Main Street, Wyoming Classics; 113; T.A. Larson

If there's one essential book you must read in the state of Wyoming. It's th Larsen's history of oil. If there's one central person to talk to about that history it was Nourrisson. Joining us on the main street Wyoming classic is the late historian talking to him about his life and his work. If you were living in the east and you asked the librarian to find you some essential books about Wyoming you might get to the 1930s Federal Writers Project Guide to Wyoming and Teej Larsen's history of Wyoming. That was my experience anyway 30 years ago and I think it's still true. The late TLR school taught at the University of Wyoming for half a century. Like many of today's world leaders were their own state's history and his classes because

he also served in the legislature. Talking to Deborah havens in 1994 Larson discussed some of the myths and truths of his beloved state women's suffrage the political dominance of the cattlemen and Wilding's history as a thoroughfare rather than a destination. It's a main street Wyoming classic with t.a Larson. Driving. Down. Road. Outworks. Singing a song about Wyoming just down. The. Means to do the same last dance room. Back. When you got your feet down on. Main Street. My guest today is the award winning historian Dr Teej Larson. I'm Deborah Hammons and I'm going to begin by sharing a book review written in 1966 about Dr.

Larsen's history of Wyoming because that book review remains true today. For anyone interested in Wyoming history. This book should be required reading. The serious writer needs it as a background and Wyoming citizen should peruse it for a better understanding of the state of its past and economic social and political problems and of its future prospects. It should be in the home as well as in all libraries. The book is especially recommended for all persons who are planning for the future of the state whether working in the political economic or social fields. They cannot ignore it in good conscience. Dr. Larson That's quite a remarkable book review. I do believe you've had a few political leaders that have been your pupils. Well yes indeed. I remember I saw a number of more in the legislature with me when I

got into that body I think particularly the two Simpson boys Al and Pete and me. I remember now Smith the grandson of former Governor Jack Rosenthal who rather prominent and virtually in our history was one of my students. I remember when I had a seminar in which those three were there. That's one of the most remarkable I have ever had. But when you first started to teach Wyoming history did you have a background in that subject. Very little very little. I'd spent a few years in Yellowstone. I worked for summers up in Yellowstone when I was an undergraduate at the University of Colorado so that I got acquainted with. Wyoming going and coming. And

another time I drove across that that was in 1929 and I drove across southern Wyoming on Old Highway 30 Lincoln Highway and I remember roads were gravel and we had. Seven flat tires. After that we didn't have much good to say about while we were going out. We skipped class on Friday so that we could get out there the University of Colorado was playing with you know to Utah we thought we could win the game and we got the 40 nothing things like that happen some time. Believe me that was a long way home but I really didn't know much about Wyoming and I certainly never thought when I went to college that I was going to wind up teaching Wyoming history but that's quite a story in itself. You started teaching at the university in 1936. That's right. And during

all of those years how did you prepare for teaching that class. Well I wasn't hired to teach my own history. My my. I attended the University of Colorado in the universe go in and try and I took my doctorate at the University of Illinois in Champaign Urbana. And jobs are scarce. Oh I should say I concentrated my studies in medieval English history. I wrote a dissertation on relations of State and Church in the 14th century. But it so happened that two and I got out and finished in the summer of 1936. I could not find a job anywhere in the country in English history or medieval history but a job turned up at Wyoming as a supply job a substitute for one. Fred Nussbaum who is going on sabbatical leave. There are only two people in the history department at the time so I substituted

for him and taught the courses that I knew something about English history English constitutional history medieval history general European history things like that. Next year I didn't have a job and still couldn't find anything that I thought was suitable for my wishes. So I went off to England for a year and studied at university of London and the Public Record Office for a year. Then as luck would have it the other member of the department Laura white famous person a wonderful woman. She was going on leave and since I had taught some American history as a graduate assistant at both the University of Colorado the University of Illinois. Why they decided they would take me to substitute for her teaching American history. And. So I did that to their satisfaction. The result was that

after my head after that year they said they wanted to keep me permanently if I would develop a small course in Wyoming history and I thought well I not too high a price to pay. I recognize that it might lead up a blind alley and I'd have to learned an awful lot for I could teach effectively. But then I took the job and I've never regretted it because for very long I discovered that Wyoming wasn't a very good place in which to teach medieval history because my students didn't know Latin and you had to know Latin in order to do any graduate work in medieval history and I found getting research materials very difficult instead of having microfilmed things like that computer information I had had to have large pictures printed of documents that

I needed from England and so that on the other hand I found that there were all sorts of materials waiting to be studied and researched about Wyoming history. So gradually I developed that first course I should say my first in my first course I'm sure that. That many of the small class of 20 or 25 knew more about me than I did. I kept one jump ahead of them by reading the night before. There were some general surveys and things like that but really great. Gradually after a few years particularly after World War after World War 2 I went off to be in the Navy there while I found that there were so much more interest and opportunity in the field of whilom history. But then I was head of department so gradually I peeled off these other courses and turned them over to new people coming in and I spent all my time teaching welding history. You asked. He didn't expect such a long answer but that's how I got into Wyoming.

