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Dana Crawford

Dana Crawford (1931–) is a nationally prominent preservationist and developer who exemplifies how one woman can transform a city. She started with Larimer Square and then Lower Downtown (LoDo), the hubs of Denver’s skid row, and helped turn them into one…

Alan Berg

Alan Berg (1934–84) was an outspoken Denver radio broadcaster in the 1970s and 1980s known for his unapologetic attacks on the far right, religious extremism, and white supremacy. At the time of his assassination by the white supremacist group The Order…

Albina Washburn

Albina Washburn (1837–1921) was an important early resident of what is now Loveland and later an influential proponent of women’s suffrage and temperance across Colorado. In 1876 she advocated for women’s suffrage at the state constitutional convention,…

Alice Hale Hill

Alice Hale Hill (1840–1908) was a Denver philanthropist who helped lead institutions such as the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and the Denver Free Kindergarten Association. Wife of Nathaniel P. Hill, a smelting entrepreneur and US senator,…

Amendment 2

Amendment 2 was a ballot initiative passed by Colorado voters in 1992 that prohibited the state from enacting antidiscrimination protections for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Voters in the state of Colorado set in motion a legal and constitutional fight…

Arthur Carhart

Arthur Hawthorne Carhart (1892–1978) was a novelist, US Forest Service (USFS) official, and landscape architect known for developing a commonsense, nonpartisan, and democratic approach to conservation and natural resource management. His legacy lives on…

Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international civil and human rights movement organized in 2013 by three Black women: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Formed after the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida, the movement began as a social…

Caroline Bancroft

Caroline Bancroft (1900–85) was a prominent author, journalist, organizer, and socialite in twentieth-century Denver. Bancroft’s extensive writings on Colorado’s local history established the importance of the genre and served as an example for…

Caroline Nichols Churchill

Caroline Nichols Churchill (1833–1926) was a writer and newspaper editor best known for founding and editing the Queen Bee, a Denver weekly newspaper dedicated to “the interests of humanity, woman’s political equality and individuality.” Embracing…

Dean Reed

Dean Reed (1938–86) was a singer-songwriter and actor from Denver who enjoyed a stint of popularity in the 1960s and 1970s before experiencing a slow slide into obscurity by the end of his life. Best known for his time spent living and recording in the…

Dr. Florence Rena Sabin

One of the preeminent medical and scientific minds of the early twentieth century, Dr. Florence Rena Sabin (1871–1953) was a public servant devoted to improving public health. As the first woman to receive a full professorship at Johns Hopkins University…

Dr. Stanley Biber

Stanley Biber (1923–2006) was a surgeon in Trinidad during the twentieth century who specialized in sex reassignment surgeries. His clinic, one of the first in the country to offer sex reassignment surgeries, grew in reputation thanks to its…

Eliza Pickrell Routt

Eliza Pickrell Routt (1839–1907) was the first First Lady of the territory and later state of Colorado in 1875–79 and 1891–93. A strong supporter of women’s suffrage, she used her position as wife of Governor John Long Routt to advocate for expanded…

Eliza Tupper Wilkes

Eliza Tupper Wilkes (1844–1917) was a circuit-riding preacher who started eleven Universalist and Unitarian churches in the American West. The Unitarians and Universalists were two Protestant denominations that shared an interest in abolition, women’s…

Elizabeth Byers

Elizabeth “Libby” Minerva Sumner Byers (1834–1920) was a Colorado social reformer who arrived in Denver in the summer of 1859 and spent the next six decades establishing and supporting the city’s early charitable organizations, schools, and churches. Her…

Elizabeth Ensley

Elizabeth Piper Ensley (1847–1919) was a political activist and reformer who worked throughout her life for gender and racial equality. The daughter and wife of formerly enslaved people, she came to Colorado in 1887 and soon helped lead the first…

Emma Florence Langdon

Emma Florence Langdon (1875–1937) was a linotype operator, historian, and labor leader celebrated for her courageous defense of the freedom of the press during the Colorado Labor Wars. When National Guardsmen arrested five prounion employees of the…

Enos Mills

As a boy and as a man, Enos Mills (1870–1922) lived a remarkable life. His bond with nature and wildlife inspired him to overcome personal hardship and become a successful speaker, author, naturalist, businessman, and driving force behind the creation of…

Gene Cervi

Gene Cervi (1906–70) was an influential Denver newspaperman, publisher, and politician who published one of the first business weeklies in the western United States. Known for his probing insights, razor wit, and short temper, Cervi’s journalism and…

