Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 38, Number 1, 1970 by Utah Historical Society

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UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

BOARD O F STATE H I S T O R Y Division of Department of Development Services M I L T O N c. ABRAMS, L o g a n , 1973

President DELLO G. DAYTON, O g d e n , 1971

Vice

President

C H A R L E S s. PETERSON,, Salt L a k e City

Secretary DEAN R. B R I M H A L L , F r u i t a , 1973 M R S . J U A N I T A B R O O K S , St. G e o r g e , 1973

J A C K GOODMAN, Salt L a k e City, 1973 M R S . A. c. J E N S E N , S a n d y , 1971 THERON L U K E , PrOVO, 1 9 7 1 CLYDE L . M I L L E R , S e c r e t a r y of S t a t e

officio

H O W A R D c. P R I C E , J R . , Price, 1971 MRS. ELIZABETH SKANCHY, M i d v a l e , 1 9 7 3 M R S . NAOMI W O O L L E Y , Salt L a k e City, 1971

ADVISORY BOARD O F E D I T O R S THOMAS G. ALEXANDER, PrOVO S. GEORGE ELLSWORTH,

Logan

M R S . H E L E N z. P A P A N I K O L A S , S a l t L a k e City LAMAR P E T E R S E N , Salt L a k e City

M R S . PEARL J A C O B S O N , Richfield

HAROLD S C H I N D L E R , Salt L a k e C i t y

DAVID E . M I L L E R , Salt L a k e C i t y

JEROME STOFFEL, Logan

ADMINISTRATION C H A R L E S s. P E T E R S O N , D i r e c t o r J O H N J A M E S , J R . , Librarian

T h e U t a h State Historical Society is a n organization devoted to the collection, preservation, a n d publication of U t a h a n d related history. I t was organized by publicspirited U t a h n s in 1897 for this purpose. I n fulfillment of its objectives, t h e Society p u b lishes t h e Utah Historical Quarterly, which is distributed to its members with payment of a $5.00 a n n u a l membership fee. T h e Society also maintains a specialized research library of books, pamphlets, photographs, periodicals, microfilms, newspapers, maps, a n d manuscripts. M a n y of these items have come to t h e library as gifts. Donations are encouraged, for only through such means can the U t a h State Historical Society live u p to its responsibility of preserving t h e record of U t a h ' s past.

MARGERY w . W A R D , Associate E d i t o r IRIS S C O T T , Business M a n a g e r

T h e primary purpose of t h e Quarterly is t h e publication of manuscripts, photographs, a n d documents which relate o r give a new interpretation to U t a h ' s unique story. Contributions of writers are solicited for t h e consideration of t h e editor. However, t h e editor assumes n o responsibility for t h e return of manscripts unaccompanied by r e turn postage. Manuscripts a n d material for publications should b e sent to the editor. T h e U t a h State Historical Society does not assume responsibility for statements of fact or opinions expressed by contributors. T h e Utah Historical Quarterly is entered as second-class postage, p a i d a t Salt Lake City, U t a h . Copyright 1970, U t a h State Historical Society, 603 East South T e m p l e Street, Salt Lake City, U t a h 84102.

HISTORICAL

QUARTERLY

W I N T E R 1970 / V O L U M E 38 / N U M B E R 1

Contents W O M E N AS A F O R C E I N T H E H I S T O R Y O F U T A H BY LEONARD

J . ARRINGTON

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN WESTERN AMERICA BY T . A. L A R S O N

AN EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESSIVE LEGISLATION: T H E G R A N T I N G O F W O M A N S U F F R A G E I N U T A H I N 1870 BY T H O M A S

G. ALEXANDER

GENTLE PERSUADERS:

UTAH'S FIRST WOMEN

LEGISLATORS

BY J E A N B I C K M O R E W H I T E

MAGEROU, T H E GREEK MIDWIFE BY

HELEN

ZEESE

PAPANIKOLAS

AN E X A M P L E O F W O M E N I N P O L I T I C S BY

MARY

W . HOWARD

UTAH'S LEADING LADIES O F T H E ARTS BY

RAYE

PRICE

REVIEWS AND PUBLICATIONS

86 EDITOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR

C H A R L E S S. P E T E R S O N M a r g e r y W. W a r d

T H E C O V E R Susa Young Gates — author of a dozen books, founder of many regional and national women's organizations, leader in the National and International Councils of Women, editor, poetess, temple worker, musician, and woman suffragist — as a delegate to the Victory Suffrage Convention in Chicago in 1920. On the back cover is Sarah M. Kimball (seated) and Emily Richards and Phoebe Beatie — all active woman's rights advocates. Mrs. Kimball was the first president of the Utah Suffrage Association and an honorary vice-president of the National American Suffrage Association. Photographs from the Widtsoe Family Collection, Utah State Historical Society.

Books Reviewed

CAUGHEY, J O H N WALTON, The American West: Frontier & Region, eds., Norris Hundley, Jr., and John A. Schutz, BY DONALD R.

MOORMAN

ROSS, MARVIN C , The West of Alfred Jacob Miller (1837) from the Notes and Water Colors in The Walters Art Gallery with an account of the artist, BY K E I T H E. M O N T A G U E

UTLEY, ROBERT M., Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848-1865, BY H O W A R D R. LAMAR

ROHRBAUGH, MALCOLM, The Land Office Business: The Settlement and Administration of American Public Lands, 1789-1837, BY W . D. A E S C H B A C H E R

HAFEN, ANN WOODBURY, Campftre Frontier: Historical Stories and Poems of the Old West, BY D O R O T H Y Z . M O R T E N S E N

COMBS, BARRY B., Westward to Promontory: Building the Union Pacific across the plains and mountains. A pictorial documentary, BY GERALD D. N A S H

