November 4, 1924: The 1st Woman Elected Governor

November 4, 1924: Nellie Tayloe Ross is elected Governor of Wyoming. She is the 1st woman to be elected Governor of any State. It is with some appropriateness that the 1st State to elect a female Governor was Wyoming: When it was established as a Territory in 1869, it gave women the right to vote; and, when it gained Statehood in 1890, it was the 1st State to grant that right.

Nellie Davis Tayloe was born on November 29, 1876 in St. Joseph, Missouri, and grew up in Miltonvale, Kansas. She became a kindergarten teacher, and married William B. Ross in 1902.

William Ross was elected Governor of Wyoming in 1922, but died on October 2, 1924, from complications from an appendectomy. Under the State Constitution, the new Governor was the State's Secretary of State, Frank Lucas -- a Republican, so the Democrats had lost the office.

Also under the State Constitution, a special election had to be held to fill the post of a Governor who did not complete his term. Officials in the State's Democratic Party had a better chance of keeping the Governorship if Mrs. Ross were the nominee than if anyone else was, since she would get a sympathy vote, and a pro-Prohibition vote, that would more than cancel out any vote against her because of her gender.

She was reluctant to accept the nomination, but after all the other suggested candidates dropped out of the race, she was unanimously nominated by a State Party convention. Moved by this gesture, she accepted. Lucas himself lost the nomination at the Republican Convention, to former State Representative Eugene J. Sullivan. In the general election, despite a national landslide for President Calvin Coolidge, which also gave the Republicans control of both houses of Congress (I have a separate entry for that event), Mrs. Ross got 55 percent of the vote, becoming the 1st woman ever to be elected Governor of any State.

She was inaugurated on January 5, 1925. However, times were changing, and one of the changes is that America, having ratified the 18th Amendment for the Prohibition of buying, holding, transporting and selling alcoholic beverages, had now turned against the idea, going from "dry" to "wet." Mrs. Ross still supported Prohibition. When she ran for re-election in 1926, she lost to former State Engineer Frank Emerson, by only 1,365 votes.

She was only 50 years old, so her political career was not necessarily over. She remained active in the State's Democratic Party. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her Director of the United States Mint, the 1st woman to hold that office. She served in that office for the entirety of the FDR and Harry Truman Administrations, 20 years. She later wrote for women's magazines.

On November 5, 1974, Ella Grasso of Connecticut, a Democrat, became the 1st woman elected Governor of any State without her husband having previously been Governor, as had been the case with Mrs. Ross, Miriam "Ma" Ferguson of Texas, and Lurleen Wallace of Alabama. She was inaugurated on January 8, 1975. Nellie Tayloe Ross lived to see this, living until December 19, 1977, at the age of 101.

Each State's 1st female Governor -- if any -- and her year of assuming the office:

1. 1925, Wyoming: Nellie Tayloe Ross

2. 1925, Texas: Miriam "Ma" Ferguson (In 1990, Ann Richards became the 1st non-wife elected Governor.)

3. 1967, Alabama: Lurleen Wallace (In 2017, Kay Ivey became Acting Governor, and was elected in her own right in 2018.)

4. 1975, Connecticut: Ella Grasso

5. 1977, Washington: Dixy Lee Ray

6. 1982, New Hampshire: Vesta Roy (Acting Governor for 8 days. Jeanne Shaheen was elected in 1996.)

7. 1983, Kentucky: Martha Layne Collins

8. 1985, Vermont: Madeleine Kunin

9. 1987, Nebraska: Kay Orr

10. 1988, Arizona: Ross Mofford (Acting Governor for nearly 3 years. Jane Hull became Acting Governor in 1997, and was elected in her own right in 1998. Janet Napolitano was elected in 2002, without having been Acting Governor.)

11. 1991, Kansas: Joan Finney

12. 1991, Oregon: Barbara Roberts (In 2015, Kate Brown of Oregon became the 1st openly gay female Governor of any State.)

13. 1994, New Jersey: Christine Todd Whitman

14. 1998, Ohio: Nancy Hollister (Acting Governor for 11 days.)

15. 2001, Montana: Judy Martz

16. 2001, Delaware: Ruth Ann Minner

17. 2001, Massachusetts: Jane Swift (Acting Governor for a year and a half. Maura Healey was elected in 2022.)

18. 2002, Hawaii: Linda Lingle

19. 2003, Michigan: Jennifer Granholm

20. 2003, Utah: Olene Walker (Acting Governor for a little over a year.)

21. 2004, Louisiana: Kathleen Blanco

22. 2006, Alaska: Sarah Palin

23. 2009, North Carolina: Bev Perdue

24. 2011, New Mexico: Susana Martinez (1st Hispanic female Governor of any State.)

25. 2011, Oklahoma: Mary Fallin

26. 2011, South Carolina: Nikki Haley (1st Asian-American female Governor of any State.)

27. 2015, Rhode Island: Gina Raimondo

28. 2017, Iowa: Kim Reynolds (Acting Governor, elected in her own right in 2018.)

29. 2019, Maine: Janet Mills

30. 2019, South Dakota: Kristi Noem

31. 2021, New York: Kathy Hochul (Acting Governor, elected in her own right in 2022.)

None yet: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin.

UPDATE: In 2023, Arkansas became the 32nd State with a female Governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, daughter of former Governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. In 2026, Virginia became the 33rd, Abigail Spanberger. A few days later, New Jersey swore in Mikie Sherrill, who was elected on the same day. In a weird turn of events, Sherrill was born and raised in Virginia, Spanberger was born and raised in New Jersey, and, as members of the House of Representatives, were roommates in a Washington apartment.

*

November 4, 1924 was, like all modern American Election Days, a Tuesday. Despite Coolidge's landslide, Nellie Tayloe Ross, a Democrat, was elected Governor of Wyoming, to replace her late husband, William B. Ross. I have a separate entry for that occurrence.

The World Series had ended 25 days before, with the Washington Senators winning, as it turned out, their only World Championship. As I mentioned, Calvin and Grace Coolidge were in attendance. Football was in midweek. The NHL season was 25 days away. And professional basketball barely existed. So there were no scores on this historic day.