In the American West, where freedom and independence were the hallmarks of a frontier society, women garnered important rights. By law, women in Washington could own land and share property equally with their husbands. By 1871, they voted in school elections. Few women enjoyed such rights in America in the 19th century.

In 1883, Washington women succeeded in getting a law passed guaranteeing woman's suffrage (the right to vote in all elections). Only Wyoming and Utah territories had enacted woman's suffrage prior to Washington. Caught up in the spirit of reform, Washington's legislature also enacted measures to strengthen the penalties against drunks and to allow married women to initiate legal suits in their own names and retain monetary awards as separate property.

For five years, most women proudly exercised their franchise in record numbers. Suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway wrote that, "The suffrage movement is in the air. Everybody is talking about it, and all thinking people are for it."

But many men (and some women) were not so eager to celebrate. "Legislative enactment would not make white black, nor can it provide the female form with bond and sinew equal in strength to that with which nature had provided man," wrote Justice George Turner of the Territorial Supreme Court. Women were generally thought to have softer hearts and moral beliefs that resulted in an inability to sentence criminals. It was also believed women wanted to pass laws against selling alcohol. These qualities were given as reasons by opponents why the "law" should not be put in the hands of women.

There were concerns too about women sitting on juries. Court defendants who objected to women jurors challenged the law. It also met the wrath of the "whiskey" lobby, which feared that a vote for women was a vote for banning liquor. In the span of four tumultuous years, the suffrage law was upheld by the courts, overturned, reinstated, and overturned again.

Women eventually lost the vote, but not their voice. For the next 20 years, they fought to regain their rights. It was a battle they would win once and for all in 1910.