STEGNER, WALLACE, The Sound of Mountain Water, BY LEVI S. P E T E R S O N

KRAUS, GEORGE, High Road to Promontory: Building the Central Pacific (now the Southern Pacific) across the High Sierra, BY C. A. REEDER., J R

Women as a Force in the History of Utah BY LEONARD J . ARRINGTON GUEST EDITOR

HREE WOMEN CAME with the advance company of Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847. An additional sixty women marched with the Mormon Battalion from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and spent the winter of 1846-47 at Pueblo, Colorado, before entering the Salt Lake Valley just a few days behind the advance company. They were accompanied by twenty women who had migrated from Mississippi and Illinois and wintered with the Battalion women at Pueblo. Before the end of July 1847, there were almost as many women in Utah as there were men â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a fact which set Utah apart from most

Dr. Arrington, professor of economics at Utah State University, has contributed numerous articles to the Quarterly in the past. The editors of the Quarterly are grateful to Dr. Arrington, a Fellow of the Utah State Historical Society, for his help in arranging for this special issue.

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western territories. In the companies which subsequently migrated from the midwestern and eastern United States and from Europe, there were approximately as many women as there were men. The "different world of Utah" began with a partnership of men and women, and that pattern has continued to characterize the "family state" of Utah. One is tempted to suggest that the process of settlement placed a heavier burden on the women than on the men. Often away on "missions" for their church and other assignments, the men left the women home to milk the cows, plant the crops, and care for the children. A reading of the diaries kept by Utah's pioneer women suggests that, in many instances, women provided most of the support of their growing families by producing food and clothing, and, in some instances, even built the family dwelling places. If it is true, as many writers have asserted, that Utah farmers were among the best in American history, the credit is often due to the women who did much of the farming. If it is also true that "Utah's best crop" was its children, then the credit, again, belongs largely to the women who supported, nourished, and educated them. Herodotus included women in his history, as did Tacitus and other ancient writers of history. Not really a subjected sex in the conventional sense, women in every culture have played important roles in their struggles for liberty, their endeavors to improve the human lot, and their strivings for perfection in the fields of religion and art. The same can be said of the women of Utah. Utah's women were the first in the nation to exercise the right of suffrage in voting for city, county, and territorial officers. Utah women were among the first to serve as jurors, mayors, and state legislators. Utah women played a prominent role in the livestock industry, in communications, and in the creation of literary symbols. In the last half of the nineteenth century, Utah probably possessed the largest number of midwives and women doctors in the United States. Utah women founded the first "permanent" magazine for women west of the Mississippi River, pioneered the operation of telegraph offices, and led out in the efforts to improve the social and economic status of the Indians. It is fitting that the Utah State Historical Society should celebrate the contributions of women in this special issue of the Quarterly, timed for distribution during the month which marks the centennial of women suffrage in Utah. It is also fitting that three of the essays are by skilled Utah women writers. While the coming of woman suffrage is told by

Women as a Force in Utah History

T. A. Larson, president-elect of the Western History Association, and Thomas G. Alexander, a member of the Board of Editors of the Utah State Historical Society, the remaining essays are by Jean Bickmore White, Raye Price, and Helen Zeese Papanikolas, all of whom, in addition to rearing families, have played an active role in the cultural, educational, and political life of modern Utah. Every student of Utah history has his own favorite candidate for the most forceful woman in Utah's history. Some will choose the refined and sensitive Eliza R. Snow — poetess, Relief Society president, and leader in many women's causes. Others may prefer the brilliant and stately Emmeline B. Wells — editor of the Woman's Exponent for forty years and a founder of Utah's Republican party. Still others may select the loving and lovable Susanna Bransford Emery Holmes Delitch Engalitcheff — Utah's silver queen, famous hostess, patron of the arts, and philanthropist. Some may favor a woman of today — a political leader, a teacher, a business woman, an artist, or a dispenser of charity. This writer's favorite is Susa Young Gates. Author of a dozen books of merit, both fiction and non-fiction; founder of many regional and national women's organizations, including the Daughters of Utah Pioneers; a leader in the National and International Councils of Women; an editor, poet, temple worker, musician, and woman suffragist, Susa Young Gates was also the mother of thirteen children! Let her "Notes for the Day's Work" for a single day in 1895 illustrate the many concerns and contributions, both large and small, of Utah's women: 1 Notes for the Day's Work: Provo, Utah, August 19, 1895 Go down cellar with Emma Lucy [later, world famous coloratura soprano] and show her how to clean it. Go to Aunt Corneel's and take her to Eikens and get hers and my fruit. Darn Dan's stockings. Boil over the bottle of spoiled fruit. Practice on my bycycle. Write down plan of altering the house which came to me in the night. Clean my office. Answer Leah's, Sterling's, Sis. Taylor's, and Mrs. Grey's letters, and Carlos's. Prepare talk on "Women and Literature" and go to the [Brigham Young] Academy's opening exercises at 10 o'clock. Talk to Aretta Young about her story. Write to Pres. Joseph F. Smith, Pres. George Q. Cannon, Apostle Franklin D. Richards, and Elder B. H. Roberts about writing for Young Woman's Journal. Also write Mrs. M. E. Potter and Marie D. 1

T h e note is in the "Susa Young Gates" folder in the Manuscript Archives of the Brigham Young University Library, Provo, U t a h . I have taken a few liberties with the wording and order of the original.

Utah Historical Quarterly Write a n d t h a n k Carol for her lovely gift. Get the cloth for D a n ' s pants a n d boys' clothes a n d send them to the tailor. Finish the last chapter of " J o h n Stevens' C o u r t s h i p " for The Contributor. Sketch out editorials for Young Woman's Journal. W a s h m y head. Get the kitchen carpet and have the girl a n d D a n p u t it down. Get cot a n d crib from store. Also washstand and glass and wardrobe. Get vegetables a n d fruit for dinner. T a k e my bycycle dress over to Polly a n d have it fixed. T a k e clothes to the Relief Society. Get consecrated oil. Bless Cecil [B. Cecil Gates, later director of the M o r m o n Tabernacle Choir] to do his chores well. Administer to baby Franklin [later an outstanding figure in the early days of radio].

