Women’s Suffrage in Arizona: Creating Resources for Arizona’s Educators

Abstract

The history of women’s suffrage in the United States has by-and-large focused on white, middle class women on the eastern side of the country. However, western states and territories have their own rich history surrounding women’s suffrage, and were successful in passing women’s suffrage at the local level years, and even decades, before the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. This project addresses women’s suffrage in the west, with a direct focus on suffrage in the Arizona territory and the key components that led to its success. It argues that an unusually high number of women in Arizona were a part of the public sphere due to the number of women needed in the territory’s labor force, as well as the popularity of the temperance movement. This ultimately led to the success of the suffrage movement in the territory. The gender lens was the primary lens used during research which put the focus of suffrage in Arizona on the women involved. Although men were responsible for voting for suffrage, women were the primary population who worked tirelessly to gain support for suffrage in their territory. Primary sources were used from the Women’s Suffrage Collection, George W.P. Hunt Manuscript Collection, and the Frances Lillian Munds Legislator Biographical Files Collection from the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Records, as well as digitized files from the Arizona Memory Project. The foundational secondary source used is Heidi Osselaer’s Winning Their Place: Arizona Women in Politics, 1883-1950.