Katharina Buczek
And remarkably, Susanna’s father became the town’s first mayor meanwhile her husband, Lewis, became the city clerk.
Argonia was also designated as a “third class city” that year, according to the Kansas Historical Society (KHS), which meant that women were allowed to vote for elected officials.
This caused unrest around a particular group of male politicians in Argonia who believed that politics were no place for women.
So, before the next mayoral election cycle, they devised a plan intended to humiliate one townswoman and send a message.
“Twenty of [the men] met in the back room of a local restaurant and decided to teach these females a lesson,” the KHS said.
“They drew up a slate of candidates… and substituted Mrs. Salter’s name.”
“They assumed that the women would vote for the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and that the men would not vote for a woman.”
Moreover, if Susanna was not elected, the group of men believed that women across the township would feel mortified and take a step back from being involved in politics.
However, on April 4, 1887, the town of Argonia completely shocked the men. Rather than Susanna earning a mere twenty votes as they had anticipated, the young woman actually won sixty percent of the votes– making her the first female mayor ever at only twenty-seven years old.
This incredible feat came a remarkable thirty-three years before women’s suffrage and paved the way for female voices in politics.
By 1894, Clara Cressingham, Carrie C. Holly, and Frances Klock became the first three women ever elected to a state legislature.