EQUAL

RIGHTS

N o w the voice of w o m a n k i n d is startling all the world; W o m a n must have equal rights with m a n . Everywhere beneath the sun her b a n n e r is unfurled, W o m a n must have equal rights with m a n . We b u t ask for freedom and the right to live and be, W h a t we are designed in God's great p l a n ; And we're sure all thinking men will very shortly see, W o m a n must have equal rights with m a n . We b u t ask for freedom and the right to live and be W h a t we are designed in God's great p l a n ; And we're sure all thinking men will very shortly see W o m a n must have equal rights with m a n . Should it be that in the land o'er which our standard waves And our eagle soars so proud and free, Mothers, sisters, daughters should all be held as slaves, Should they have to beg for liberty? We must pay our taxes, and the laws we must obey. And it's time an era now began W h e n in the elections we can also have a say â&#x20AC;&#x201D; W o m a n should have equal rights with m a n . Come my sisters, let us rise and educate our minds, P u t aside our follies great and small; Work with heart and soul to help all womankind, G a t h e r round o u r standard one and all. D o not pause nor falter, but be valiant in the fight, And the flame of liberty we'll fan. Till it spreads o'er all the land, then hail the time of right, W h e n w o m a n shall have equal rights with m a n . {Woman's

Exponent,

23 [October 15, 1894], 195.)

•';•

Susan B. Anthony, national woman suffrage leader.

Woman Suffrage In Western America B Y T . A.

LARSON

X HE ADOPTION OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE by popular vote in communities of any size was impossible before the 1890's. A small number of woman's rights advocates, male and female, had been campaigning since the Seneca Falls, New York, convention of 1848, but the masses were unmoved. Horace Greeley was probably right when he said in 1867 that at least three-fourths of the women of New York State "do not choose to vote." More than twenty years later the California suffragist Clara S. Foltz could still say "O, how much I do wish we could rally the women to the necessity of doing something for their own cause. . . . 'The women don't want to vote' . . . is the 'stunner' that we friends of the cause have to meet at every hand. . . .,n A few years later, in 1902, Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper wrote "In the indifference, the inertia, the apathy of women lies the greatest obstacle to their enfranchisement."2 Mary Wollstonecraft as early as 1792 had pointed to the need for women to have educational opportunities comparable to those for men, but broadened opportunities came very slowly in the nineteenth century. It was impossible to get rank and file women interested in voting until more of them had been educated up to it. Most male voters could not be expected to favor female suffrage until more women had become interested, and their interest would not develop without prolonged education and agitation. Pioneering suffragists encountered scathing ridicule. Their pleas for justice and equality evoked arguments that sound strange today but evidently were plausible to most of their contemporaries. Typical objections to woman suffrage included these: woman's place is in the home; most women do not want the vote; women are already represented; only bad and ignorant women would vote; there is no precedent; it is contrary to the Bible; women who lack the strength to enforce laws should not help make them; if women vote, they must fight; there are too many voters already; it will only double the vote, without changing the result, since women will vote as their husbands do; if they do not vote with their husbands, there will be domestic discord.3 Dr. Larson is William Robertson Coe Professor of American Studies at the University of Wyoming. H e served as head of the History D e p a r t m e n t at the University of Wyoming, 19481968. H e is the author or editor of several books and is presently working on a book-length manuscript dealing with woman suffrage in western America. 1

Manuscript H M 10621, I d a H . Harper Collection (Henry E. Huntington Library)

Susan B. Anthony and I d a Husted Harper, eds., The ester, New York, 1902), I V , xxiv. 3

The Woman's

History

Journal, X X V I (No. 36, September 7, 1895), 284.

of Woman

Woman Suffrage in Western America

Some suffragists thought it best to work for an amendment to the United States Constitution, which would require a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress and approval of the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. Not until 1919, however, could they get Congress to submit the proposal to the states. Other suffragists, considering it impossible to secure passage of a national amendment, preferred to spend their energies in campaigns for amendments to state constitutions. But amending a state constitution, which required passage by both houses of the legislature and then approval by popular vote, was not much easier than amending the U.S. Constitution. In Kansas, where conditions appeared to be as favorable as anywhere in the country, the legislature submitted a woman suffrage amendment to the people in 1867, but it was rejected by a vote of more than two to one. In other states the legislatures regularly refused to submit such an amendment to the people. In exceptional cases â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Michigan in 1874, Colorado in 1877, Nebraska in 1882, Oregon in 1884, Rhode Island in 1886, Washington in 1889, and South Dakota in 1890 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the legislatures did submit the amendment, but the voters uniformly rejected it. Not until 1893, in Colorado, could the suffragists win a statewide election. In the territories, however, woman suffrage could be adopted without a popular vote, and, indeed, woman suffrage bills came close to being passed by the legislatures of Washington and Nebraska territories in 1854 and 1856, respectively. A simple majority, either in Congress or in a territorial legislature, with the approval of the executive in each case, was all that was necessary. The New York Times, December 17, 1867, proposed in an editorial that woman suffrage be tried in Utah Territory, presumably by act of Congress. The Times thought that if women had the vote in Utah they might outlaw polygamy and thereby please many people in the East. A year later, on December 14, 1868, George Washington Julian, Republican congressman from Indiana, introduced a bill to give women the right to vote in all the territories.4 In the following February, a spokesman for "The Universal Franchise Association," Professor J. K. H. Willcox, in testimony before the House Committee on Territories said that Julian's bill, if passed, would attract women to the West from the "overcrowded East" by "offering them greater security in person and property" and in so doing would lessen the unequal distribution of the sexes, raise wages, 4 For the text of this bill see Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, eds., History of Woman Suffrage (Rochester, New York, 1887), I I , 325.

