The NH pioneer who campaigned for the inclusion of women in politics

With Republican Kelly Ayotte and Democrat Joyce Craig facing off in the gubernatorial race, New Hampshire's next governor will likely be a woman. (Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Stephen Villee is trailing by about 40 points in recent polls.)

And she won't be the first in New Hampshire, a state with a strong tradition of women's voting. Both Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan served as governors before moving to the U.S. Senate, where they worked with Annie Kuster, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives.

According to the Associated Press, New Hampshire became the first state to have a female governor, Senate president and House speaker at the same time, and the first state to have a female majority in the state Senate. The country's first all-female congressional delegation also came from New Hampshire.

According to Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, female candidates in New Hampshire actually have a lead of about three percentage points over male candidates.

“There is a certain percentage of people who will vote for a candidate because he is a woman, or some men who will vote for a candidate just because he is a man,” Smith said, adding that New Taking note of the trend, Hampshire took advantage of this by nominating women to run.

However, female candidates were not always viewed positively. Documents at the state archives in Concord illustrate a long history of women in politics and the trailblazer who had little success in her run for office but foresaw a political future not unlike ours today.

Marilla Marks Ricker was the first woman to run for governor of the state in 1910, according to Ashley Miller, the state archivist. According to the New Hampshire Women's Bar Association, Ricker was also an attorney and was the first woman admitted to the bar in the state and one of the first to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ricker was born in New Durham, New Hampshire in 1840. In 1870, she was the first woman in New Hampshire to attempt to vote. “She repeatedly tested the limits of what was then considered acceptable female behavior by attempting to vote annually in her hometown of Dover and challenging restrictions on women entering the profession,” according to the New Hampshire Historical Society.

The 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, was ratified in 1920, the year Ricker died.

According to Miller, Ricker was a suffragist, a free thinker and an author.

“She was a powerhouse, and she ran knowing she wasn't going to win, but she ran to bring people's attention to the idea and to familiarize them with the idea of ​​women being governors and one day even being president could,” Miller said.

According to the 1911 House Journal, Ricker received only four votes in her gubernatorial bid. “I'm running for governor to get people used to thinking of women as governors,” Ricker said when she announced her candidacy. “There is no reason why a woman shouldn’t be governor or president if she wants to and is able to do so.”

This story first appeared in Globe NH | Morning Report, our free newsletter, focuses on the news you need to know about New Hampshire, including great reporting from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles from elsewhere. If you would like to receive it by email Monday to Friday, You can register here.

Amanda Gokee can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @amanda_gokee.