Susanna Salter, America’s First Female Mayor, Was Added To The Ballot As A Prank

On April 4, 1887, Susanna Salter became the first woman mayor in America's history. Elected in the small town of Argonia, Kansas, Salter instantly became one of the most famous politicians in America. Ironically, Salter never intended to run for office. Instead, Salter's enemies added her name to the ballot on the morning of the election as a prank. But as Susanna Salter's biography and quotes show, the young woman was ready to be mayor. 

Who Was Susanna Salter?

When she became America's first female mayor, Susanna Madora Salter was just 27 years old. She was also the daughter of a former mayor and an officer in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

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The temperance movement played a major role in Salter's election. The WCTU supported prohibition, promoting a ban on alcohol in Kansas. That position earned them many enemies in the small town of Argonia.

Just weeks before the April election, Kansas women gained the right to vote. For the first time, WCTU members could vote for candidates and policies that they approved, instead of simply promoting temperance as a private organization. 

The night before the election, the WCTU members decided to put forward a slate of candidates who supported prohibition. They held a caucus to choose prohibitionist men to support in the next day's election. But anti-prohibitionists, called "wets," crashed the meeting to harass the women. The wets failed to intimidate the WCTU members, led by Salter. In response, they decided to prank Salter and the WCTU members.

The wets put together a joke slate of candidates that looked identical to the WCTU candidates - except they added Susanna Salter as a candidate for mayor. 

Election Day Brought A Big Surprise For Salter's Pranksters

In 1880s Kansas, candidates didn't file for office before election day. So Salter's pranksters were able to print ballots listing her as a candidate for mayor without Salter even knowing.

The anti-prohibitionist men thought Salter would lose in a landslide, shaming the WCTU and preventing women from voting in the future.

The morning of the election, the first voters in Argonia were shocked to see Salter's name listed as a candidate. A delegation from the Republican Party immediately went to Salter's house, where Susanna was reportedly doing laundry. When Salter learned about the prank, she declared that if elected, she would serve as mayor. The delegation reportedly replied, "All right, we will elect you and just show those fellows who framed up this deal a thing or two."

The women of the WTCU cast aside the ballots they printed to vote for a man and rallied behind Salter. As a result, Susanna Salter won the election with a two-thirds majority. 

Salter herself voted on the afternoon of April 4, 1887. However, she didn't vote for herself, since it was considered improper. Instead, Salter left the box blank. 

The anti-prohibitionists who tried to humiliate Salter and the women of the WCTU were shocked at the result.

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Salter's Victory Made The Front Page Across The Country

Not surprisingly, news of Salter's victory quickly spread. And in papers across the country, Susanna Salter became a litmus test for women's suffrage. One Massachusetts paper declared, "The Kansas women have done it. Susanna Madora Salter, mayor of Argonia, a little town of 500 inhabitants, is the first woman ever elected to that office. And she is not an 'unsexed female' either, but the wife of a lawyer and the mother of four children."

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Another paper expressed relief that Salter was a capable mayor: "There are many others in Kansas just as capable as she, but as among men, there are some incapable. It cannot be said now that the very beginning [of women in office] was a failure." Had the first female mayor proved disastrous, the paper worried, a second might never be elected.

To advocates of women's rights, Salter's election proved that women could vote and hold office without disrupting society.

A reporter from The New York Sun visited Argonia to report on the town's female mayor. "I asked Mrs. Salter if her ambition to act as a female politician or leader in woman suffrage circles had been aroused by her election," the reporter wrote. "She quickly replied, 'No, indeed, I shall be very glad when my term of office expires, and shall be only too happy to thereafter devote myself entirely, as I always have done heretofore, to the care of my family.'"

Salter Faced Harassment And Hate Mail As Mayor

Becoming the country's first female mayor made Salter a target. She received anonymous hate mail criticizing her for holding office. One card, decorated with a drawing of men's underwear, declared, "When a woman leaves her natural sphere, and without her sex’s modesty or fear, assays the part of man, she, in her weak attempts to rule, but makes herself a mark for ridicule, a laughing-stock and sham." The verse concluded that nature made a great mistake by letting a woman take over a man's role.

The Ontario Globe declared Salter was unlikely to win reelection after closing Argonia's gambling halls and saloons. "It isn’t likely that next election day will find the male voters in a joking mood," the paper reported.

As mayor, Salter also had to face three of the men who pranked her - because they were elected to the town council. Salter chose not to take a heavy hand as mayor of Argonia. In her first council meeting, she declared, "Gentlemen, what is your pleasure? You are the duly elected officials of this town, I am merely your presiding officer."

In one city council meeting, Salter argued against lowering the licensing fee for billiard tables. Argonia shouldn't encourage billiard parlors with low taxes, Salter stated, winning over the support of a ruin the town, Salter governed with confidence.

After One Year As Mayor, Salter Stepped Down

Salter served her one-year term - and earned a single dollar for her service - before stepping down as mayor. During her single year in office, Salter carried out the town's business as head of the city council. But when she stepped down, opponents to women's suffrage declared Salter a failure. One editorial read, "She is tired of the burdens of office. [She plans to] return to private life and leave the government of Argonia to the care of the sterner sex. Mayor Salter's experience proves that woman suffrage is its own cure."

But overall the press declared Salter a success. The Leavenworth Times called her "an intelligent, capable and conscientious officer, fully equal to all the requirements of her position." An Indiana paper said Mayor Salter "is said to discharge the duties of her office in the most acceptable manner." A third reported on her "very successful administration," adding, "When she was elected to her present office, her enemies predicted that she would make a failure of her effort to run the municipal affairs of Argonia. Up to the present time she has made no great blunders."

Susanna Salter started a trend in Kansas. The next year, Mary D. Lowman became the mayor of Oskaloosa, Kansas, which also voted in the first all-woman city council in US history. In the next decade, nine women were elected to the mayor's office across America, and seven of those were in Kansas.
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Years later, Salter explained her strategy as the first woman mayor in the US. In 1911, Salter told the Holbrook News, "I just made those men of the council believe they were the nicest men in the world, and we got along admirably." Salter wrote to other women elected mayor, advising them to pursue a similar policy. As Salter explained, "I was very anxious for [female mayors] to make a success just to demonstrate that women are capable of holding office."