Utah Historical Quarterly

reduce the amount of prostitution, and destroy polygamy in Utah. 5 This bill for establishing woman suffrage in all the territories died in committee, as did another Julian bill introduced March 15, 1869, which proposed to give women the right to vote in Utah Territory but not in other territories. By this time the New York Times had decided that the women of Utah would not vote against polygamy, and that moreover the people of Utah, male and female, would welcome an act of Congress extending suffrage to the women of that territory.6 The suggestion that woman suffrage might first be tried in the territories thus was dropped in Congress but not before it had received considerable publicity in 1867, 1868, and 1869. In view of the alluring prospects described by Professor Willcox before the House Committee on Territories it is not surprising that the idea was picked up by legislators in six western territories in 1869 or 1870. Four of them â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Colorado, Dakota, Idaho, and New Mexicoâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;failed to adopt bills that were introduced, but two others, Wyoming and Utah, gave their women the right to vote. Dakota missed its golden opportunity for fame when its legislature failed by just one vote to pass a woman suffrage bill in January 1869. Next to consider such action was the very first legislature in the new territory of Wyoming, and it capitalized on the opportunity which Dakota had let slip through its hands. Wyoming enacted woman suffrage, including the right to hold office, December 10, 1869. Two months later, February 12, 1870, Utah Territory gave women the right to vote but not to hold office. Utah women actually voted on two occasions before Wyoming women could vote in September 1870.7 Romantics have imagined that western leadership in woman suffrage stemmed from chivalry and notions of equality and democracy rooted in the frontier environment. Others have associated western leadership with the Puritan ethic and with the Populist and Progressive movements.8 Pendleton Herring has written that "The struggle for woman suffrage was a long battle fought largely outside party lines and by the organized women themselves."9 Herring's generalization has some validity for the 5

B. H . Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1930), V, 323-26. Roberts gives the Washington Chronicle, February 28, 1869, as his source. "New York Times, M a r c h 5, 1869, p. 6, and M a r c h 17, 1869, p. 6. T It would not be accurate, however, to say that women voted first in U t a h . Some women who owned property voted in New Jersey, 1776-1807, and school suffrage h a d been given to women in Kansas in 1861. 8 See particularly Aileen S. Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 18901920 (New York, 1965), and Alan P. Grimes, The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage (New York, 1967). 9 Pendleton Herring, Politics of Democracy (New York, 1940), 320,

Woman Suffrage in Western America

national story but for western territories more appropriate is this one offered by Alan P. Grimes: "In newly emerging societies, decidedly significant political actions may be the result largely of pure chance, coincidence, or a fortuitous combination of circumstances." 10 Accounts of what actually happened in Wyoming and Utah, and why, have been so confused that attempts to set the record straight are in order. The differences between Utah Territory and Wyoming Territory, and between their woman suffrage experiences, are so striking that separate treatment is appropriate. Dr. Thomas Alexander tells the Utah story in a separate article while the Wyoming story will be related here. The Wyoming territorial legislature which passed the woman suffrage bill in December 1869 was small â&#x20AC;&#x201D; nine men in the upper house, twelve in the lower.11 Only one member had had any previous legislative experience. All members of both houses belonged to the Democratic party. Rather late in the session the president of the upper house gave notice that he would introduce a bill for woman's rights. Fifteen days later he introduced his bill and it passed the upper house by a vote of six to two with little debate. Vigorous opposition w^as encountered in the lower house where eventually a favorable vote of seven to four was obtained, after an amendment had been incorporated raising the voting age from eighteen to twenty-one. The upper house accepted the amendment, and the governor, a Republican, signed the bill after much soul searching. Remarkably, there was no suffrage society in the territory, and the legislature had received no suffrage petition. There had been, however, some discussion of woman suffrage in Cheyenne newspapers just before and during the legislative session, centering around two lectures by itinerant eastern suffragists, Anna Dickinson and Redelia Bates. Both of these young women were very attractive. Their personalities had greater impact than their messages, but undoubtedly they charmed their audiences, which included a number of legislators; and they may well have won a few votes for their cause. The man who introduced the bill was William H. Bright, age fortysix, a Virginian who had served in the Union Army as a major in the Office of the Chief Quartermaster in Washington, D. C , in 1864. After the war he became a special agent in the Post Office Department in Salt 10

Grimes, Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage, 53. T h e r e should have been thirteen instead of twelve in the lower house, but one m a n who was elected failed to appear. 11

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Lake City, and then in 1868 moved to South Pass City, Wyoming, where he opened a saloon. Bright h a d enjoyed little if any formal schooling. I n later life, when queried, he explained that he had introduced the suffrage bill because he thought it right and just and because he thought that if Negroes h a d the right to vote, as they did, women "like my wife and m o t h e r " should also have the franchise. "Bright is already immortal," judged the Cheyenne Leader, foremost newspaper of the territory, February 12, 1870. For twenty years after the event, contemporaries agreed t h a t Bright deserved major credit for placing Wyoming at the head of the woman suffrage parade, but thereafter he was almost forgotten as the claims of others came to the surface. 12 Bright's place as sponsor of the bill is a matter of public record, and his contemporaries gave him full credit. But what persuaded the other legislators to vote as they did? Unfortunately, the assembly journals, although they give motions and votes, do not record the debates. They indicate how men voted, but not why, and press coverage was disgracefully laconic. Nevertheless, a general summary statement which can be documented to a considerable extent runs as follows. William H . Bright, encouraged by Secretary of the Territory Edward M . Lee and probably others, introduced the bill mainly because he believed it right and just. A few other legislators recognized the merit of his argument from justice, but this was a minority opinion. 13 A majority vote in both houses was obtained by resort to economic and political arguments. M e n who were unmoved by the justice argument embraced the idea that to adopt woman suffrage would give the struggling territory, whose population was declining, much free advertising and would attract women who u p to that time h a d been in very short supply. T h e territory h a d only one thousand women over tw^enty-one, compared to six thousand men. As soon as the bill was approved by the governor, Cheyenne's leading newspaper noted editorially: " W e now expect at once quite an immigration of ladies to Wyoming. W e say to them all, come on. T h e r e is room for a great many here yet." Substantial contemporary evidence supports the opinion that desire for free advertising was of major importance. General E d w a r d M. Lee, secretary of the territory, judged free advertising to have been the most 12 For the story of Bright's acclaim among his contemporaries and his subsequent disinheritance, see T. A. Larson, History of Wyoming (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1965), 78-94. 13 T h e legislature, it should not be overlooked, had shown sympathy for woman's rights before the suffrage bill was introduced. It had passed a law to protect married women in their separate property, a n d had adopted a law barring discrimination in school teachers' pay on account of sex.

