Esther Hobart Morris: A Suffragette Remembered

In conjunction with the Votes for Women exhibition in the Herstory Gallery, we are always looking for more stories about the many unsung pioneers of women’s suffrage. Long-time curatorial and library volunteer and friend of the Brooklyn Museum, Marty Levenson, has this fascinating account to share about Esther Hobart Morris, a local activist from Wyoming who’s brave efforts to promote suffrage legislation led to her appointment as one of the first female justices of the peace in the Wyoming Territory, as it was known in the mid-late 1800s. Read more of Marty’s account of Esther Hobart Morris below.

“Following years of legislative and social struggle, women received the right to vote under US Federal law in 1920. But the country’s first legislative success with regard to women’s suffrage came in 1869 in the then newly created Wyoming Territory.

Though not a member of the Territorial legislature, Esther Hobart Morris has been given major credit for supporting that bill and other laws that allowed married women to control their own property, and provided equal pay for women teachers.

Mrs. Morris was appointed a justice of the peace in 1870 and was the country’s first woman to serve in a judicial office. Afterward, she continued to be active in political affairs and during Wyoming’s statehood celebration in 1890 she was honored for her suffrage activities. In 1895, at age 80, she was elected a delegate to the national suffrage convention in Cleveland.

A life size statue of Mrs. Morris stands directly in front of the Wyoming state capitol in Cheyenne and a copy of the statue was donated to the national statuary hall in the US Capitol when she was designated Wyoming’s representative in that exhibit.”

— Marty Levenson.

(Statue of Esther Hobart Morris by Avard Fairbanks in front of Capitol Building, Cheyenne, WY. Photo: Einar Einarsson Kvaran.)