Nellie Tayloe Ross
Nellie Tayloe Ross (
November 29,
1876 –
December 19,
1977) was the first woman to serve as governor of a
U.S. state. She was born near
St. Joseph,
Missouri to James Wynn Tayloe, a native of Stewart County,
Tennessee, and his wife, Elizabeth Blair Green. Her full name was Nellie Davis Tayloe.
Nellie Tayloe attended a teacher training college for two years and then taught kindergarten in
Omaha,
Nebraska. While on a visit to her relatives in
Dover,
Tennessee, she met a young lawyer named
William Bradford Ross, whom she would marry on September 11, 1902. Ross decided to practice law in the West, and the young couple moved to
Cheyenne,
Wyoming. William Ross was successful there and soon became one of the leaders of the
Democratic Party in the state. He ran for office several times, but always lost in heavily Republican Wyoming.
In 1922 William Ross was elected governor of Wyoming by appealing to progressive voters in both parties. However, after little more than a year and a half in office, he died on
October 2,
1924, from complications following an
appendectomy. The Democratic Party then nominated his widow to run for governor in a special election the following month to succeed him.
Nellie Tayloe Ross refused to campaign, but easily won the race on
November 4,
1924. On
January 5,
1925, she became the first woman governor in the history of the
United States. As governor she continued her late husband's policies, which called for tax cuts, government assistance for poor farmers, banking reform, and laws protecting children, women workers, and miners. She urged Wyoming to ratify a pending federal amendment prohibiting child labor. Like her husband, she advocated the strengthening of Prohibition laws.
She ran for re-election in 1926, but was narrowly defeated. Ross blamed her loss in part on the fact that she had again refused to campaign for herself and for her support for Prohibition. Nevertheless, she remained active in the Democratic Party and campaigned for
Al Smith in the 1928 presidential election. She also served as vice chairman of the Democratic Party.
Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her as the first female director of the
U.S. Mint on
May 3,
1933, where she served five full terms until her retirement in 1953, when the Republicans regained the
White House.
After her retirement, Ross contributed articles to various women's magazines and also traveled extensively. She made her last trip to Wyoming in 1972 at age 96. She died in
Washington, D.C. in 1977 at the age of 101, and was buried in the family plot in Lakeview Cemetery,
Cheyenne,
Wyoming.
*Note:
Miriam Ferguson was elected governor of
Texas on the same day as Nellie Tayloe Ross won her election. However, Ross was inaugurated 16 days before Ferguson was.