Woman Suffrage in Western America

important factor. He explained in an article which appeared in The Galaxy magazine, June 1872: T h e first Legislature, composed of elements c o m m o n in b o r d e r c o m m u n i ties, 1 4 assembled in the a u t u m n of 1869, a n d proceeded to e n a c t a code of laws, a m o n g which was a statute enfranchising w o m e n . T h e law in question was n o t a d o p t e d in obedience to public sentiment, b u t because t h e T e r r i t o r i a l lawgivers believed it would o p e r a t e as a "first-class advertisem e n t " ; t h a t their action in the premises would be telegraphed t h r o u g h o u t t h e civilized world, a n d public interest thereby aroused, resulting i n increased immigration a n d large accretions of capital to their n e w a n d comparatively u n k n o w n Territory. I a m sure t h a t u p to t h a t time n o t a score of suffrage disciples could be found within t h e T e r r i t o r i a l limits. E v e n the w o m e n themselves did n o t a p p e a r as petitioners . . . b u t t h e suffrage was conferred, as has been said, solely for advertising purposes. T h e Council originated a n d a d o p t e d t h e measure, believing t h a t t h e H o u s e of Representatives would disagree; b u t the last n a m e d body ultimately concurred, in anticipation of a n Executive veto.

It was Secretary Lee's responsibility to work closely with the legislature. His job gave him a better opportunity than anyone else had to understand why the legislature acted as it did. In the same year, 1872, in a suffrage address in Boston, Lee said: "The movement at first was commenced by certain public men as an advertising dodge for the Territory, and not at all as an earnest measure." 15 He said much the same in an address in Indianapolis.16 Three prominent citizens who were in Chey14 Vague descriptions like this one ("composed of elements common in border communities") have often been given for Wyoming's first legislature. These men were criticized particularly because they voted to increase their pay from $4.00 to $10.00 a day (the courts nullified the increase). More to the point are these details about the thirteen legislators who voted for woman suffrage: William H . Bright, who is described as a saloonkeeper, which he apparently was in 1869, was listed as a miner at South Pass City in the U . S . Census for Wyoming ( 1 8 7 0 ) , the principal source for d a t a about other legislators, below. Bright was credited with having real estate worth $100.00. By 1876 he had moved to Denver. Later he moved to Washington, D . C , where he died in 1912. J. C. Abney in 1870 was thirty-four, married, born in Kentucky, a livery-stable keeper in Cheyenne worth $1,500 in real estate and $8,000 in personal estate. William Herrick in 1870 was fifty, a bachelor, born in New York, a saloonkeeper at Sherman with a personal estate of $2,500. J. W. Menefee in 1870 was thirty-seven, a bachelor, born in Virginia, a miner at Atlantic City in South Pass, with real estate worth $1,000. Louis Miller in 1870 was twenty-nine, married, born in Prussia, a jeweler in Laramie worth $1,500 in real estate and $5,000 in personal estate. T. D . Murrin in 1870 was thirty-six, married, born in Ireland, a wholesale grocery merchant, worth $2,500 in real estate and $1,200 in personal estate. From other sources it is known that his principal "grocery" stock in trade was liquor. Nothing is known about five of the thirteen legislators who voted for woman suffrage. Their names do not appear on the Wyoming census rolls for 1870, which is not surprising considering t h e transient character of frontiersmen. O n e other whose name does not appear on the Wyoming census rolls for 1870 was Posey Wilson, a twenty-five-year-old bachelor, who later rose to some prominence as a Cheyenne banker. 15 The Woman's Journal, V (No. 14, April 4, 1874), 108. "Ibid., I I (No. 48, December 2, 1871), 380.

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enne or Laramie in 1869 made corroborating statements, apparently without any contradition from contemporaries. The Laramie editor James H. Hayford wrote in 1874: "We advocated [woman suffrage] in the first place merely for its novelty and for the attention it would attract to our new Territory." 17 He said this again and again. Associate justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court John W. Kingman, speaking before the Massachusetts legislature in 1876, said that some of the members voted for it thinking it would attract attention to the territory.18 Judge Kingman later wrote that among the arguments advanced for the bill, "The favorite . . . and by far the most effective, was this: it would prove a great advertisement, would make a great deal of talk, and attract attention to the legislature, and the territory, more effectually than anything else."19 Morton E. Post, who had been a grocer in Cheyenne in 1869 and later had served as delegate to Congress, recalled in 1886: "The right of suffrage was originally extended to women as a matter of advertisement for the Territory." 20

Ibid., V (No. 40, October 3, 1874), 318. Ibid., VII (No. 5, January 29, 1876), 36. 19 Stanton, Anthony, and Gage, History of Woman Suffrage, III, 730. 20 The Woman's Journal, XVII (No. 15, April 10, 1886), 113. 18

