113. America’s First Female Mayor
KIM: Hey, everybody! Welcome back to another Lost Ladies of Lit mini episode. I’m Kim Askew, here with my co-host Amy Helmes, and for those of us listening from outside the U.S., you should know that we’re holding our midterm elections the day this podcast is first dropping.
AMY: Yeah, everyone’s watching closely — it’s been kind of hard to focus on anything else, for weeks, now, at least for me. It’s expected — and we certainly hope that the women of America are coming out in droves to make their feelings known and show their power.
KIM: Right. But we thought this week’s episode would be a great time to introduce you to Susanna M. Salter, the first female mayor in the United States.
AMY: Yes, her story is an awesome one, especially when you consider that it all started as a cruel prank orchestrated by a group of arrogant men. Well, she got the last laugh, so we wanted to tell her story.
KIM: Good for her. So Susanna was born in Ohio in 1860, but her family had moved to Kansas by the time she was 12. A studious young woman, she attended Kansas State Agricultural college, although an illness ended up preventing her from graduating. But while she was attending the school she met her future husband, Lewis, who was the son of a previous Kansas Lt. Governor. They married when Susanna was 20. The couple then moved to the small town of Argonia where Susanna’s father was actually voted in as the town’s first mayor. This was a town of less than 500 people.
AMY: So yeah, she was clearly somewhat active in politics as a result of her family connections. Her husband, a lawyer, even became a city clerk. Having come from a Quaker family, Susanna became the leader of the town’s Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, which needless to say, made her some enemies.
KIM: Uh-oh! Yes, men who frequented the taverns of Argonia did not approve of Susanna’s fight to ban alcohol, needless to say. And when the members of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union backed their own pro-temperance male candidates in 1887, a group of men in town formed a secret caucus and thought it would be HILARIOUS if they wrote in Susanna’s name on the ballot for mayor.
AMY: Their motive was to both humiliate her and to send a message that women were not welcome in political arenas, because that same year, in fact, women in Argonia were granted the right to vote. So these men assumed it would be a huge embarrassment for Salter and it would force her to shut up. But not so fast, you boozy bastards!
KIM: Nope! Suzanna — at the time a mother of four children — had no idea her name had been put on the ballot until the day of the actual election. Members of the Republican Party showed up at her house — while she was doing laundry, no less — and she was like, “Umm…. what?” But she decided to roll with it. She told the Women’s Christian Temperance Union — if you all vote for me and not the original candidates you’d planned on backing, I’ll do the job if elected.
AMY: Let’s see what happens! Roll the dice! But what the trickster guys didn’t anticipate was that with the backing of the WCTU and all the pro-temperance voters in town, Salter actually had more than a fighting chance. What ended up happening? The ladies in town flocked to the polls and Susanna ended up winning with ⅔ of the vote! Bam — just like that, she’s elected the first female mayor in American history, unwittingly, and one of the first American women to hold any political office!
KIM: Amazing. And so she was 27 years old at the time… What kind of mayor did she end up being? Do we know anything about that?
AMY: Well, what I could find is that she reportedly “served with decorum” and what’s funny is that a few of the men who were in on this big prank were also on the ballot for other positions like town council sort of stuff. So they got elected to town council; she’s mayor. So she had to try to get along with these jerks who had sought to humiliate her. Apparently she did. Her term has been described as “uneventful” but considering what a sleepy little town it was, that’s no big surprise. What was surprising, however, was the reaction of the rest of the nation. So during her time in office, she became a sort of national (and even international) political celebrity… Journalists from all over the country came to little Argonia to report on what sort of job she was doing. She got all kinds of fan mail, but also, of course, she got hate mail, including this gem of a poem. This was a written on a note that included a pair of men’s pants drawn on it:
When a woman leaves her natural sphere,
And without her sex's modesty or fear
Assays the part of man,
She, in her weak attempts to rule,
But makes herself a mark for ridicule,
A laughing-stock and sham.
Article of greatest use is to her then
Something worn distinctively by men --
A pair of pants will do.
Thus she will plainly demonstrate
That Nature made a great mistake
In sexing such a shrew.
KIM: Okay, that is proof that there have always been trolls. Yuck! But on a side note to all this, Salter also gave birth to one of her children while she was mayor. So, you go, girl.
AMY: When her year in office was over, she opted not to seek re-election, and I mean, come on, it was never her ambition in the first place remember. She just wanted to go back to raising her kids, understandably, (she ended up having nine children in total). But I think about the courage it took for her to say, “Okay you guys, just watch me — I’m going to do this,” and she did it professionally and competently. But here’s what’s really interesting: that year and the years that followed, other Kansas towns started also electing women officials.
KIM: She started the chain reaction…. I love it! She eventually moved with her family to Oklahoma, but in Argonia they placed a commemorative bronze plaque honoring her in the town square, and the home there where she lived is now on the national register of historic places. She died at the age of 101 in 1961 in Norman, Oklahoma, but she is buried in Argonia.
AMY: Keep her in mind when you’re going to vote, you know? If she could take on the job of mayor when it was sprung on her unexpectedly, the least we can do is make an effort to inform yourselves about the issues and candidates and vote and, yeah, go to the polls. There are no excuses!
KIM: That’s all for today’s show, but we’ll reconnect next week to tell you all about another lost lady of lit. Thanks for joining us, and don’t forget to leave us a review if you like the program, it really makes a difference for us and it gives us new listeners!
AMY: Our theme song was written and performed by Jennie Malone and our logo was designed by Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of lit is produced by Amy Helmes and Kim Askew.