Margaret “Molly” Brown is arguably Colorado’s best-known historical figure, from her role as a Titanic survivor to her very real work in building the Mile High City’s social infrastructure in the early 20th century.
Despite the thousands of visitors who annually flock to the museum built around her home at 1340 Pennsylvania St. in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, Brown is one of precious few women from Colorado — or the Old West in general — to have any profile in the larger culture.
That’s why Women’s History Month was created, but the ramped-up programming meant to shine a light on little-known, but crucial, players in Western history doesn’t just end on March 31 — the last day of Women’s History Month.
“Women / Work / Justice,” scheduled to open March 30 at the Center for Colorado Women’s History, looks at a swirl of human, civil and economic rights through the stories of seven Colorado-based women who pioneered national workplace shifts in the 1900s, according to Jillian Allison.
Women workers at the Kitayama Floral Corporation chain themselves to the plant’s gate in protest of poor working conditions in February 1969. (Photo courtesy of Lupe Briseño and family, provided by History Colorado).
“We’ve already seen in talking with visitors and volunteers that this (subject) immediately sparks stories,” said Allison, director of the Center for Colorado Women’s History and the Byers-Evans House Museum at which it’s based. “Other people can share experiences they’ve had of women who have inspired them in their lives, and here we’ve put together a wide breadth of stories over time and space that serve to spark these.”
The Center for Colorado Women’s History is only about a year old, but it’s being joined by a growing number of resources, physical and digital, for people looking to uncover the underappreciated role of women in Colorado’s history.
Pearl de Vere, a madame known as The Soiled Dove of Cripple Creek, was one of them.
“Her brothel and parlor house in Cripple Creek, the Old Homestead, made her the most famous madame in the Old West,” said Olivia Meikle, who teaches Women’s Studies and English at Boulder’s Naropa University, but also co-hosts the with sister Katie Nelson, an adjunct professor of history at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.
What’sHerName is “committed to academic rigor, compelling stories, and entertaining and accessible community education,” Meikle said of the year-old podcast, which looks at both recognizable names like Brown and de Vere, but also “lost women” of history. De Vere is an ideal subject, considering her economic savvy and role in building Cripple Creek, which is now a popular gaming destination.
“I’m astounded at what a business genius she was,” Meikle said.
De Vere, who is getting her own inaugural, celebratory day , battled tragedy, trickling fortunes and cultural attitudes to operate her high-class brothel in that muddy mining camp in the late 1800s — long before most modern conveniences reached the area.
The Old Homestead, as it was known, charged relatively exorbitant prices ($250 a night) for its luxury accommodations and sex workers, and featured amenities such as bathrooms, telephones, deluxe furnishings and gaming tables, and imported European décor.
The 1896 building that houses the Old Homestead became a museum in 1958. It remains “the last original building left standing of the many infamous pleasure palaces on Cripple Creek’s Meyers’ Avenue,” according to the town, and a popular tourist destination.
Unfortunately, the list of groundbreaking Colorado women nearly lost to time includes many from the recent past. One of the subjects “Women / Work / Justice” focuses on is , a civil engineer-turned-women’s rights activist who sued the state in order to work on one of its biggest, best-known construction projects, the Eisenhower Tunnel.
“She had to fight for that because she was mistakenly given the job after passing the test, and they thought she was a man,” Allison said. “She had called to inquire about the salary and they quickly realized that she was a woman, and sort of revoked the offer and put her in an office position.”
However, Bonnema knew she couldn’t do the job from a desk. She needed to be in the tunnel with the rest of the engineers, taking measurements and making judgments based on the physical environment. So, in 1972, she filed a $100,000 sexual discrimination lawsuit against the Colorado Department of Highways. And won.
“One of the women who worked on her lawsuit had previously sued the FBI to be a special agent (), so that’s an example of a woman holding the door open for someone else and continuing the fight,” Allison said.
Here are some other ways to participate at the Center for Colorado Women’s History, 1310 Bannock St., which is free and open the public 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 1-4 p.m. Sundays. Statewide museums will also be hosting several events (see below). Call 303-447-8679 or visit for more.
Votes for Women Tea
2:30 p.m. March 9 and 23
$20-$25, includes three-course tea and home tour
Center for Colorado Women’s History
Women’s History in the Classroom
1:30 p.m. March 16
Free, led by Kelly Rogers Denzler
Center for Colorado Women’s History
Film Screening: Luisa Torres
6 p.m. March 22
Free, Trinidad History Museum
312 East Main St. in Trinidad
“Life on the Border”
6:30 p.m. March 27
Free, with Norma Elia Cantu
El Pueblo History Museum, 301 N. Union in Pueblo