Woman Suffrage in 1896

Woman Suffrage in Western America

Coupled with the purpose to get free advertising was a desire to embarrass the governor. Although Secretary Lee in the quotation above stressed free advertising, he concluded by saying that the lower house concurred "in anticipation of an Executive veto." Republican Governor John A. Campbell, unlike Republican Secretary Lee, was at loggerheads with the Democratic legislators. They overrode some of his vetoes, only to lose to him in the courts. They despised him personally because, unlike themselves and Lee, he did not drink, gamble, or use tobacco. They had reason to believe that he was opposed to woman suffrage and would veto the bill.21 His veto would cause him to lose the esteem of a few Cheyenne ladies who often had feted the bachelor governor.22 During four days while the bill lay on his desk two of the territorial judges and two Cheyenne ladies urged him to discard his prejudices and turn the tables on his political enemies, and so he did by signing the bill. 21 T w o editors of The Woman's Journal interviewed Governor Campbell in February 1872 when he was honeymooning in Boston. They reported that he "had never regarded himself or been regarded by others prior to the passage of the bill as an advocate of woman's voting" and that " I t was generally supposed that he would veto the bill." The Woman's Journal, I I I (No. 6, February 10, 1872), 48. 22 Mrs. Esther Morris, Wyoming justice of the peace in 1870 who achieved widespread fame as the nation's first female judge, told a San Francisco reporter in 1872 that "the whole matter of the adoption of Woman Suffrage in the Territory was the result of a bitter feud between the existing political parties, and it was done in a moment of spiteâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;not out of any regard for the movement, but rather as a bitter joke." The Woman's Journal (No. 10, M a r c h 9, 1872), 78-79.

Woman Suffrage in 1914

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T h e ardent Wyoming suffragist, Judge J o h n W. Kingman, a Harvard graduate of unquestionable integrity, in an address before the Massachusetts legislature in 1876 summarized the motivational pattern governing the voting of legislators on the suffrage bill as well as anyone can: "Some of the members urged it from conviction, others voted for it thinking it would attract attention to the Territory, others as a joke, and others in the expectation that the Governor would veto the measure." 2 3 While woman suffrage was instituted with remarkably little opposition in Wyoming and U t a h , never again would victories come so easily. Looking back over the long struggle which culminated in the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Carrie C h a p m a n Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler ruefully concluded that " T h e better the campaign, the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls." 24 Aileen Kraditor's explanation for this paradox is simply and accurately that "antisuffragism was essentially defensive." 25 T h e normal pattern of action and reaction appeared in Colorado in 1870. Among the six territories where woman suffrage was an issue in 1869 or 1870 only Colorado had extensive newspaper coverage, petitions, letters to the editors, and full-dress public debate in the legislature. As in Wyoming, partisan strife between a Republican governor, Edward M . McCook, and a Democratic majority in the assembly may well have affected the outcome. Governor McCook in his opening message recommended adoption of woman suffrage. By so doing he probably did his cause more h a r m than good since the majority Democrats generally rejected his leadership. W o m a n suffrage received more attention than any other subject in the session. After airing thoroughly most of the familiar arguments pro and con, the lower house rejected the prosposal, fifteen to ten after the upper house h a d voted for it, seven to six. 26 After the setback in Colorado, enthusiasm for suffrage extension in the West soon waned, the final excitement of 1870 centering in California where a newly organized state suffrage association collected more than 3,000 signatures on a petition and sent many representatives, both male and female, to Sacramento to offer a personal appeal which availed 23

Ibid., V I I (No. 5, J a n u a r y 29, 1876), 36. Carrie C h a p m a n C a t t and Nettie Rogers Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement (New York, 1923), 130. This account of the suffrage movement was issued as a reprint by the University of Washington Press in 1969. 25 Kraditor, Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 14. 26 Colorado's experience is well told in Joseph G. Brown, The History of Equal Suffrage in Colorado, 1868-1898 (Denver, 1898) and Billie Barnes Jensen, " T h e Woman Suffrage Movement in Colorado" (master's thesis, University of Colorado, Boulder, 1955). 24

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nothing.27 In that same year, 1870, woman suffrage was under legislative consideration in most of the other states outside the South, but no state legislative body could be convinced. For the next thirteen years eastern suffragists, who knew all of the theoretical arguments and often elaborated on them in The Woman's Journal, in The Revolution (until it suspended publication in 1872), and on the lecture platform, had to turn to Wyoming or Utah for information about the practical working of woman suffrage. Despite the fact that many more women were involved in the Utah experiment, eastern suffragists gave more attention to woman suffrage in Wyoming because they considered the Utah experiment seriously compromised by theocracy and polygamy. Moreover, Wyoming gave women the right to hold office as well as to vote and soon had female jurors and a female justice of the peace. Wyoming, consequently, took the front position in the suffrage show window. For many years that territory got more free advertising than any of the legislators of 1869 reasonably could have anticipated. Mrs. Esther Morris, who served satisfactorily as justice of the peace in 1870, enjoyed much publicity. Likewise, female grand and petit jurors received well-deserved praise for their work in 1870 and 1871. Nevertheless, the Wyoming experiment was almost terminated in 1871. While friends of woman suffrage had been gratified by results, the Democrats who constituted a majority of the legislators in 1871 had had enough. They proposed repeal because the women had voted Republican and had indicated a desire to close saloons on Sunday. A few Republicans, however, by the margin of one vote, kept the Democrats from overriding Governor John A. Campbell's veto of the repeal measure. Thereafter, leading citizens of the territory who had been opposed or skeptical generally became converts. It dawned on them that stable, law-abiding, family men who wanted to put down roots and civilize the territory needed the votes of their wives to prevail against transient bachelors who made up the majority of male voters. After 1871, as more and more citizens recognized its benefits, woman suffrage was never in jeopardy. 28 Testimonials from Wyoming governors, judges, newspaper editors, and clergymen were quoted in the tracts distributed in every woman suffrage campaign for the next forty years. Up-to-date testimonials were solicited on several occasions when unfavorable reports had ap27 The Woman's Journal, I (No. 7, February 19, 1870), 49, 50, and I (No. 14, April 9, 1870), 109. 28 Alan P. Grimes discusses at length the place of women voters as "civilizers of Wyoming" in his book The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage.