Gertrude Hill Berger Cuthbert

Gertrude Hill Berger Cuthbert (1869–1944) was a Denver socialite and philanthropist. Born into a prominent family, she inherited drive and ambition from her successful parents and established a legacy for herself in politics, suffrage, and local…

Helen Hunt Jackson

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–85) was an accomplished poet, author, and activist in the nineteenth century. Many of Jackson’s written works, notably A Century of Dishonor (1881) and Ramona (1884), spurred progress toward recompense for the mistreatment of the…

Helen Ring Robinson

Helen Ring Robinson (c. 1860–1923) was the first woman elected to the Colorado State Senate in 1912 and the second woman elected to any state senate in the nation. In her role as senator during the Progressive Era, she was a passionate advocate for…

Henry Browne Blackwell

Henry Blackwell (1825–1909) worked with his wife, Lucy Stone, to pave the way for women’s suffrage. Blackwell advocated for equal rights at the local, state, and national levels throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. He worked to create…

Jane Woodhouse McLaughlin

Jane Woodhouse McLaughlin (1914–2004) moved Colorado toward a more rights-based society for individuals with mental illness. As an assistant city attorney for Denver, first president of the Colorado Association for Mental Health, and a Democratic state…

Josephine Roche

Josephine Aspinwall Roche (1886–1976) was a Colorado industrialist, labor advocate, and politician known for her role in reforming the Colorado coal industry in the 1930s. The daughter of a wealthy coal baron, Roche improved miners’ working conditions…

Katharine Grafton Patterson

Katharine Grafton Patterson (1839–1902) came to Colorado in 1872 with her husband, Thomas Patterson, and soon established herself as an influential clubwoman, suffragist, and philanthropist. Devoutly religious, Patterson dedicated the majority of her…

Lucy Stone

Lucy Stone (1818–93) was an orator, abolitionist, and suffragette who founded the American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1877 she campaigned for a women’s suffrage referendum in Colorado alongside fellow suffrage champion Susan B. Anthony. Although the…

Margaret W. Campbell

Margaret West Norton Campbell (1827–1908) was an ardent advocate of women’s rights and one of the nation’s most sought-after suffrage speakers. In Colorado she was instrumental in the 1877 campaign for women’s suffrage. The measure failed, but her work…

Mary Lord Pease Carr

Mary Carr (1838–1933) was a dedicated philanthropist, cofounder of Longmont’s first public school and one of its first teachers, charter member of the National Woman’s Relief Corps, and an activist for women’s suffrage and equality. She helped shape…

Minnie Reynolds Scalabrino

Minnie Reynolds Scalabrino (1865–1936) was a newspaperwoman, candidate for political office, and lifelong suffragette in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth. She played an important role in the women’s suffrage movement in Colorado and worked…

Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association

The Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association was the main organization in Colorado working toward granting women the right to vote. The association and its precursors were influential for more than thirty years, from Colorado’s failed suffrage referendum…

Sadie Likens

Sadie Likens (c. 1840–1920) was a prominent officer of the court in Denver’s formative period, served as Colorado’s first prison matron, and was also known for her charitable work on behalf of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and other women’s…

Sarah Platt Decker

Sarah Platt Decker (1855–1912) was a beloved leader of women, known nationwide for her advocacy of women’s suffrage and social reform. Her influence was instrumental in the 1893 vote that gave Colorado women equal suffrage. She later became the founder…

Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) was a well-known civil rights activist and prominent leader of the women’s suffrage movement. She made her first visit to Colorado in 1877 to advocate for women’s suffrage before an upcoming referendum. Although she spent…

The Denver Woman’s Press Club

The Denver Woman’s Press Club is an organization for women newspaper writers and authors founded in 1898. At the time of its founding, the club demonstrated the new social and political power of women through its involvement in a range of causes,…

Theodosia Ammons

Theodosia Ammons (1862–1907) worked extensively throughout her life to advance the cause of women’s suffrage. She became president of the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association and was cofounder of the department of domestic economy at Colorado Agricultural…

William Dudley Haywood

William Dudley “Big Bill” Haywood (1869–1928), a labor activist in the late 1800s and early 1900s, was the most prominent leader of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), the largest union ever operating in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain states…

Women's Suffrage Movement

The women’s suffrage movement was a sociopolitical movement in the late nineteenth century that secured voting rights for Colorado women by state referendum on November 7, 1893. The movement’s success made Colorado the first state to enact women’s…