Short Stuff: Petticoat Rulers

Petticoat rulers were women who ran the show long before anyone thought they could. We’re talking mayors and entire city councils comprised of women in the Old West. What happened since then? Listen to find out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck and this is short stuff and this is
a good one. I'm I'm excited about this one. Chuck.
Let's go, go, Chuck go. Yeah. I mean, we're talking
about Petticoat rulers. And it might surprise people considering America
today is ranked eighty one out of a hundred ninety

(00:24):
three countries, and women representation and government that we actually had,
uh women who were mayors and city council people way
back in the eighteen hundreds. Yeah. There are two towns
in particular, um Oscaloosa, Kansas and cannab Utah that had
elected all female town councils in eighteen nineteen twelve, respectively,

(00:47):
which is pretty substantial. But then Jackson, Wyoming, home to
the famous checks in Whole, Wyoming, which I guess is
a hamlet or a burg or some sort of affiliated town,
but it's basically the same place from what I understand.
Oh man, we're gonna get some email from the Jacks
and people. Um, they said, you know what, hold our beer,
our hold our Sasaparilla, because we're gonna one up both

(01:09):
of those towns. And in nineteen twenty, the year that
um women were granted suffrage by the Constitution or the
Bill of Rights. I should say that same year Jackson,
Wyoming elected not only in all women town council, Chuck,
but also a mayor, a woman mayor for the first
time ever. And the the that group, these petticoat rulers,

(01:32):
as they came to be known, appointed women to the
highest positions in the town clerk, health, treasurer, and marshall.
Isn't that amazing? It is amazing? And I'm I was
surprised to see that the first woman elected mayor in
the United States was all the way back in I

(01:54):
had and I had no idea. Yeah, it was in Agoria, Kansas.
Her name was Well, this one was the one I
believe we covered before in something, Susann Assaulter, who was
placed on the ballot as a as a sort of
a prank by men in the town who didn't think
that women should hold office. They put her on the
ballot thinking that she would be humiliated and it would

(02:15):
set women back politically. And she didn't know she was
on the ballot. It was like a blind ballot until
the day of the election. And she she won and
went on to be mayor UM. The other ones Oscaloosa,
Mary D. Loman, She was UM legitimately elected mayor and
the first woman elected as mayor UM in Kansas within

(02:37):
all UH city council full of women, nothing but ladies.
That's amazing. But the thing is, yeah, like we we
think about it today and we're like, that's just that's
unheard of, you know, like literally unheard of. I hadn't
heard about that before. UM. But the state of Wyoming
is actually known as the equality State. And one of

(02:57):
the reasons why is because you know, we associate nine
ten twenties the year that women were granted the right
to vote. That's a national thing. UM. They had the
right to vote back in eighteen sixty nine in Wyoming.
So it kind of like gives it a little more
UM texture or context or both UM to know that
that women already had the right to vote for UM

(03:18):
more than fifty years before UH Mayor Miller and the
all female town council UM were elected in Jackson. Yeah,
and that's how Mary Loman won in Oscaloosa, is they
had in Kansas, they had the right to vote in
municipal elections, and they won by a two to one
margin on the Oscaloosa Improvement ticket. UM. The one in

(03:41):
Utah was interesting too, and they both kind of had
similar stories and that when they got in office. UM,
one of their big things was to kind of just
clean up the town collect back taxes. I think they
had something like two hundred dollars in collected taxes just
because people just refused to pay, and they went round
personally to the houses and I think they left office

(04:03):
with two thousand dollars in the city coffers Um and
then Mary Woolley chamberlain of kenneb Utah. She was mayor
for two years and she had a female city council
and she was one of the enacted one of the
first leash laws for dogs, and then wanted to protect
local business, so she enacted a uh a daily tax

(04:25):
on traveling salesman coming through town because she was like,
you can't just come through town, steal a bunch of
business and then leave with your pockets full. So we're
gonna text you guys per day just to kind of
dry business, to protect local business. That's some smart government
right there. Yeah. Well, let's take a break and we'll
come back and talk about some more smart government that

(04:46):
was instituted by women around the turn of the last century. Okay,
let's do it. St alright, So, Chuck, you said cannabs

(05:17):
Town Council were elected by a two to one margin.
I saw the same thing too for Jackson's Petticoat rulers,
which really kind of goes to underscore this. This was
not like some fluke or a joke. Like the first
female mayor in America, Salt Salter. Is that what you said?
Her name was? Uh, yes, Susannah Salter. She reminds me.
That story reminds me of Elizabeth Blackwell getting into med school.

