William Henry Bright (1827 - 1912)

Born 12 Jan 1827 in Alexandria, District of Columbia, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Julia A (Stewart) Bright — married 22 Sep 1862 in Washington, District of Columbia

Died 26 Apr 1912 at age 85 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Biography

William Bright is Notable.

This profile is part of the Bright Name Study.

After serving as a major in the office of the chief quartermaster of the Union Army during the Civil War William Bright went West, first to Salt Lake City, Utah (where he was employed as a special agent of the US Post Office) and then to Wyoming, where he had mining claims and owned a saloon. He was elected to the Wyoming legislature in 1869, and as president of the council introduced Wyoming's women's suffrage bill.

From National Geographic:

Even though some treated his bill as a joke, William Bright took suffrage very seriously. Mrs. Bright later said that her husband, a Southerner who fought on the Union side in the Civil War, believed that if all men could vote, then there was no reason why his own wife and mother could not vote as well.

William Bright wrote in the Denver Tribune, “I knew it was a new issue, and a live one, and with strong feeling that it was just, I determined to use all my influence.”

Sources

• [1]"William Bright in the West"
• [2]1860 US Census
• [3]District of Columbia Marriages, 1811-1950
• [4]1870 US Census
• [5]1880 US Census
• [6]1900 US Census
• [7]1910 US Census
• [8]Death Notice in Washington Evening Star, 28 April 1912
• [9]National Geographic Society, "Woman Suffrage"