Women’s History Month: Colorado Springs women’s role in the region’s history

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - March is Women’s History Month, and the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum (CSPM) is using the occasion to highlight the historical efforts of women in the Pikes Peak region. One of the greatest Colorado Springs-based efforts? Women’s suffrage.

“Surprisingly, Colorado Springs was the heart of the women’s suffrage movement in our state. We were the home of the National Women’s Party headquarters for the entire state of Colorado, ”Leah Davis Witherow, CSPM’s Curator of History, said. “Women here fought for and gained the right to vote in 1893, a full 27 years before the 19th Amendment passed in 1920.”

After gaining the right to vote in the state, these women took national steps.

“Three women from Colorado Springs were arrested outside President Woodrow Wilson’s White House during World War I,” Witherow said. “They were holding banners that said ‘Why fight for democracy abroad when American women do not have democracy at home?’”

Throughout the month of March, CSPM is hosting walking tours in downtown Colorado Springs each Saturday, talking about and showing the efforts and actions women have taken in the area throughout its history. More information about these tours can be found on the CSPM website.

Witherow said while these tours only last through March, the museum shares the stories of women year round in every one of its galleries.

“We see generations of women in Colorado Springs making great change,” Witherow said. “History is not really so much about the past as it is connecting us to how we got to the present and allowing us to think about what might our future look like.”

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