In 1887, a cabal of men opposed to women’s participation in politics nominated a woman for the office of mayor of Argonia, Kansas. They did not do so in order to empower women: their goal was the exact opposite. They wanted to secure an overwhelming defeat for the female candidate that would humiliate women, and discourage them from voting or running for office. As seen below, the prank backfired when their mark won the election.
Women’s Voting Rights Before the Nineteenth Amendment
The election of America’s first female mayor was the result of a chauvinist prank, along the lines of “har, har – a woman mayor. Ain’t that absurd?” type deals, for men of a certain type to chortle over. Rather than lose, the female candidate, Susanna Madora Salter (1860 – 1961), ended up winning the election convincingly. That made her the first woman ever elected as mayor in American history. Putting even more egg on the pranksters’ face, she went on to capably fulfill the duties of her mayoral office.
America’s women were guaranteed the right to vote in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. However, in the preceding decades, numerous states had given women the franchise, in whole in or in part. One such was Kansas, where the protracted struggle for women’s voting right won its earliest partial victory in 1887, when women won the right to vote in municipal elections. For many opponents of women’s suffrage, that heralded the world going to hell in a hand basket.
Nominating a Gag Candidate
Some Kansan men who believed that women’s suffrage was a calamity, decided to demonstrate their contempt for the idea of women in politics with what they thought was a harmless prank. They would place a woman’s name on Argonia’s mayoral ballot. She would, of course, lose, and all would laugh at the absurdity of females floundering about in the manly world of politics. For their mark, they chose Susanna M. Salter. Born in 1860 into an Ohio Quaker family, she moved to Kansas when she was twelve.
When she was twenty years old, Salter attended the predecessor of today’s Kansas State University. However, she was forced to quit mere weeks before graduation, because of ill health. She did not get a degree, but she got a husband. While pursuing her higher education, she met her future husband. After their wedding in 1880, the couple moved to Argonia and started a family. Mrs. Salter eventually gave birth to nine children. In Argonia, she became active in her local Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) – an organization that advocated the prohibition of alcohol.
The Logic Behind a Chauvinist Prank
In 1887, women got the right to vote in Kansas municipal elections. The WCTU made enforcement of the state’s prohibition law its main issue, and backed a slate of like-minded (male) candidates. However, their efforts to get women to exercise their newly-won right to vote angered some people. A group of about twenty men from Argonia were upset by both women’s involvement in politics, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union’s pro-prohibition stance. So they decided to kill two birds with one stone: get a good laugh, and discourage women from political participation.
There was no legal requirement to secure candidates’ consent before their names were placed on ballots. So just before Argonia’s 1887 municipal elections, the anti-temperance men prepared a slate of candidates comprised of WCTU members. Susanna Salter headed the slate as mayoral candidate. They figured that no man would vote for a woman, and Salter would lose. The WCTU would be humiliated, and having learned their lesson, women would grow discouraged and refrain from voting or getting involved in politics in the future. As seen below, it did not pan out the way the pranksters thought it would.
A Prank That Backfired
Susanna M. Salter had no idea that she was on the ballot when the polls opened on the morning of April 4th, 1887. She first found out when a local Republican Party delegation went to her house, to ask if she was actually running for mayor. She had not been – until then. Asked if she would serve as mayor if actually elected, Salter affirmed that she would. The Republicans backed her, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union abandoned its candidate, and voted for Salter as a block.
Salter got over 60% of the vote, and America got its first female mayor. Her term was relatively uneventful, but her election became global news. Domestic and foreign press frequently reported on Argonia’s town meetings, women’s suffrage took a step forward, and rather than humiliate female voters, Argonia’s chauvinist pranksters were the ones who ended up humiliated. As to Salter, she eventually resettled in Oklahoma, where she lived to the ripe old age of 101, before passing away in 1961.
_________________
Some Sources & Further Reading
Daily Beast – How A Sexist Prank Elected America’s First Female Mayor
History Halls – Soviet Fighting Women of World War II: Roza Shanina, Stalin’s Sniper
Kansas State Historical Society – Women’s Suffrage
