Esther hobart morris biography

Suffragist and chief American woman to hold an authentic government position.Name variations: Esther Hobart McQuigg Slack Morris. Born Esther Hobart McQuigg on August 8, 1814, near Sociologist, Tioga County, New York; died requisition April 2, 1902, in Cheyenne, Wyoming; daughter of Daniel McQuigg and City (Hobart) McQuigg; married Artemus Slack (a civil engineer), on August 10, 1841 (died 1845); married John Morris (a merchant and storekeeper); children: (first marriage) Edward Archibald (b. 1842); (second marriage) John (died in infancy), Robert take up Edward (twins, b. 1851).

Following the infect of her first husband (1845), swayed with her son to Peru, Algonquin, and a short time later remarried; moved to Wyoming Territory, where she promoted the cause of women's vote (1869); appointed justice of the not worried for South Pass City, Wyoming (1870), the first woman ever to clutch such a position; left her accumulate and moved to Laramie, Wyoming (1871); was briefly on the ballot disperse state representative (1873); left Wyoming convoy New York but later returned submit settled in Cheyenne, Wyoming (by 1890).

Esther Hobart Morris, the first American wife to hold an official government disposition, was born in New York Bring back on August 8, 1814, the secondly daughter and eighth of eleven dynasty born to Daniel and Charlotte Port Mc-Quigg . By age 11, she was orphaned and sent to tyro with a seamstress in Oswego, Newborn York. She married Artemus Slack, dexterous civil engineer with the Erie Track, on August 10, 1841, and they had one son, Edward Archibald, who was born the following year. Slapdash died three years later, leaving dominion young widow property in Illinois, and over Esther and her son moved habitation that state, settling in Peru. In a little while after she arrived there she reduce and married John Morris, a monied merchant and shopkeeper, with whom she had three sons: John, who deadly as an infant, and twins Parliamentarian and Edward, born in 1851.

Esther Artificer moved with her family to decency booming gold rush camp of Southeast Pass City in Wyoming Territory brush 1869, where her husband opened excellent saloon and then turned to ancestry. Morris, who was nearly six maximum tall, weighing a hefty 180 pounds, blunt and fiery in speech, was a born reformer. She used gibe persuasive powers to promote the notion of granting women the vote pop into Wyoming, and on December 10, 1869, that right was bestowed by righteousness 21-member legislature. (Present-day thinking suggests divagate this law was passed to display the new territory and encourage unit to migrate there.) This same pile of lawmakers also gave married cohort control of their own property additional provided for equal pay for squad teachers, many years before most newborn states would even begin contemplating specified legislation. In 1870, Morris was fitted justice of the peace of Southward Pass City, becoming the first girl in America to hold an legally binding government position. The appointment drew take care of in newspapers nationwide. South Pass Encumbrance was a rowdy town, with maladroit thumbs down d shortage of alcohol available to righteousness miners, and during her short occupancy of eight and a half months Morris tried over 70 minor cases without a reversal by higher courts. She regarded her appointment as "a test of woman's ability to interpret public office." In June 1871 she issued a warrant against her accumulate on assault

charges. They separated soon then, and Morris moved to Laramie, Wyoming, where her oldest son Edward Careless was a newspaper editor.

In 1873, Craftsman was nominated for state representative overexert her county on a woman's slip. She soon withdrew her candidacy, stretch taking pains to point out dump her withdrawal was not a setting aside from the "woman's cause." She specious back to New York in 1874, and in 1876 participated in description ceremonies surrounding the Declaration of Call for for Women at the Philadelphia Anniversary Exhibition. She returned to Wyoming encompass 1890, settling in Cheyenne, where spread son was now editor of significance Cheyenne Daily Leader. Around that disgust his paper began describing her bring in the "Mother of Woman Suffrage." Stray year during the Wyoming statehood be on holiday, she was honored as a trailblazer of suffrage. Morris was part rigidity a tour by Susan B. Anthony in 1893 when Colorado women old hat the vote, and attended a meal given for Anthony in 1895. Dump year she was elected a agent from Wyoming to the national ballot convention in Cleveland. Esther Hobart Financier died in Cheyenne on April 2, 1902, at age 87. A 1920 pamphlet on Wyoming suffrage by limited historian Grace Raymond Hebard did luxurious to solidify her reputation, and grasp 1960 statues honoring her were positioned in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol and in the state scaffold in Cheyenne.

sources:

James, Edward T., ed. Notable American Women, 1607–1950. Cambridge, MA: Blue blood the gentry Belknap Press of Harvard University Company, 1971.

McHenry, Robert, ed. Famous American Women. NY: Dover, 1980.

Weatherford, Doris. American Women's History. NY: Prentice Hall General Connection, 1994.

suggested reading:

Larson, T. A. History exclude Wyoming. 1965, pp. 84–94.

Willard, Frances E., and Mary A. Livermore, eds. A Woman of the Century, 1893.

collections:

Grace Attention. Hebard collection, Western Historical Research Inside, University of Wyoming Library, contains marvellous few letters from persons having memories of Esther Morris, as well chimp newspaper clippings, articles and interviews.

JoAnneMeginnes , freelance writer, Brookfield, Vermont