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Short Stuff: Petticoat Rulers · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and this is short stuff and this is
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a good one. I'm I'm excited about this one. Chuck.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Let's go, go, Chuck go. Yeah. I mean, we're talking
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: about Petticoat rulers. And it might surprise people considering America
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: today is ranked eighty one out of a hundred ninety
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: three countries, and women representation and government that we actually had,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: uh women who were mayors and city council people way
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: back in the eighteen hundreds. Yeah. There are two towns
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: in particular, um Oscaloosa, Kansas and cannab Utah that had
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: elected all female town councils in eighteen nineteen twelve, respectively,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: which is pretty substantial. But then Jackson, Wyoming, home to
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the famous checks in Whole, Wyoming, which I guess is
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: a hamlet or a burg or some sort of affiliated town,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: but it's basically the same place from what I understand.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Oh man, we're gonna get some email from the Jacks
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  Speaker 1: and people. Um, they said, you know what, hold our beer,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: our hold our Sasaparilla, because we're gonna one up both
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: of those towns. And in nineteen twenty, the year that
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  Speaker 1: um women were granted suffrage by the Constitution or the
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  Speaker 1: Bill of Rights. I should say that same year Jackson,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Wyoming elected not only in all women town council, Chuck,
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  Speaker 1: but also a mayor, a woman mayor for the first
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  Speaker 1: time ever. And the the that group, these petticoat rulers,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: as they came to be known, appointed women to the
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  Speaker 1: highest positions in the town clerk, health, treasurer, and marshall.
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  Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing? It is amazing? And I'm I was
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  Speaker 1: surprised to see that the first woman elected mayor in
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  Speaker 1: the United States was all the way back in I
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  Speaker 1: had and I had no idea. Yeah, it was in Agoria, Kansas.
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  Speaker 1: Her name was Well, this one was the one I
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: believe we covered before in something, Susann Assaulter, who was
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: placed on the ballot as a as a sort of
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  Speaker 1: a prank by men in the town who didn't think
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: that women should hold office. They put her on the
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: ballot thinking that she would be humiliated and it would
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  Speaker 1: set women back politically. And she didn't know she was
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  Speaker 1: on the ballot. It was like a blind ballot until
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the day of the election. And she she won and
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  Speaker 1: went on to be mayor UM. The other ones Oscaloosa,
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  Speaker 1: Mary D. Loman, She was UM legitimately elected mayor and
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  Speaker 1: the first woman elected as mayor UM in Kansas within
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  Speaker 1: all UH city council full of women, nothing but ladies.
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  Speaker 1: That's amazing. But the thing is, yeah, like we we
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: think about it today and we're like, that's just that's
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  Speaker 1: unheard of, you know, like literally unheard of. I hadn't
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  Speaker 1: heard about that before. UM. But the state of Wyoming
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  Speaker 1: is actually known as the equality State. And one of
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  Speaker 1: the reasons why is because you know, we associate nine
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  Speaker 1: ten twenties the year that women were granted the right
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  Speaker 1: to vote. That's a national thing. UM. They had the
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: right to vote back in eighteen sixty nine in Wyoming.
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  Speaker 1: So it kind of like gives it a little more
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  Speaker 1: UM texture or context or both UM to know that
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  Speaker 1: that women already had the right to vote for UM
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  Speaker 1: more than fifty years before UH Mayor Miller and the
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  Speaker 1: all female town council UM were elected in Jackson. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and that's how Mary Loman won in Oscaloosa, is they
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  Speaker 1: had in Kansas, they had the right to vote in
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  Speaker 1: municipal elections, and they won by a two to one
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  Speaker 1: margin on the Oscaloosa Improvement ticket. UM. The one in
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  Speaker 1: Utah was interesting too, and they both kind of had
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: similar stories and that when they got in office. UM,
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  Speaker 1: one of their big things was to kind of just
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  Speaker 1: clean up the town collect back taxes. I think they
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: had something like two hundred dollars in collected taxes just
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: because people just refused to pay, and they went round
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: personally to the houses and I think they left office
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  Speaker 1: with two thousand dollars in the city coffers Um and
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  Speaker 1: then Mary Woolley chamberlain of kenneb Utah. She was mayor
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  Speaker 1: for two years and she had a female city council
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  Speaker 1: and she was one of the enacted one of the
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: first leash laws for dogs, and then wanted to protect
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: local business, so she enacted a uh a daily tax
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  Speaker 1: on traveling salesman coming through town because she was like,
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  Speaker 1: you can't just come through town, steal a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: business and then leave with your pockets full. So we're
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: gonna text you guys per day just to kind of
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  Speaker 1: dry business, to protect local business. That's some smart government
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  Speaker 1: right there. Yeah. Well, let's take a break and we'll
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  Speaker 1: come back and talk about some more smart government that
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  Speaker 1: was instituted by women around the turn of the last century. Okay,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: let's do it. St alright, So, Chuck, you said cannabs
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  Speaker 1: Town Council were elected by a two to one margin.
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  Speaker 1: I saw the same thing too for Jackson's Petticoat rulers,
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  Speaker 1: which really kind of goes to underscore this. This was
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  Speaker 1: not like some fluke or a joke. Like the first
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  Speaker 1: female mayor in America, Salt Salter. Is that what you said?
