“What does it mean to be an enfranchised woman?...The vital part of being enfranchised is not to be found in its political aspects at all, but in its effect in teaching us our relationship with the life around us.”
Ellis Meredith (1865-1955) is seen as the architect of Colorado’s passage of women’s suffrage in 1893, and has been nicknamed the Susan B. Anthony of Colorado. She joined the staff of the Rocky Mountain News in 1889 and was the long-time editor of a column titled “Woman’s World.” After the successful Colorado campaign she became a resource on the topic of women’s suffrage. In 1910 she also became Denver’s first female elected official. After the passage of women’s suffrage in Colorado in 1893, Meredith continued to write and speak about what it meant to the women of Colorado to have the right to vote. In August of 1908, a month after the convention closed, she wrote “What it Means to be an Enfranchised Woman” for the Atlantic Monthly.
– Submitted by historian Andrea Malcomb (Image from Colorado Encyclopedia https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ellis-meredith)