In the last three decades of the 19th century, the Pacific Northwest was mostly wilderness. Seattle and Tacoma were little more than villages, and Portland was the region’s commercial hub as most goods arrived by barge along the Columbia River.

The villages would soon grow into cities as tens of thousands of Americans migrated west. Some were fleeing crowded cities, rising land values, and political or religious repression. Others were not fleeing something, they were moving to something. They dreamed of cheap land, riches of gold and silver, or political freedom and independence.

Many westward migrants believed themselves to be agents of destiny, expanding the American dream and building a continental nation. Pioneers who braved the Oregon Trail sought the independence and freedom of owning and working the land on their own terms.

It was this spirit of independence that created an atmosphere of change. It helps to explain why the territories of Wyoming (1869) and Utah (1870) were the first to enfranchise women. U.S. Territories, not bound by the restrictive constitutional process of states, were free to pass liberal suffrage laws.

When Washington Territory was created in 1853, Americans had been pouring into the region for over a decade, and women had already won important rights. Women in Washington could own land and share property equally with their husbands. This was unheard of in the East. By 1871, women voted in school elections. In 1883 they succeeded in getting laws passed guaranteeing their right to vote in all elections, although it was later overturned by the courts. Finally, in 1910, the heritage of a pioneer spirit won, making Washington the fifth state in the nation where women could vote and participate in government.