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peared in the eastern press. In time it became evident to intelligent observers, most of whom had never expected a miraculous transformation of society, that the experiment was a modest success. Meanwhile, opponents wrote less about the evils of woman suffrage and more about the absence of any good results. To be sure, there was chronic disappointment for those who expected women voters to win influence in nominating conventions, be elected to office, eliminate gambling and prostitution, or bring prohibition. And those who thought that suffrage would attract women to the territory were disabused of that notion. Economic considerations, as usual, determined migration decisions. Suffragists in the East resented suggestions that they should move to Wyoming to get the vote, preferring as a rule to fight for their rights where they were. After many discouragements suffragists were heartened by victory in 1883 in Washington Territory. Probably many of them had shared, more or less privately, the doubts which Colonel T. W. Higginson, one of the editors of The Woman's Journal, now expressed: I have never felt any sense of security as to Woman Suffrage as long as it was only practiced in two territories of the Union, the one having a very exceptional population and the other a very small one. My utmost hope was that this provision would be maintained in the territories until their example should lead some State to adopt it. That hope is now strengthened, since a third territory has joined the list.29

Four years later, however, in 1887, the women of Utah and Washington lost the franchise, through an act of Congress (Edmunds-Tucker Act) based on opposition to polygamy in Utah, and through a court decision based on partisan politics and other factors in Washington. "Rum did it," said some observers in Washington, where women by their votes for prohibition had antagonized the powerful liquor interests. Suffragists, it should be noted, often differed in the West, as in the East, over tactics. For instance, Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway, the West's outstanding suffragist, often recommended what she called a "still hunt." She urged her associates in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho to win over legislators by quiet persuasion rather than by noisy rallies. She was not always consistent. A great orator, she made many speeches throughout the Northwest. Also she aggressively prompted woman suffrage in her magazine, The New Northwest. In 1886 she warned women in Washington that they would lose the vote if they persisted in their drive for prohibition. On other occasions she told eastern suffrage leaders to stay home or watch from the sidelines during western campaigns. 29

The Woman's Journal, XIV (No. 48, December 1, 1883), 373.

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In 1890, the long-hoped-for breakthrough in a state came when Wyoming entered the Union with woman suffrage in its constitution. Three neighboring states soon followed, Colorado in 1893, Utah and Idaho in 1896. This cluster of victories in contiguous states in the Rocky Mountain West caused great jubilation in suffrage circles. With renewed hope and drive, suffragists continued their pursuit of victories in other states. Nationally a favorable development had occurred in 1890 with the merger of the two great suffrage organizations under the name National American Woman Suffrage Association. Nevertheless, the suffragists suffered through another long period of frustration until they won Washington in 1910 and California in 1911. Success in California was particularly exciting because it was the first populous state to enter the fold. As some observers predicted, victory in California gave special impetus to the suffrage movement throughout the country. The successful California campaign of 1911 evokes wonder and admiration. What a contrast there was between the coming of woman suffrage to Wyoming and Utah in 1869 and 1870, with nothing that can be called a campaign, and the splendid, many-sided effort in California in 1911. After forty years of disappointments and defeats the California suffragists had combined new devices with old ones. They used parades, lobbying, petitions, "Votes-For-Women" clubs, organized letter writing, gifted speakers, endorsements, special trains, auto tours, rallies, teas, leaflets in English and in foreign languages, suffrage songs, propaganda postcards, limericks, posters, pins, buttons, pennants, billboards, and newspaper publicity.30 Other state victories followed quickly, first in the West, then in the Middle West and East. By 1914, all states from the Rocky Mountains on west, except for New Mexico, had full woman suffrage, while east of the Rockies only Kansas had accepted the inevitable. Thereafter, a combination of factors â&#x20AC;&#x201D; education, agitation, organization, momentum, and war-â&#x20AC;&#x201D;brought success in additional states and finally, in 1920, a great national victory in the form of the Nineteenth Amendment. Unquestionably, western territories and states had led in the suffrage parade. Many western people have assumed that the "frontier spirit" had something to do with it. With respect to some phases of the suffrage movement they may be right, but, as in territorial Wyoming and Utah, other forces, too, must be taken into account. 30 T h e Susan B. Anthony Memorial Collections in the Henry E. Huntington Library are particularly rich in California woman suffrage materials.

An Experiment In Progressive Legislation: The Granting of Woman Suffrage In Utah In 1870

BY T H O M A S

ALEXANDER

X N 1869 AND 1870, as the nation agonized over the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment and universal manhood suffrage, the people of Utah considered a suffrage question which was so far ahead of its time that the nation did not adopt it until 1920. At that time these mountain westerners debated universal adult suffrage, female suffrage as it was then called, or woman suffrage as it is generally called today. 1 Dr. Alexander, associate professor of history at Brigham Young University, was the 1969 recipient of the U t a h State Historical Society Morris S. Rosenblatt Award for his article "John Wesley Powell, T h e Irrigation Survey, and the I n a u g u r a t i o n of the Second Phase of Irrigation Development in U t a h , " which was selected as the best article of the year appearing in the Utah Historical Quarterly. Dr. Alexander expresses appreciation to Professor Leonard J. Arrington for his help in securing sources used in this present article. 1 General treatments of w o m a n suffrage will be found in Carrie C h a p m a n Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Sfory of the Suffrage Movement (New York, 1926) ; T h e National American W o m a n Suffrage Association, Victory: How Women Won It; A Centennial Symposium, 1840-1940 (New York, 1940) ; and K a t e B. Carter, comp., Woman Suffrage in the West ([Salt Lake City], 1943).

