Colorado Women: a History, Gail M

COLORADO WOMEN TIMBERLINE BOOKS STEPHEN J. LEONARD and THOMAS J. NOEL, editors The Beast, Benjamin Barr Lindsey with Harvey J. O’Higgins Colorado’s 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, 1900–1930, 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, 1859–2009, Duane A. Smith GAIL M. BEATON 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 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 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. Women—Colorado—Biography. 2. Women—Colorado—History. 3. Colorado— Biography. I. Title. CT3262.C6B43 2012 920.72—dc23 [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 life’s opportunities and challenges CONTENTS Foreword by Thomas J. Noel IX Preface XI Acknowledgments XIII CHAPTER 1: Early Women (Pre-History–1858) 1 CHAPTER 2: Pioneering Women (1859–1877) 17 CHAPTER 3: Making a Difference (1859–1877) 45 CHAPTER 4: Settling In (1878–1900) 65 CHAPTER 5: Organizing for Change (1878–1900) 97 CHAPTER 6: Breaking with Tradition (1901–1919) 123 CHAPTER 7: The Progressive Era (1901–1919) 157 CHAPTER 8: Conformity and Change (1920–1929) 181 CHAPTER 9: The Great Depression (1930–1939) 215 CHAPTER 10: Stepping Up (1940–1945) 243 CHAPTER 11: Conformity and Change, Take Two (1946–1960) 265 CHAPTER 12: The Modern Era (1961–Present) 287 Notes 311 Further Reading 349 Index 357 vii FOREWORD Colorado history has been mostly his story. Her story has been seldom told. Bohdan Wynar’s exhaustive 1980 Colorado Bibliography lists 9,181 publi- cations 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 prostitution—the only women’s 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 women’s suffrage fully approved that then-radical idea (Wyoming men had earlier approved women’s 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 Colorado’s first female state senator in 1913. ix FOREWORD 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 fron- tier days and an 1860 census count of 32,654 males and 1,577 females. The Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame, founded in 1985, has inducted more than 200 ladies and thus introduced the public to worthy but little-known hero- ines in various fields. Architects drew up grandiose plans for a Women in the West Museum in Boulder during the 1980s—it 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 women’s roles in a statewide perspective. Chronologically, it stretches from prehistoric Native Americans to today’s immigrant and refugee women. Author Gail M. Beaton is a teacher, scholar, and re-enactor—her favorite role is Rosie the Riveter, and she wears a T-shirt with Rosie’s World War II slo- gan 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 Women’s Clubs in Denver” and “Making Visible the Invisible: Her Story in Colorado’s 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 x PREFACE Colorado Women: A History is a history of women’s 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 indi- vidual women or organizations follow the narrative. As with any major undertaking, there were challenges in the prepara- tion of this book. One was deciding where to divide the chapters. Because the usual historical divisions are not necessarily appropriate for women’s history, I chose to delineate the chapters at important crossroads for women in Colorado.1 Chapter 1 begins with the lives of Paleoindians and ends at 1858 when the discovery of gold lured scores of Anglo men and women who disrupted the lives of Native American, Spanish, and New Mexican peoples. Chapters 2 and 3 conclude in 1877, the year the first suffrage campaign ended in defeat. Chapter 4 discusses the lives of working women in towns, mining communities, and rural settlements. The significant strides Colorado xi PREFACE women made in winning the right to vote and in occupations, club work, and philanthropic efforts are chronicled in chapter 5. The first two decades of the twentieth century, discussed in chapters 6 and 7, mark an era of new occupations, expanded educational opportunities, and Progressive Era reforms. In chapter 8, the dichotomous decade of the 1920s collapsed into the 1930s’ Great Depression (chapter 9). Chapter 10 chronicles the significant impacts of World War II on women’s personal, domestic, and occupational lives. Chapter 11 depicts the postwar period, while Chapter 12 addresses women in the modern era. A recurring challenge was what—and whom—to 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 grandma’s rocking chair was packed, only to be discarded along the trail as too cumber- some or heavy. There it remained to suffer the vagaries of weather or perhaps to be adopted by another pioneer family to complete the journey west- ward. 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. On any given late evening as the sun sets behind the Rocky Mountains, one can look west and see layers of mountains, their colors a gradation of whites, grays, mauves, and blues. They evoke in me a sense of the layers of Colorado women’s history. Layers through time. Layers differentiating the experiences of Native American, Hispanic, African American, and Anglo women.

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