Clara Cressingham
{{short description|American politician}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Clara Cressingham
| image = Clara_Cressingham.jpg
| image_size = 150px
| caption =
| office=Member of the Colorado House of Representatives
| term_start = 1895
| term_end = 1896
| predecessor =
| successor =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1863|10|6}}
| birth_place = Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
| death_date = {{circa|July 1906}} (aged 42)
| death_place = Denver, Colorado, U.S.
| party = Republican
| spouse =
| relations =
| children =
| residence = Denver, Colorado
| alma_mater =
| occupation =
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}}
Clara Cressingham (October 6, 1863 – 1906) was one of the first women elected to serve in any state legislature in the United States. She was also the first woman to serve in a leadership position in any state legislature.{{cite web|title=Legislator Record|url=http://www.leg.state.co.us/lcs/leghist.nsf/736b5262efff1c5087257751006d4155/5cdf230fa724bdc1872578e2005d54ab?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,clara|publisher=State of Colorado|accessdate=10 March 2013}}
Early life
Cressingham was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 6, 1863, the daughter of Seth W. Howard. She was raised in Brooklyn, where she also attended public schooling. She married William H. Cressingham in 1883 and the family moved to Denver in 1890, where her husband worked as a typesetter.{{cite news|title=Women In Politics|date=January 4, 1895|page=3|newspaper=The White Cloud Globe-Tribune|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/422215951|accessdate=October 11, 2018|via = Newspapers.com}} {{free access}} After she and her husband had moved from New York, she was employed as a writer, and she was the mother of two children when elected to the Colorado General Assembly.{{cite web|title=Clara Cressingham|url=https://sites.google.com/site/coloradowomenscaucus/home/history-of-women-in-colorado-s-legislature/women-who-served-in-the-colorado-legislature/clara-cressingham|publisher=Colorado Legislative Women's Caucus|accessdate=March 15, 2013}}
Legislative career
Colorado became the first state in which women obtained the right to vote through popular election in 1893.{{cite web|title=House Bill 118|url=http://www.colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/digital/suffrage.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061022174943/http://www.colorado.gov//dpa/doit/archives/digital/suffrage.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=October 22, 2006|publisher=State of Colorado|accessdate=10 March 2013}} The following year, on November 6, 1894, three women were elected to serve in the Colorado House of Representatives. Besides Cressingham, they included Carrie C. Holly and Frances S. Klock.{{cite web|title=First Women to Serve in State and Territorial Legislatures|url=http://www.ncsl.org/legislatures-elections/wln/first-women-in-state-legislatures.aspx|publisher=National Conference of State Legislatures|accessdate=10 March 2013}} All three were Republicans and were sworn into office in 1895. Each served one term, from 1895 to 1896.
At 32 years old,{{cite web|title=1900 US Federal Census (Record for Wm. H. Cressingham)|url=http://search.ancestry.com/iexec?htx=View&r=an&dbid=7602&iid=004118990_00285&fn=Wm+H&ln=Cressingham&st=r&ssrc=&pid=33256669|publisher=US Government/Ancestry.Com|accessdate=March 15, 2013|year=1900}} Clara Cressingham was the youngest of these three legislators. As Secretary of the House Republican Caucus, Cressingham was the first woman to fill a leadership position in an American legislature.{{cite web|last=Kopel|first=Jerry|title=Colorado Women First to Reach Statehouse|url=http://www.coloradostatesman.com/kopel/colorado-women-first-reach-statehouse|publisher=The Colorado Statesman|accessdate=10 March 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130325051401/http://coloradostatesman.com/kopel/colorado-women-first-reach-statehouse|archive-date=25 March 2013|url-status=dead}}
Cressingham is credited with being the first woman to introduce a law in the United States. It set a government–provided bounty of $3 per ton on sugar beets raised in the state and sold to a factory within its borders, thus boosting the budding Colorado sugar beet industry.{{cite web|title=Colorado|url=http://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/legislators/Colorado.html|publisher=National Women's History Museum|accessdate=10 March 2013}} Other bills she introduced during her two years in the House addressed the creation of a state board of arbitration and a system of free schools. Along with the other two women in the legislature, she successfully supported a bill to create homes for "delinquent" girls.
Cressingham died in 1906 of "rheumatism of the heart" at the age of 42.{{cite news|title=A Useful Life Ended|url=https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/cgi-bin/colorado?a=d&d=TSS19060707.2.3&srpos=1&e=--1900---1910--en-20--1--txt-txIN-Cressingham-------0-#|date=July 7, 1906|newspaper=Silverton Standard|accessdate=October 1, 2018}}{{cite web|title=Fairmount sexton's records, 1891-1953, Fairmount Cemetery, Denver, Colorado|url=http://digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p16079coll14/id/3578/rec/2|publisher=Denver Library|accessdate=March 15, 2013}}{{#tag:ref|In addition to the recorded 1906 Denver burial for a Clara Cressingham, the 1910 US Federal Census has her husband listed as being a widower.{{cite web|title=1910 United States Federal Census Record for William H Cressingham|url=http://search.ancestry.com/iexec?htx=View&r=an&dbid=7884&iid=31111_4327318-00299&fn=William+H&ln=Cressingham&st=r&ssrc=&pid=2005718|publisher=National Archives/Ancestry.Com|accessdate=March 13, 2013|year=1910}}|group="Note"}}
Notes
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