16/12/2025
This photograph features Louisa Ann Gardner Swain, born in 1800 or 1801 in Norfolk, Virginia. Orphaned at a young age, she was raised in Charleston, South Carolina, before marrying Stephen Swain and raising four children while living in Maryland, Ohio, and Indiana. In 1869, the Swains moved to Laramie in the Wyoming Territory to be closer to one of their sons.
Just days after Wyoming passed a law granting women full voting rights, 69- or 70-year-old Louisa arrived at the polling station on September 6, 1870. What began as a simple trip to buy yeast ended with her becoming the first woman in the United States to legally cast a ballot in a general election since women’s voting rights were rescinded in 1807. Court records and local newspapers confirm that she beat another woman to the ballot box by just 30 minutes, securing her place in suffrage history.
Soon afterward, Louisa and her husband returned to Maryland, where she lived until her death in 1878 or, according to some records, 1880. Today, her legacy is honored in Laramie with a statue and the annual Louisa Swain Day on September 6, commemorating her historic contribution to women’s rights and American democracy.