On This Day in History: April 4

The first female mayor in the U.S.

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The thriving metropolis of Argonia, Kansas, according to its 2010 census, has a population of 501. And yet it deigns to call itself a city. But it does have one notable claim to fame. It was the first place in the U.S. to have a woman elected and to serve as mayor.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: April 4, 1887--

That previous sentence is awkward but necessary. Nancy Smith was elected mayor of Oskaloosa, Iowa (current population of almost 12,000) in 1862, but it was a joke that Nancy hadn’t participated in. Someone suggested her name at the town election and a bunch of guys who were probably drunk wrote Smith’s name on their ballots and she won, but she declined to take office. Susanna Salter was also elected mayor as a joke, but she said fuck you I’m taking the job.

Like Smith, Salter had no idea she was even running. Argonia had only been founded six years previous and incorporated in 1885. Salter was 27 years old and an officer in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU later played a significant role in adding two amendments to the U.S. Constitution: The 18th, that said no more booze (boo), and the 19th, that said women get to vote (yay).

Women had earned the right to vote in municipal elections in Kansas just a few weeks previous, but there was a group of men in Argonia who didn’t want no women doin’ no votin’. And so, they played a prank and put Salter’s name on the ballot as the Prohibition Party candidate for mayor, expecting her to lose in a landslide and teach those women a lesson. The names of candidates weren’t made public until the day of the election, which was April 4, 1887. Salter had no idea she was a candidate until that morning, and when asked if she would take the job if elected, she said fuck yeah. Paraphrased.

The WCTU put out the word that a woman was running for mayor and women stopped birthin’ them babies and ran out the door to assert their newly earned voting rights. Susanna Salter was elected as mayor with 60% of the vote. Joke’s on you, motherfuckers!

National press picked up the story of the first female mayor in the country, and she became a celebrity. She wasn’t the first female mayor in the world. One woman in the city of Namur in Belgium took over for her husband when he died in 1734, but she was never elected to the position.

The New York Sun sent a reporter to Argonia to cover a city council meeting, and this only served to enhance her fame because the story filed asserted that Salter was a no-bullshit mayor who kept meetings short and didn’t tolerate any crap. Fuck yeah, Susanna.

Susanna Salter served a single one-year term, earning $1 for her trouble, but breaking a glass ceiling for women in American politics in the process. She lived to be 101.

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