(05:40):
Remember it was supposed to be a prank and kind
of blew up in the face, which that's probably what
I was thinking of. Actually, yeah, yeah, because I don't
remember talking about Susanna Salter before either. Um. But the
fact that they won, that the Petticoat Rulers and uh
the cannab Utah Town Council won by like a two
to in margin really shows that this was not like

(06:01):
a joke or a fluke. Um. I think one woman,
one of the city council members, beat her husband in
the election in Jackson in n Yeah, and um, which
that had to taste pretty pretty sweet. And then the
the fact is that a lot of them were re

(06:22):
elected when they came up for re election. So um,
not only was it a good idea, they proved themselves
as worthy for re election too. And some of the
things they did, like you said, they beefed up the
town coffers. Um. I saw. They didn't institute a leash
law in Jackson, but they did criminalize littering for the
first time. Um. They cleaned up the town square, meaning

(06:46):
that they didn't allow cattle grazing there anymore. That was
another thing they did. What else, Uh, they graded the streets.
They said, how about some street lights and street lamps. Um,
let's expand electrical service. Let's get a cemetery going in
this town, because everyone's always shooting each other, right are
they used to when the men ran the place. That

(07:06):
was another thing I saw too. I mean you were
talking about the back taxes not being collected and them
getting like an additional eighteen hundred dollars into the treasury. Um.
One of the things that I saw, I think it
was in the Jackson Whole newspaper. The reason for that
was that this town had been run like really insusent
lee by men up to that point, and that there

(07:28):
was like this this kind of pioneer spirit where everyone
was expected to take care of their neighbor and everyone
didn't stepped up when help was needed, but it wasn't
like an organized structural civic pride. And that that's what
the Petticoat rulers came in and instituted. They basically said, hey,
you know that the whole take care of your neighbor.

(07:49):
Think there's actually a lot of things we could be doing, um,
you know, through government, and let's let's just let's start
doing that. And that actually kind of took off. Yeah,
and Grace mell Or, the mayor of I think she
was Jackson right. She said in an interview. We simply
tried to work together. We put into practice the same
thrifty principles we exercise in our own homes. We wanted

(08:12):
to clean, well kept, progressive town in which to raise
our families. What is good government but a breathing space
for good citizenship. And it sort of reminds me of
that quote. Um, I don't know the exact quote, but
it's sort of like, if you want, if you want
the job done on time and write like hire a
working mom or something like that. I think you're talking

(08:33):
about something to do with like lipstick and pit bulls. Now, No,
is that a different one? I think so? Okay, Um,
the one you're talking about makes a tremendous amount of
sense though. Um. So, the Petticoat Rulers came in, and
from what I understand, there's a town historian Morgan Albertson.

(08:57):
I'm going to take a stab at this last name, Joan.
What do you j A O U E N. It's
a beautiful right either way, it looks very very nice
spelled out. Um. But historian that we're just gonna call
this person. The historian basically said that the Petticoat rulers

(09:19):
shaped shape Jackson and Jackson Hole into the town that
they know and love today. Um, and that it may
have just kind of become a town that ended up
deserted and misused and mistreated and misgoverned and lost to history. Um.
The historians willing to go so far as to say
that either way, they they rulers definitely deserve credit for

(09:42):
for shaping the place. But the weird thing is, Chuck
is like, despite how successful the all female town council
and mayor and appointed positions was for Jackson. It's like
the town was like, Okay, well we tried that. Let's
wait another eighty or so years before we do it again.
We try that works out really great, so let's just
wait till the nineteen eighties. Yeah, nineteen eighties was the

(10:05):
first time that women's city council people were elected again,
and it wasn't until two thousand one when they had
another woman. Mayor Jeane Jackson was elected in two thousand one.
So it went from Mayor Miller Grace Miller in to
Jeene Jackson in two thousand one. That was quite a drought. Yeah, uh,

(10:26):
you got anything else? I got nothing else. We salute them.
I I do too, but I have one last thing.
The um. The women were all members originally what was
called the Pure Foods Club, which was a social group
that met a couple of times a month, and that's
where the idea to run was hatched and nurtured. And
that group is still around today, but they call themselves

(10:48):
the Birthday Club. But in then Adorable. This group has
been around since the early nineteen hundreds and they still
meet twice a month. And now men are allowed. I
love the birthday Club. I want to be in that group.
They'll let you in. You're in and and likable, So
I think those are the two qualifications. And I have birthdays.
You do you have a birthday? Well? Yeah, hats off
to the Petticoat rulers and all of the women who

(11:10):
helped shape the United States then and now. Uh and uh.
I guess that means short Stuff is out. Stuff you
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