Mary Godat Bellamy (1861–1954):
Mary Godat Bellamy was the first woman elected to the Wyoming State Legislature in 1910. Bellamy was elected from Albany County and served one term. She had worked as a school teacher and had been elected as county superintendent in 1904. Bellamy had been active in suffrage and local politics before her election. Bellamy supported an eight hour day for women and children, supported labor, prisoner's rights and some temperance measures.
She was a strong supporter of women's abilities for public office and in one speech had said: “Men are usually willing to elect those [women] that run. You see in Wyoming, when it comes to politics, the men don’t think of women as women but as citizens. They are willing to accord us equal rights with themselves, to consider what we want, and if it seems desirable, to grant it…Between the men and the women of this state there is a sympathetic understanding and the best kind of cooperation…working together for the good of Wyoming. There is no sex antagonism here and consequently no opposition to women’s holding office.”
Party Affiliation:
Democrat
Photographs:
Resources:
"Mary Bellamy," Wikipedia
"Wyoming: Mary Godat Bellamy," Women Wielding Power: Pioneering Women State Legislators
Women State and Territorial Legislators, 1895-1995: A State-by-State Analysis, with Rosters of 6,000 Women , by Elizabeth M. Cox, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc, 1996.
“Albany County Records, Superintendent of Schools,” Wyoming State Archives
http://wyoarchives.state.wy.us/databases/county/albany/albsos.htm
Woman's Who's Who of America": A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915, John William Leonard, editor in chief, New York: The American Commonwealth Company, 1914. This edition on Google Books
The History of Woman Suffrage, Edited by Ida Husted Harper, Volume 6, National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1922, pages 710-11, This edition on Google Books