Susanna Salter is hardly well-known, yet she is an important historical first, not just in American history but in world history more broadly.Susanna Kinsey was born in Belmont County, Ohio. At age 12, she moved to Kansas, and at 18, she entered a precursor to Kansas State University. She didn’t graduate, being forced to drop out just shy of completion due to illness. While in school, she met Lewis Salter, an aspiring attorney. The couple move to the unincoporated town of Argonia, Kansas. Upon the town’s incorporation in 1885, Susanna’s father became the town’s first mayor.Susanna was active in local Argonia organizations, particularly the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party.In 1887, Kansas women were given the right to vote in municipal elections, and they quickly made their presence known.As a result, in April 1887, Salter name was put on the mayoral ballot for Argonia by a group of men hoping to humiliate women voters and discourage them from participating in politics. Salter was unaware of her nomination until election day. She agreed to actually accept office if the Women’s Christian Temperance Union would vote for her en masse (though they had planned to support the Republican Party nominee). Salter also courted support from the local Republican Party. She won two-thirds majority of votes.In winning the election, Susanna Salter became the first known woman to be elected mayor in the United States, and the first known woman to be elected mayor anywhere in the world. She also was a part of the first crop of women to be elected to any office in the United States. (In the local elections in another Kansas town in 1887, another town voted several women onto the town’s council.) This achievement attracted international attention, with Swedish and South African newspapers sending correspondents to cover the event.Salter also broke another barrier: during her mayoral term, she gave birth to a child, become the first woman to give birth while in office. (It would be nearly a century until Yvonne Braithwaite Burke would do the same in Congress.)Salter was paid $1.00 in compensation for her service. Salter declined to seek reelection after her year-long mayoral term and retired from electoral politics.Salter did not court public attention after her mayoral term. Her grandson reportedly was unaware of his grandmother’s political past until he discovered newsclippings and letters in the 1930s.Salter died in 1961 in Norman, Oklahoma, at age 101. Her home during her mayoral term in Argonia is on the National Register of Historic Places. The town of Argonia has retained a population of around 500 citizens since her mayoralty.It’s interesting to note that after Susanna’s election in 1887, several other women were elected mayors of small towns. By 1900, 18 small towns throughout the United States had elected women mayors; of those 18, 16 were in the state of Kansas. In 1888, two hundred miles northeast of Argonia, the town of Oskaloosa, Kansas would elect not only a woman as mayor, but would also elected an all-women town council. Nearly a century later, Kansas would be the home of another significant first for women in politics: Nancy Landon Kassebaum, the first United States Senator to be elected to a full term who had not followed her husband into electoral politics, was elected from the state in 1978.Susanna Salter was the first woman to be elected mayor and to serve in the role in the United States, and quite possibly the world. She was not, however, the first woman elected mayor, nor was she the first woman who served in the office. A woman named Nancy Smith was elected mayor of the town of Oskaloosa, Iowa in 1862, but she refused to serve in the role. Elsewhere in the world, the widow of a deceased Belgian mayor took over the job in 1734, but she was never elected.
Susanna of Fontanarossa (1435–1489) was the mother of navigator and explorer Christopher Columbus. She married Domenico Colombo in 1445 and bore him 5 children: Cristoforo, Bartolomeo, Giovanni, Giacomo, and a daughter named Bianchinetta.
Susanna Centlivre (c. 1667–1670 – 1 December 1723), born Susanna Freeman and also known professionally as Susanna Carroll, was an English poet, actress, and "the most successful female playwright of the eighteenth century". Centlivre's "pieces continued to be acted after the theatre managers had forgotten most of her contemporaries." During a long career at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, she became known as the second woman of the English stage, after Aphra Behn.
Susanna Agnelli, Contessa Rattazzi, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI[1] (24 April 1922 – 15 May 2009) was an Italian politician, businesswoman and writer. She was the first woman to be appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in Italy. Born in Turin, she was the daughter of Edoardo Agnelli and Donna Virginia Bourbon del Monte, a daughter of the Prince di San Faustino and his Kentucky-born wife Jane Campbell.
Susanna Tamaro (born 12 December 1957) is an Italian novelist. She has also worked as a scientific documentarist and movie maker direction assistant. Susanna Tamaro was born in a middle class family in Trieste. Her mother is related to the Italian writer Italo Svevo.
Susanna is a soubrette role in Mozart's Italian opera, Le Nozze Di Figaro or The Marriage of Figaro. Her aria Deh Vieni Non Tardar is very well-known.
― Anonymous User 6/15/2014
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Susanna Wesley was the mother of Charles and John Wesley. She was a Godly mother to 10 children and is often known as the "Mother of Methodism". She and Mother Teresa are two wonderful women of Faith who I admire.