Grace Raymond Hebard was not the first woman in Wyoming to break the “glass ceiling” of her time, but her achievements were quite remarkable!

Not only was Hebard the first woman admitted to the Wyoming State Bar in 1898 and the first woman to practice law before the Wyoming Supreme Court, she was also an engineer, suffragist, librarian and historian (albeit one whose work has often been in question).

Reared in Iowa, Hebard received a B.S. in engineering from the State University of Iowa in 1882, followed by an M.A. through a correspondence course in 1885. A job opportunity as a draftsman in the land office of the United States Surveyor General brought her and her family to Wyoming; after arriving, her love of the state never waned. Hebard became a member of the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees in 1891, serving as the secretary. Later, she taught political economy, and by the end of her career became head of the departments of political economy and sociology. Hebard was a popular speaker and writer whose books were considered highly romanticized. These included the History and Government of Wyoming and Pathbreakers from River to Ocean.

As if that weren’t enough, Hebard was the state’s reigning tennis champion for a time.

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Nellie Tayloe Ross was the first woman in the United States to serve as governor of a state, plus the first female director of the United State Mint.

Ross was elected governor of Wyoming in 1924, when her husband, incumbent governor Democrat William Bradford Ross, died just prior to re-election. While in office from 1924-1926, she did not accomplish much, as she was a Democrat in a primarily Republican state. However, her graciousness and business-like manner gained her great respect.

Ross lost her re-election bid to a Republican candidate in 1926, yet she remained active in politics and served as the vice-chairwoman for the Democratic National Committee, working closely with Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt named Ross director of the United States Mint, a position she held for 20 years.

Learn more about Nellie Tayloe Ross.

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Lillian Heath was Wyoming’s first female physician. A native of Rawlins, she opened her practice at her parents’ home at age 27 in 1893, and was reportedly the only woman to attend the 1895 American Medical Association’s convention held in Denver.

Heath carried a pistol when she went out on house calls, and her skills ran from obstetrics and gynecology to surgery, anesthesiology and early aspects of plastic surgery. Heath is probably best known for something rather morbid. In 1881, when outlaw “Big Nose” George Parrot was lynched in Carbon County, a medical bag and a pair of shoes were eventually made from the dead man’s skin. The top of his skullcap was given to  the teenaged Heath, who used it as a flowerpot.

While Heath might have seemed “rough and tumble” for her time, she was also known to be a “perfect 36” and modeled clothing for Denver’s Daniels and Fisher Department Store (later known as May D & F).

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Estelle Reel was the first woman in the nation elected to statewide public office as the Wyoming’s Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1894.

Although she had never sought public office before, the state’s Republican party gave her the nomination and Reel did not disappoint! She campaigned like a champion, traveling the state from corner to corner in spite of the whispers at the impropriety of a single woman traveling alone. On Election Day, she received more votes than any other man  elected to office in Wyoming had gained before.

As the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Reel was in charge of Wyoming’s schools and sought to standardize the curriculum throughout the state, particularly in the state’s poor rural areas. She also served on the Land Commission and the Board of Charities and Reform, earning a salary of $2,000, which many thought too high a salary for a woman.

Reel left office and Wyoming in 1898 before the end of her term when William McKinley was elected president. She had campaigned for him and, in turn, won an appointment as the National Superintendent of Indian Schools, becoming the first and only woman to hold that post and the first woman to receive Senate confirmation.

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May Gorslin Preston Slosson served as the chaplain at the nearly all-male Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie, Wyoming from 1899-1903.

In 1880, she was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. from Cornell University and the first woman to obtain a doctoral degree in philosophy in the United States. She and her husband, Edwin Emery Slosson, moved to Laramie in 1891 where she organized a series of Sunday afternoon lectures for the prisoners. When the position of chaplain became vacant, the prisoners requested Slosson.

Slosson obviously had a connection with the inmates and helped to institute prison reform. She held counseling sessions and even wrote letters on their behalf. In addition, every man pardoned was invited to her home for a home-cooked meal upon his release.

The Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site commemorates Slosson’s work with a historical lecture series.

Learn more about May Preston Slosson.

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Margaret Thomas “Mardy” Murie was one of the first women to take a leading role in America’s conservation movement.

Known as the “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement,” Murie was also the first woman to graduate from the University of Alaska in 1924. That same year, she married husband Olaus and began a lifetime of travel, research, and conservation. Murie helped secure the passage of the Wilderness Act and the creation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Her devotion earned her the Audubon Medal, the John Muir Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the highest civilian honor awarded by the United States.

She was the author of several books including Two in the Far North and Wapiti Wilderness, and was on the founding board of the Teton Science School in Jackson, Wyoming.

Learn more about Mardy Murie. 

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Historians and students alike owe a debt of gratitude to Agnes Wright Spring (far right), a Wyoming writer and historian who wrote 20 books focusing on Wyoming and Western history.

She was the first woman to undertake many endeavors in Wyoming, including becoming the first female student to graduate with a civil engineering degree in 1913. While studying at the University, she was also the first female editor of The Wyoming Student, the school’s literary publication. Wright-Spring later served as the state librarian, and was the only person to serve as the official state historian of two states – Wyoming and Colorado.

During World War II, she served as the director of the Wyoming Federal Writer’s Project. Wright-Spring was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1983.

Learn more about Agnes Wright Spring. 

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Republican Thyra Thomson was the first woman elected to serve as Wyoming’s Secretary of State. The widow of a popular Wyoming politician, U.S. Rep. Keith Thomson, she first ran for office in 1963 and was not only able to transfer her late husband’s popularity into an electoral victory for herself, but also held the position for an astounding 24 years. She retired in 1987.

Thomson witnessed gender discrimination while working in state government, noting the irony of this fact given that Wyoming, known as the Equality State,  was the first state to grant women the right to vote. In 1974, she was elected president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, an organization for state securities administrators who are charged with the responsibility to protect consumers who purchase securities or investment advice.

As secretary of state, Thomson served as acting governor when Wyoming  Governors Clifford P. Hansen, Stanley K. Hathaway or Ed Herschler were out of state.

Learn more about Secretary of State Thyra Thomson.

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Harriet Elizabeth “Liz” Byrd was the first African-American woman to serve in the Wyoming State Legislature. She served in the House of Representatives from 1980 to 1988 and in the Senate from 1988 to 1992.

Born and reared in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Byrd earned a bachelor’s degree in education in 1949 from West Virginia State College. Upon her return to Cheyenne, she was denied a teaching job because of her race, a decision that was later reversed. Byrd taught elementary school for 27 years in Cheyenne and received her M.A. in teaching from the University of Wyoming in 1976.

During her tenure in the state legislature, she sponsored legislation establishing a state holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1991, she was partially successful with the passage of the bill, but the holiday was named the Martin Luther King, Jr./Wyoming Equality Day.

Learn more about Harriett Elizabeth “Liz” Byrd.

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Emma Howell was a young woman attending the University of Nebraska when she fell in love with Wilbur Knight, a mining engineer working in the Medicine Bow Range of Wyoming. They married on October 16, 1889.

In time, they moved to Laramie where Wilbur taught mining engineering and metallurgy at the University of Wyoming while Emma became active as a professor’s wife in Laramie society. When her husband died unexpectedly in 1903, Knight was left to support their four children. She did so by getting elected to the position of Albany Superintendent of Schools in 1904. In 1911, she completed her BA in the same class as her daughter Wilburta.

Moving up the ranks in the educational system, Knight was appointed the advisor to women and assistant head of home economics at the University of Wyoming in 1911, then as an assistant professor in 1913. In 1918, she became the University of Wyoming’s first full-time dean of women, a post that she held until her retirement in 1920.

In her honor, the University of Wyoming named the new women’s dormitory – Knight Hall — in her honor in 1941.

Learn more about Emma Knight. 

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