Table of Contents

Acknowledgments List of Acronyms 1 The Context of the Western Woman Suffrage Movement 2 Early Western Suffragists as Organic Intellectuals 3 Reconstruction, Woman Suffrage, and Territorial Politics in the West 4 Suffrage and Populism in the Silver State of Colorado 5 California, Woman Suffrage, and the Critical Election of 1896 6 Woman Suffrage and Progressivism in the Paci?c Northwest 7 The Western Zephyr and the 1911 California Campaign 8 The West and the Modern Suffrage Movement NotesBibliography Index About the Author

About the Author

Rebecca Mead is assistant professor of history at Northern Michigan University.

Reviews

"In this densely written and tightly argued work, Mead (Northern Michigan Univ.) presents answers to the often asked question of why woman suffrage was accomplished in the US West well before it was in the East." --Choice "In this superb study ... Rebecca J. Mead convincingly demonstrates the importance of the region to understanding the success of the national suffrage movement." --American Historical Review "This concise book is the most complete overview to date of the woman suffrage movement in the American West." --The Journal of Arizona History "Mead has produced a strong case for western women's well-reasoned, winning plan and has provided a superb foundation for renewed engagement with an important question. My thanks to you, Professor Mead." --Register of the Kentucky Historical Society "Thanks to Mead's extensive research and careful weighing of evidence, no future scholar will be able to work from the assumption that the East represents the nation in the history of women's enfranchisement. She has laid the critical foundation for a genuinely national history of one of the most important developments in modern America." --Reviews in American History "Moving beyond the traditional emphasis on the work of radical women to include the larger political and social context, Mead's book makes a strong contribution to our understanding of our history of nineteenth century women, western United States politics, and issues of gender and law." --Utah Historical Quarterly "Mead...deserves respect for embarking on an ambitious undertaking that necessitated very extensive research which she covered meticulously. She has revisited this significant political transformation with the tools of recent historical scholarship to the fore and contributed constructively to a complex area of modern political history." --Australasian Journal of American Studies "In this comprehensive estimation, Mead not only answers the question of why western states were ahead of the curve in granting women the vote, but also examines the relationships, often tense, between the local, state, and national suffrage associations as well as with farm, labor and progressive coalitions." --Montana: The Magazine of Western History "This book should challenge historians of woman suffrage to look more closely at other regions and states... But it is Mead's treatment of a political culture among women with its own history, burdens, crosscurrents, and innovators that should have the wider impact." --Journal of American History "Rebecca Mead's new synthesis finally de-mystifies the West's 'radical and fundamental challenge to the exisitng political status of women'." --Western Historical Quarterly "Rebecca Mead has crafted a detailed history of suffrage campaigns in the western states." -- Karen E. Campbell of Vanderbilt University