Women's History Month: First Woman Mayor in Kansas

historic black and white portrait of Susanna Madora Salter, the first female Mayor in the US

Did you know the first woman elected mayor in the U.S. was from Kansas?

In 1887, Susanna Madora Salter was elected mayor of Argonia at just 27 years old. Argonia is in Sumner County, about 20 miles north of Oklahoma. Salter presided over approximately 400 people during her time in office.
 
She was nominated as a prank by men hoping to embarrass the temperance movement, but voters believed in her. Salter won by a two-thirds majority and proved herself a capable, respected leader during her one-year term. She was paid just $1 for her term and never sought another elected office. She died in Oklahoma at age 101.
 
Salter’s election may have paved the way for women to win higher offices in Kansas, which didn't happen in a statewide race for another 30 years.  Elizabeth Wooster was elected superintendent of public instruction in 1918, a position that no longer exists. Kansas' early support for women's suffrage helped her, as women were active voters by this time. Kansas had granted women full voting rights in 1912, eight years ahead of the nation.
 
Today, 33% of the Kansas State Legislature is made up of women, and even more women hold various offices throughout the state, including the current Governor, Laura Kelly.
 
Learn more about Susanna Madora Salter and other influential women in Kansas by checking out the Kansas Room at Main Library!
 
 
Featured Items
book cover for "More than Petticoats: Remarkable Kansas Women"

More than Petticoats: Remarkable Kansas Women

More than Petticoats: Remarkable Kansas Women celebrates the women who shaped the Sunflower State. Short, illuminating biographies and archival photographs and paintings tell the stories of women from across the state, including a dentist, an orator, a pilot, a mayor and a fugitive slave.

Book Cover for " Benevolence, moral reform, equality : women's activism in Kansas City, 1870 to 1940"

Benevolence, Moral Reform, Equality : Women's Activism in Kansas City, 1870 to 1940

David Hanzlick traces the rise and evolution of women's activism in a rapidly growing, Midwestern border city, one deeply scarred by the Civil War and struggling to determine its meaning. Over the course of 70 years, women in Kansas City emerged from the domestic sphere by forming and working in female-led organizations to provide charitable relief, reform society's ills, and ultimately claim space for themselves as full participants in the American polity. Focusing on the social construction of gender, class, and race, and the influence of political philosophy in shaping responses to poverty, Hanzlick also considers the ways in which city politics shaped the interactions of local activist women with national women's groups and male-led organizations.

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