Like I said I've never regretted it in terms of all of the research that you've done. And of course you've considerably spent a considerable amount of time just living through crucial years in Wyoming's development. How how is Wyoming different or unique from other states. Well that's a that's a question that I try to answer. I gave a lot of attention to it because in the middle seventies we were celebrating the bicentennial. Of the United States in connection with that the American Association of State and local history decided that they wanted to pick one historian from each state who knew something about the state and had sensitivities and so one. It To have that person focus on that great question to answer that very question. What's different about

your state. What's unique about it we're in the state to stand out among the 51. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about that and I develop five themes. I saw Wyoming as the home of the mountain man because the mountain man in the first early period certainly the first 40 years of the 19th century. The only other principal economic activity in Wyoming was the activity of the mountain men trapping beaver hides and so on. But five hundred men or more work were engaged in that and they had. Spectacular times all along the Green River. Where they had their rendezvous and so on. So that I focused on the life of those trappers little mountain men then a second theme I developed was Wyoming thoroughfare because throughout Wyoming history

especially in the early part in the 19 in the 18 40s and 50s and 60s everybody was rushing through Wyoming heading for the west coast heading for Oregon California and Yutang places like that. And very few stopped while in Wyoming and the same thing happened after the Union Pacific went through. There were quite a few people here while they were building the Pacific. But very few people stopped off after that because they couldn't find suitable employment here. So that even to the present day we find a lot of people just rushing through Wyoming. I've sat in the chair car of the Union Pacific trains observation car and heard people say one to another as they look out the windows West Rawlins. So how can anybody live here and those people they were going through and not wishing to stop over.

I made a special study one time about them boys and men who were here according to the 1870 census. And I look for those same names in the. 1880 census and would you believe that only one in 12 we're still here. That shows that they they they passed through and to right now as you know Wyoming is the least popular state in the union. So that we have not been able to hold people. Wyoming was as one historian put it. Wyoming was was a thoroughfare rather than a destination but it makes you wonder why that one stayed out of business. Well he got into working on the railroad or he he got into the cattle business which became the sheep business. Those were principal activities and those days became cowboys or got into some mining that wasn't very much mining. We had just enough mining

just enough gold and silver gold in particular and copper so that people. Looked for gold so that there were a number of people prospecting through that period but most of them spent every nickel they had and went somewhere else because there was very little successful development of gold. Even though there were quite a few specks and somewhat streams they never could find the mother lode they never could find anything to compare with what happened in California in Montana and Colorado and places like that. But at any rate those are two themes. The home of the mountain man and what Wyoming is thoroughfare. And then there were three other other themes the cowboy state and the equality state. And finally the men of state and those three states are more important those three themes are more important than the other two that I mentioned but they're

not as colorful as the time when everybody was rushing through on the trails and later on the Union Pacific or the time when the mountain men were assembling for their annual rendezvous. Well when you do look at Wyoming in terms of relationship to the whole United States and what was going on. How do you explain why we became the equality state. Well there are at least five firsts. Wyoming was the first state or first territory should I say that was a very important event because it perfected the way for the others. In 1869 the first territorial. Legislature in Wyoming decided to give women the right to vote and hold office. Now this didn't wasn't exactly a vote in the blue book because Susan De'Anthony and get quite a number of women and men who had worked very hard back east to get

women's suffrage but they couldn't get through their legislatures in a state it takes a majority vote. They have constitutions and usually to amend those constitutions you'd have to have to you'd have to have two thirds vote of both houses plus a majority vote of the people in a territory. On the other hand all you needed to give women the right to vote was to give them to get the small legislature in Wyoming case there are only 22 people at that point home in the lower house or nine in the upper house. All you had to do was get a majority of that small number plus the approval of the governor. A lot easier that way. Furthermore. The people back east just just couldn't swallow the idea and they tried it in various states and even in in Congress a bill was introduced in 1868 or nine which would have given women the

right to vote in all of the territories. The idea was that that there was a disparity between men and women too many women in the east. Relatively too many men in the West because in some states like Wyoming there were six men for every woman at the time and in some other territory as many as 20 per one in California two to one and so on. But there was a feeling that some of these men in the West might be someone that would be good if they could find some way to get. Women to move west and to give them the right to vote they thought might help in that respect so that they tried that in Congress but they couldn't get it through the Congress. However one man who saw what was going on a man named General Lee who was secretary Wyoming Territory at the time second in command out here like a

secretary of state or governor. He had introduced a bill in Connecticut to give women the right to vote to hold office. But he ran into that obstacle of having to have a two thirds vote plus a majority vote which is quite impossible anywhere in the east. And he came out here and saw the situation out here and he was quite a champion of women and had seen what the attempts that were made in that territory. So he figured that there was a good deal of interest in it. So he used his influence and he sold it to a majority of the legislators by saying give the women the right to vote and you'll attract a lot of attention you know a lot of free publicity Ellaby be a great sort of chamber of commerce idea. There were it's true a few people in that legislature who were true believers who are like Lee ready thought it was only right and

