The Forgotten First: Carrie B. Shelton, America’s First Female Governor

Have you ever wondered why certain stories are preserved in our collective memory while others fade into obscurity? In 2018, I was working at Oregon Public Broadcasting when I stumbled across a fascinating oversight: When most Americans think of the first woman to serve as governor, they recall Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming, elected in 1924. But 15 years earlier, a pioneering Oregonian woman held the highest office in her state — yet history has largely forgotten her name.

The 48-Hour Governor

America’s first female governor was an Oregonian. Fifteen years before Tayloe Ross was elected in a special election in Wyoming, Carrie Bertha Shelton made history. On a crisp Saturday morning in February 1909, the 32-year-old took her seat at the Oregon governor's desk in Salem. With this simple act, she became the first woman to ever serve as governor of any U.S. state – acting or otherwise.

“I shall try to show that a woman can conduct the affairs of a Governor’s office as well as a man can,” she told The Morning Oregonian.

What makes this achievement even more remarkable is that Shelton couldn't vote in the state she was governing. Oregon women didn’t win that right for another three years, and the 19th Amendment granting women nationwide suffrage was still more than a decade away.

How a Woman Made it to the Governor’s Office in 1909

Shelton's path to this historic moment came through a unique confluence of circumstances. In the fall of 1908, Oregon Democratic Gov. George Chamberlain was elected to the U.S. Senate and needed to reach Washington D.C. by March 4, 1909, to be sworn in with his freshman class. 

The Oregon Constitution dictated that the Republican Secretary of State, F.W. Benson, would become governor upon Chamberlain's resignation. However, Benson was battling an undocumented illness and couldn't take office immediately (in fact, his health continued to plague him and forced him to eventually resign from office). Officials scheduled his swearing-in for Monday, March 1, 1909, creating a nearly 48-hour gap in leadership.

According to Oregon tradition at the time, when both the governor and secretary of state were unavailable, the governor's personal secretary, Carrie B. Shelton, would step in.

The Woman Behind the Desk

Long before her brief tenure as governor, Shelton had already lived an extraordinary life. Born in Union County, Oregon, in October 1876, tragedy struck when her father mysteriously disappeared while waiting for a midnight train when she was nine. The Pinkerton Detective Agency investigated, but he was never found. Her mother died just two years later, leaving Carrie an orphan.

At sixteen, she married her former guardian, John W. Shelton, but was widowed less than two years later. The teenage widow found work as a stenographer at the Portland law firm of Starr, Thomas, and Chamberlain, where she demonstrated remarkable aptitude for legal terminology.

"To enter a man's business world untried and without any previous training, at an age when a youth would not have yet reached his majority, and to have accomplished all she has, would be an achievement of which any man of middle age might be proud," The Sunday Oregonian wrote in a 1914 profile.

When Chamberlain was elected governor in 1902, he brought Shelton to Salem as his secretary, a role that prepared her for her brief but historical moment in office.

Erased From the Pages of History

Despite her groundbreaking achievement, you won't find Shelton mentioned in most historical accounts of women's political firsts. Her story illuminates how women's contributions have often been minimized or entirely erased from historical records.

"It's very clear that the documentation that existed once doesn't exist for many women," Kimberly Jensen, a professor of history and gender studies at Western Oregon University, told me in 2018.

Even Shelton's name has been inconsistently recorded throughout history, appearing variously as Carrie, Carolyn, and Caralyn in different documents. According to her great-great niece, Anne Mitchell, "She was always Carrie until she had worked for Mr. Chamberlain for a few years and he wanted formality, so she became Caralyn."

Her 1936 obituary barely mentioned her historic role, identifying her primarily as the widow of the late Senator George Chamberlain—the very man she had once replaced as governor. 

The Connection That Endured

Shelton's relationship with Chamberlain extended far beyond their professional collaboration. After her brief tenure as governor, she followed him to Washington, D.C., continuing as his secretary and later serving as clerk to the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, which Chamberlain chaired.

When Chamberlain suffered a paralytic stroke in 1926, nine months after his first wife's death, he and Shelton entered into what has been described as a marriage of convenience. She continued as his secretary with added duties of wife and caretaker, receiving financial support until his death and burial at his side in Arlington National Cemetery.

This arrangement speaks volumes about the complex power dynamics of their relationship. Though certainly one of mutual respect, it reminds us how women of that era often had to navigate success through their connections to powerful men.

Why Her Story Matters Today

Shelton's story isn't just an interesting historical footnote; it's a powerful reminder of how women's contributions have been systematically minimized throughout history. When we fail to acknowledge pioneers like Shelton, we perpetuate the myth that women's political leadership is more novel than it actually is.

"This is a story of someone who was a person of privilege, who married a former governor and U.S. senator, who was white and well-educated," Jensen pointed out to me in my original OPB story. And still, her story was largely erased. Now, imagine the stories of people who don’t have those same privileges and status.

While Shelton's 48 hours and 55 minutes as acting governor may seem brief, they represent a critical crack in the glass ceiling that took decades to shatter further. It wasn't until 1924 that Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming was elected as the first woman governor, and not until 1974 that Ella Grasso of Connecticut became the first woman elected governor who wasn't following in her husband's footsteps.

The path to women's leadership has been neither straight nor simple, but by recovering stories like Shelton's, we gain a fuller understanding of our political history and the unsung pioneers who helped shape it. Shelton's overlooked achievement reminds us that history is rarely as straightforward as we're taught, and that digging deeper often reveals fascinating stories beneath the surface.

Next Week on Feed Your Curiosity

We’re shaking things up a bit with a different type of story. From exploding whales to an unrelenting army of emus, we’ll explore five odd moments in history that prove that truth can be even stranger than the wildest fiction.

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I’m Bryan M. Vance, your guide to the world’s most fascinating stories that make you say, 'Wait, really?' Every week, I dive into mind-bending discoveries and bizarre historical tales that spark your imagination.

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