First Woman Governor Nellie Tayloe Ross
Nominated by Democratic Party, Ross became 14th Governor of Wyoming.
Oct 5, 2009
Born Nellie Davis Tayloe on November 29, 1876, her mother’s family claimed a distant relation to George Washington. Her father was a southern gentleman. His family built the Octagon House where President Madison and his wife lived when the British burned the White House in 1812.
After her family moved to Omaha, Nebraska, Tayloe became a kindergarten teacher. She only taught briefly before meeting and marrying William Bradford Ross. They moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming and had four sons, one of whom died at the age of ten months.
Husband William, a lawyer, ran for public office. He had little success until he was elected governor of Wyoming in 1922. In September 1924, William underwent an appendectomy. He died shortly after from complications from surgery, just a few weeks before the 1924 election.
Nominated to Run for Governor
Democratic Party leaders offered the nomination to Nellie to complete her husband’s term; Wyoming law dictated a successor be elected prior to the general election on November 4. Ross did not respond and the party nominated her on October 14.
Ross had no political experience: she didn’t even participate in women’s suffrage even Wyoming was the first state to grant women the right to vote in 1869. To help her cope with her widowhood, Ross accepted the nomination. Wyoming’s sympathy with the widow and mother of three probably played a key role in Ross’ being elected as governor.
Inaugurated as First Woman Governor
Ross was inaugurated on January 5, 1925, becoming the fourteenth governor of the state of Wyoming and the first woman governor in the United States. Miriam A. “Ma” Ferguson was inaugurated as the governor of Texas only twenty days later on January 25, 1925, quickly becoming the second woman governor in the United States.
Ross continued her husband’s work once in office. State assistance to the financially struggling agricultural industry, protective legislation for miners, women and children, and reductions in state taxes were just a few of her husband’s platforms that Ross supported. She also requested that the state of Wyoming ratify a federal amendment that prohibited child labor but this request was unsuccessful.
Basically, Ross was a Democrat in an historically Republican state. This made her life as governor especially difficult as Republicans did not want a Democrat in office. She worked out compromises with Republican leaders on some issues, such as banking reform. But her veto of a bill for a special election to fill a Wyoming seat vacancy in the United States Senate rather than filling the seat with a governor-appointed official, may have cost her support in the 1926 election. A special election would have enable Republicans to put a Republication representative from Wyoming in the Senate.
Ross was defeated in the 1926 election. She began to lecture and write articles for magazines and became involved in national politics. She served as a committeewoman to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and as vice chairman of the DNC where she was in charge of women’s activities. She spoke in support of New York governor Alfred Smith when he was nominated for president. A friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, Ross again was active in the campaign to elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Appointed FIrst Woman Director of the U.S. Mint
Upon election, Roosevelt returned the favor by appointing Ross as director of the United States Mint, the first woman to head a federal agency.
In this capacity, Ross significantly reduced the costs of the operations of the Mint. Huge amounts of gold and silver were being poured into the U.S. coffers to be converted into currency. When Ross discovered that most of the work was still being done by hand at the Mint, she implemented an automated process. She was a very efficient director, returning about $1 million dollars of her $4.8 million appropriation. Her efficiency reduced the labor needs of the Mint from 4,000 to about 1,000 employees.
Ross held the position of Director of the U.S. Mint until the Eisenhower administration in 1952. Ross continued to contribute articles to women’s magazines and to travel. She also continued to live in Washington, D.C. and at the age of ninety-six, she visited Wyoming for the last time. She died December 17, 1977 at the age of 101.
The Ross home in Cheyenne, where two governors lived, both William and Nellie Ross, has been restored and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Governor Lady: The Life and Times of Nellie Tayloe Ross” by Teva J. Scheer was published by the University of Missouri Press in November of 2005.
Sources:
University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center
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