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  Speaker 1: Her name was? Uh, yes, Susannah Salter. She reminds me.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: That story reminds me of Elizabeth Blackwell getting into med school.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Remember it was supposed to be a prank and kind
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: of blew up in the face, which that's probably what
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I was thinking of. Actually, yeah, yeah, because I don't
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  Speaker 1: remember talking about Susanna Salter before either. Um. But the
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  Speaker 1: fact that they won, that the Petticoat Rulers and uh
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the cannab Utah Town Council won by like a two
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  Speaker 1: to in margin really shows that this was not like
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: a joke or a fluke. Um. I think one woman,
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  Speaker 1: one of the city council members, beat her husband in
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  Speaker 1: the election in Jackson in n Yeah, and um, which
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: that had to taste pretty pretty sweet. And then the
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  Speaker 1: the fact is that a lot of them were re
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: elected when they came up for re election. So um,
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  Speaker 1: not only was it a good idea, they proved themselves
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  Speaker 1: as worthy for re election too. And some of the
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  Speaker 1: things they did, like you said, they beefed up the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: town coffers. Um. I saw. They didn't institute a leash
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: law in Jackson, but they did criminalize littering for the
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: first time. Um. They cleaned up the town square, meaning
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: that they didn't allow cattle grazing there anymore. That was
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: another thing they did. What else, Uh, they graded the streets.
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  Speaker 1: They said, how about some street lights and street lamps. Um,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: let's expand electrical service. Let's get a cemetery going in
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: this town, because everyone's always shooting each other, right are
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: they used to when the men ran the place. That
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: was another thing I saw too. I mean you were
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: talking about the back taxes not being collected and them
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: getting like an additional eighteen hundred dollars into the treasury. Um.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I saw, I think it
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: was in the Jackson Whole newspaper. The reason for that
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: was that this town had been run like really insusent
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: lee by men up to that point, and that there
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: was like this this kind of pioneer spirit where everyone
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: was expected to take care of their neighbor and everyone
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  Speaker 1: didn't stepped up when help was needed, but it wasn't
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: like an organized structural civic pride. And that that's what
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the Petticoat rulers came in and instituted. They basically said, hey,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you know that the whole take care of your neighbor.
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  Speaker 1: Think there's actually a lot of things we could be doing, um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, through government, and let's let's just let's start
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: doing that. And that actually kind of took off. Yeah,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and Grace mell Or, the mayor of I think she
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: was Jackson right. She said in an interview. We simply
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: tried to work together. We put into practice the same
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: thrifty principles we exercise in our own homes. We wanted
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: to clean, well kept, progressive town in which to raise
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: our families. What is good government but a breathing space
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: for good citizenship. And it sort of reminds me of
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: that quote. Um, I don't know the exact quote, but
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like, if you want, if you want
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the job done on time and write like hire a
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: working mom or something like that. I think you're talking
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: about something to do with like lipstick and pit bulls. Now, No,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: is that a different one? I think so? Okay, Um,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the one you're talking about makes a tremendous amount of
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  Speaker 1: sense though. Um. So, the Petticoat Rulers came in, and
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: from what I understand, there's a town historian Morgan Albertson.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take a stab at this last name, Joan.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: What do you j A O U E N. It's
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: a beautiful right either way, it looks very very nice
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: spelled out. Um. But historian that we're just gonna call
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: this person. The historian basically said that the Petticoat rulers
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: shaped shape Jackson and Jackson Hole into the town that
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: they know and love today. Um, and that it may
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: have just kind of become a town that ended up
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: deserted and misused and mistreated and misgoverned and lost to history. Um.
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  Speaker 1: The historians willing to go so far as to say
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: that either way, they they rulers definitely deserve credit for
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: for shaping the place. But the weird thing is, Chuck
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: is like, despite how successful the all female town council
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  Speaker 1: and mayor and appointed positions was for Jackson. It's like
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the town was like, Okay, well we tried that. Let's
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: wait another eighty or so years before we do it again.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: We try that works out really great, so let's just
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: wait till the nineteen eighties. Yeah, nineteen eighties was the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: first time that women's city council people were elected again,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't until two thousand one when they had
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: another woman. Mayor Jeane Jackson was elected in two thousand one.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: So it went from Mayor Miller Grace Miller in to
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Jeene Jackson in two thousand one. That was quite a drought. Yeah, uh,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: you got anything else? I got nothing else. We salute them.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I I do too, but I have one last thing.
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  Speaker 1: The um. The women were all members originally what was
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: called the Pure Foods Club, which was a social group
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that met a couple of times a month, and that's
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: where the idea to run was hatched and nurtured. And
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: that group is still around today, but they call themselves
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the Birthday Club. But in then Adorable. This group has
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: been around since the early nineteen hundreds and they still
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: meet twice a month. And now men are allowed. I
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: love the birthday Club. I want to be in that group.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: They'll let you in. You're in and and likable, So
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I think those are the two qualifications. And I have birthdays.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: You do you have a birthday? Well? Yeah, hats off
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: to the Petticoat rulers and all of the women who
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: helped shape the United States then and now. Uh and uh.
• 11:15
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• 11:20
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• 11:23
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