just that women should have the right to vote and hold office and so that various arguments like that were introduced and they managed to get a crucial majority vote. And the governor finally after much soul searching and after four women in Cheyanne tugged at his collar and helped persuade him that he went to his house one night he was about 30 years old will stay here all night if you don't approve that bill. Well that may have helped him decide they had tried to attract attention that territory by introducing a bill that spend for appropriate $4000. And talk about some of the resources of the territory but they weren't sure what they were and that were more money than they had readily available so they accepted this argument of this man from Connecticut and then. Gave women the right to vote and hold office. And it attracted a whole lot of attention and it didn't

work out the way they hoped because women had to have jobs or their husbands had to find jobs before they would come out here. So it took some time to get women to take it up. But once it was adopted by people of Wyoming at first they were a little leery about it but they hung on to it. I won't go into all the details but they almost threw it out. Two years later only the governor's veto to override a repeal. Kept it going but long by 1890 why a majority of the people in the Constitutional Convention said let's give it a trial and they they put it in the constitution and they got Congress to approve it because the Constitution has to be approved. There the ocean especially in the South who argued against it. They didn't like the idea of black women having the right to vote or even black men. But so Wyoming was first the first territory to give women the right to vote no

on the first date to do so later on the first state officer to be elected to what was a style really was elected state superintendent in 1994. Then in an later on why you got the first woman governor Taylor Ross and 19 25 if you liked in 1924 she was elected the first governor. So we had various first of that kind of looking back I remember also we had the first women jurors back in 1870 soon after that give them the right to vote. We had we had the first woman judge. She was more of a justice of the peace. And then later became. Much found. Yes.

When when you look at these things as a historian the things that made Wyoming unique You mentioned the mountain men the trail for equality state the energy state the cowboy state which of those you make aspects do you think are with us today and might be with us in the future. Well I think the other two themes that are dominant in that group the two themes are the carboys data and the equality state. I've talked about the first issue with respect to equality and we have on our state feel equal rights for example and there's a woman standing above two men one on either side working men and so that we early got the nickname the equality state. We haven't lived up to it quite as well as we should. But I think that's a very important theme and I could go into some aspects which suggest that we haven't really lived up to our reputation. Notably we haven't had

any U.S. senators or or U.S. Congress women and a number of other things of that kind would suggest we've been slow to carry through it took us in 1910 to sign one to the legislature. We certainly had our share of cowboys. However haven't we. We've had our share of cowboys. On the other hand there are more cattle in some other states and more people engaged in the cattle business but Target parks are rather significant in that area is that in no other state had the stock growers will growers were involved in the early years. Not so much anymore. But no other state has had such dominance from stopping half our government more than half of our government and more than half of our U.S. senators have been stock. And can you imagine that when not one in ten lives on farm and ranch.

And likewise in our legislature. Stockman's have always been very influential because they like to be away from the ranch or farm in some cases during January and February. A number of years you used to be just every other year and so that led some cowboy to take care of the ranch and they'd go down move down and have a vacation and they sometimes bring their wives and children down there too. Some of them still do that so that it is just natural that the cattlemen should get on there and get re-elected because people in the towns couldn't get away from their job nearly as easily. And they saw eye to eye with the cattlemen with respect to low taxes and such things and they got in a cozy relationship with the oil minerals people also so they took to the present day will see that people we're seeing the heart of the people who get to be speaker of the house and they

and the president the Senate are often often cattlemen much more so than you would expect if you just look at the small population of the ranchers and the sheep man. Now I understand that you retired from the University of Wyoming in 1975. But then something happened which interrupted your life as a historian. What was that. Well Governor Hersheypark cable worn twisted my arm for that time no member of the university faculty had ever been in the legislature in good reason because you can't spend half of the second semester or or a third or even expect to have students for the whole semester so that no one ever thought about going over there. Now we have community college people over there they managed to work out something but when I did it I was the first one. And so there was a.

There was a vacancy. A man had decided not to run again so he came over and got the idea that I would might work out as a legislator legislator. So he talked me into running and I was elected and stayed in there for eight years and served on the Appropriations Committee for all of the eight years. So I had a great time over there and got to see quite a few of my former students and managed to get along pretty well with them better than a member of the minority party usually does get along. But early on. Now this was the speaker of the house and he had been one of my bright students and the speaker pro-tem second in power over there was Al Sampson and he likewise had been one of my. Students so that were some help to me to have leaders in the house.

Old friends when you're on the story and you step back and look at things. But when you're a legislator you're right in the middle of. Did it change your impression of the state at all to be involved in the process of making laws. Well you learn a lot and you have to develop a detailed knowledge of many things so that in those days is 40 days every year and the last time I was over there 40 and 20. The way they do now. But some people think that it's just a very small job. But you have to spend a lot of time between sessions if you're going to be knowledgeable about the issues that come up over there so that it gets to be sort of a year round job for people who are really conscientious about their legislative work. Well I can't believe this but our time is nearly up. It's been such an honor to spend

this time with you and I know the other people in Wyoming feel as I do that we want to thank you for your many years of service to the state. This is mainstreet Wyoming with today. Thank you Debbie. You. Too.

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