Lee, Frances S.

Colorado granted full suffrage to women in 1893. Immediately women increased their involvement in state party politics and won leadership positions in the local party organizations. State campaigns in 1898 pitted Republicans against a fusion party ticket (Silver Republicans, Democrats, and Populists). Frances S. Lee, from Denver, was one of several women who campaigned for, and won, state office. She was elected to the state House of Representatives assuming, according to local historian Joseph G. Brown, some of the "privileges, prestige and the power" male politicians were so unwilling to divide with women. In 1912 Lee was a Democratic Party candidate for the State Assembly and was also endorsed by the Citizen party.