Moving to the West in the US altered traditional expectations of women's roles in a number of ways. This expanded women's rights and led to Western states taking the lead in women's suffrage.
Some examples of women's expanding role in the West:
- On the western frontier, women performed many of the same tasks as men in settling the land. There was so much work to be done to establish a homestead, farm the land, etc, that women needed to assist in the physical labor.
- Women were allowed to attend colleges because of the need to train teachers. As an example, what we know today as San Jose State University was first established as a "normal school" (teacher training college), in 1857. It had its first graduating class in 1862, and all 54 of those graduates were women. UCLA -- the University of California, Los Angeles, was also originally a "normal school" (teacher training college), established as a branch off the San Jose school. Many women were becoming much involved in the education field in the West.
- Women also became doctors, lawyers, business owners, etc, in the West more readily than back East, because of the need for professionals in the Western territories.
- Women were allowed to hold property in their own names in the West, and encouraged to do so as a way of increasing the land holdings of a family.
Because of women's expanding roles in the West, they also became much more involved politically in the newly established Western states. In 1890, Wyoming became a state--and the first state in the US that allowed women to vote. The next states to grant women the right to vote were also all Western states: Colorado in 1893), Utah and Idaho in 1896, Washington in 1910), California in 1911), and Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona in 1912.