano lessons and saved enough money to get two years of schooling to become a teacher.

Her teaching experience was in ethnic pockets of city neighborhoods.  By age 21, she had learned that money was never guaranteed and that large organizations like the Omaha Public Schools were run by people who pushed to get things done.

During the summer of 1900, while Nellie was visiting cousins in Tennessee, she met an attractive lawyer, William Ross. They became enamored of each other and continued to correspond after Nellie returned to Nebraska. A year later, William Ross relocated to Cheyenne, Wyoming, partly for health reasons and partly because he had become interested in politics. With his progressive beliefs, he believed he had a better chance in Wyoming than in Tennessee.

The following year, Nellie married William and moved to Cheyenne. Four children were quickly born in succession, and William began to run for public office – but with little success.

By 1920, women had been granted the right to vote, and a progressive agenda helped land William in the Governor’s Mansion in 1922. His career was short-lived, however, when he died just two years later from complications from an appendectomy.

Nellie was suddenly a widow with four children to raise alone.

NELLIE GETS INVOLVED IN POLITICS

In the years since she moved to Cheyenne, she had become involved with the Cheyenne Women’s Club, where women met to discuss culture and politics. As the Governor’s wife, she was often asked to speak on social policies.

Wyoming was fertile ground for having a woman governor. In 1869, the state had already given full voting rights to its women; it would take Congress another 51 years to reach the same conclusion.

After William’s death, and with a new election just months away, the Democratic Party of Wyoming approached Nellie and asked her to consider running to fill in her husband’s seat.

Her brother and her friends tried to dissuade her. Wyoming was a solidly Republican state, and the governor’s job was more suited for a man.

But Nellie needed a way to support her children; truthfully, she relished the idea of becoming governor. It would continue to give her the lifestyle she liked and the opportunity to influence the progressive laws of loans for farmers and ranchers, budgets for school systems, laws protecting women in industrial jobs, and laws protecting child labor.

She won by a margin of 8,000 votes.

She finished out the term and ran again in 1926. However, her staunch adherence to Prohibition cost her votes, and she lost that election.

As Wyoming’s governor, she had become a sought-after speaker and a well-known Democrat. She parlayed those skills by joining the speakers’ circuit, earning enough money to care for her children.

LIFE AFTER THE GOVERNORSHIP

In 1928, she was briefly considered for the Democratic vice President slot, but she became the Director of the Women’s Division of the National Democratic Committee instead. Her main goal was to help Franklin D. Roosevelt’s campaign. When he became President in 1933, he made her Director of the U.S. Mint—a job she loved and continued to hold for the next 20 years, retiring at age 77.

She spent her remaining years staying active in Washington, DC.

Although her term as Governor of Wyoming was short-lived, Nellie paved the way for other women to enter state politics. Today, in 2024, there are currently 13 women serving as governors.

As we head toward November, I urge everyone, especially every woman 18 years and older, to vote. The women who preceded us fought for generations to give us this right, and it should not be taken lightly.

Your vote influences the laws that will be written, the policies that will be implemented, and decisions that will affect the lives of every American.

You can bet that Nellie Tayloe Ross voted in presidential elections from 1920 through 1976. She passed the following year at 101.

*On a note about women gaining the vote in 1920, it gave only white women the right to vote. Minority women and women of color would still have to fight for that right until August 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.

If you enjoyed learning about Nellie Tayloe Ross, please sign up on the right side of the blog to become a follower of Strong Women. Each month, you’ll receive the blog in an email. I’ll be voting in the November election, but in the meantime, I am working on my next novel. This book will be about the women who built the Liberty Ships in WWII.

~ Linda