Jennifer Helton

A native of Wyoming, Jennifer Helton is assistant professor of history at Ohlone College. She writes on the history of women in the American West. Her essays on Wyoming and western suffrage have been published in Equality at the Ballot Box (Pierre: South Dakota Historical Society Press, 2019) and Women Making History: The Nineteenth Amendment( National Park Service, 2020). Her work has also appeared in High Country News, WyoFile, and Montana: The Magazine of Western History.

“Then I breathed freely:” Black Women Vote in Wyoming, 1870

On the morning of September 6, 1870, Wyoming women prepared themselves for a momentous day—the first election since the Territorial Legislature had passed the world’s first woman suffrage bill. Among the voters were women from Wyoming’s Black communities. They were the first Black women in U.S. history to vote.

Mary Godat Bellamy, Wyoming’s First Woman Legislator

The first woman to serve in the Wyoming legislature, Mary Godat Bellamy laid the groundwork for future generations of women in politics. Inspired by the first generation of Wyoming’s suffragists—such as her childhood babysitter Esther Morris—Bellamy devoted her life to women’s rights and reform movements. Read more about Bellamy’s remarkable life.