Louisa Gardner Swain made history Sept. 6, 1870, when she became the first woman to cast a ballot under democratically enacted laws granting women equal political rights with men.
Swain was 69 when she cast her historic ballot, one block from the site of the Wyoming House For Historic Women. A Laramie, Wyoming, newspaper, The Daily Sentinel, described her as “a gentle white-haired housewife, Quakerish in appearance.”
“There was too much good sense in our community for any jeers or sneers to be seen on such an occasion,” the paper reported.
Swain, according to the Louisa Swain Foundation, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in 1800. She was married and was the mother of three children.
A few years after casting her historic ballot, she and her husband moved to Maryland to live with their daughter. She died in 1878 and is buried in the Friends Burying Grounds on the Old Harford Road in Baltimore.
On Sept. 6, which Congress has designated as Louisa Swain Day, an anniversary celebration will be held at 1 p.m. in the Johnson, Lummis, Hunkins Plaza in Laramie.
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