SANTA FE – In 1912, Doña Dolores “Lola” Chávez de Armijo, state librarian of New Mexico, filed a lawsuit when Gov. William C. McDonald tried to remove her from office.
McDonald claimed that women were unqualified to hold office according to the Constitution and laws of New Mexico.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham trumpeted Armijo’s courage and resolve during a presentation Wednesday marking International Women’s Day, and celebrating New Mexico’s Historic Women Marker Program.
Armijo won her lawsuit, which allowed her to keep her job and paved the way for legislation that gave women the right to hold appointed offices in New Mexico.
“All of us are making history in our own way,” Lujan Grisham, the second woman elected governor of New Mexico, said during the program in the Capitol Rotunda. She called the Women Historic Marker Program an incredible movement that must be moved forward in a multitude of ways.