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Utah was not the first state or territory to adopt this measure. 2 New Jersey had allowed women to vote from 1790 to 1807 and various other states had in the meantime allowed the suffrage to women for various reasons, often because they happened to be property owners. Also, in the State of Deseret prior to the organization of Utah Territory, women voted in civil elections just as they had always voted on ecclesiastical matters in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or Mormon church. The first modern territory to adopt universal adult suffrage was Wyoming Territory whose governor, John A. Campbell, signed a law providing for woman suffrage on December 10, 1869. The reasons for Wyoming's action are discussed in an article in this issue by Dr. T. A. Larson, but the adoption of suffrage in Wyoming Territory where men outnumbered women by a ratio of six to one could not have had the impact it did in Utah where the numbers were approximately equal. Nineteenth century Utah appeared to non-Mormons or Gentiles, as they were called in the Mormon territory, to be a retrograde and barbarian place only slightly more advanced than the Moslem lands of the Near East, with which it was often compared. 3 The people of Utah, however, considered themselves to be socially enlightened, and by the standards which obtained in the United States when universal suffrage was adopted they appear so today. Surrounded by a roaring frontier country which emphasized the acquisitive, individualistic, and violent, Mormons in 1869 and 1870 talked about cooperation, self-sacrifice, and a sense of community. In April 1869, Brigham Young announced a cooperative movement which, for the good of the people, would "shut off," many businessmen so the community could be benefited by central purchasing, manufacturing, and marketing.4 2 Susa Young Gates, "History, Chapter, W o m a n Suffrage in U t a h " (typescript, Susa Young Gates Miscellaneous File in the Widtsoe Collection, U t a h State Historical Society). (Hereafter this file will be cited as Gates File, U S H S ) . R a l p h Lorenzo Jack, " W o m a n Suffrage in U t a h as an Issue in the M o r m o n and N o n - M o r m o n Press of the Territory, 1870-1887" (master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1954), 2 2 ; B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Century I (6 vols., Salt Lake City, 1930), V, 3 2 6 ; T. A. Larson, History of Wyoming (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1965), 78-84. Roberts states wrongly that Campbell vetoed the bill. 3 Leonard J. Arrington and J o n H a u p t , "Intollerable Zion: T h e Image of Mormonism in Nineteenth Century American Literature," Western Humanities Review, X X I I (Summer, 1968), 243-60. Stanley S. Ivins, "Notes on M o r m o n Polygamy," Utah Historical Quarterly, 34 (Fall, 1967), 309-21. 4 Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, 1958), 305.

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In the same vein George Q. Cannon, editor of the Deseret News and a counselor to President Young, emphasized the need to consider the good of the community and not simply individual advantage in other matters. In an editorial he lamented the plight of the American workingman and the problems caused by the rapid centralization of weath, in the h a n d s of t h e very few in this country [which] is unparalleled, a n d t h e unprincipled use of t h e p o w e r t h u s acquired, as witnessed d u r i n g the recent Wall Street gambling operations [which] c a n n o t b u t cause wide spread distress. [This shows t h a t ] here as elsewhere, w h e n p o w e r a n d wealth are acquired a n d exercised by the few w h o are not guided by principle, they a r e not used pro bono publico, b u t are m a d e to answer private interests a n d to subserve selfish ends. 5

Like the later Progressives, Cannon was convinced that man was basically good and that the evil he did grew from environmental influences. M a n ' s inclination to do evil, is, in most instances, the result of habits which grow o u t of defective a n d i m p r o p e r education a n d training. W h e n m e n a r e rightly trained, they will be u n a b l e to perceive a single a d v a n t a g e which they c a n gain by doing wrong. If society were properly organized, there would be n o t h i n g that m e n could legitimately desire which they could not obtain by doing right, a n d , of course, u n d e r such circumstances, there would be no t e m p t a t i o n to do wrong.

Unlike many in his own time, Cannon, an immigrant himself, opposed the movement for immigration restriction, even the restriction upon the immigration of orientals.6 In another editorial, he lauded the efforts to bring women into the promotion of the cooperative and reform movements. W i t h w o m e n to aid in the great cause of reform, w h a t wonderful changes c a n be effected! W i t h o u t her aid h o w slow the progress! Give her responsibility, a n d she will prove t h a t she is capable of great things; but deprive h e r of opportunities, m a k e a doll of her, leave her n o t h i n g to occupy h e r m i n d b u t the reading of novels, gossip, the fashions a n d all the frivolity of this frivolous age, a n d her influence is lost, a n d instead of being a help m e e t to m a n , as originally intended, she becomes a d r a g a n d a n e n c u m b r a n c e . Such w o m e n m a y answer in other places a n d a m o n g other p e o p l e ; b u t they would be out of place here. 7

Even polygamy, or plural marriage as Mormons preferred to call it, which was viewed as retrograde and uncivilized by Gentiles, was seen as a 5 Deseret News Weekly (Salt Lake City), February 10, 1869 (hereafter cited as DNW with the date). e Ibid., June 2 and 30, 1869. "Ibid., May 26, 1869,

Woman Suffrage in Utah

George Q. Cannon (18271901), first counselor to Presidents John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow successively, held very progressive views which included granting suffrage to women. Photograph from the Utah State Historical Society.

Emmeline B. Wells (18281921), pronounced suffragist, gave service to organizing both state and national associations. She was also a poetess, journalist, editor of the Woman's Exponent for forty years, and a founder of Utah's Republican party. Photograph from the Utah State Historical Society.

method of reforming society and eradicating social evils by contemporary Mormons. Church leaders saw this reform as a way of freeing women from slavery to the lusts of men and making them honored wives and mothers with homes of their own and social position. By entering polygamy women achieved a place in a society where the family formed the basic social unit. There is some evidence that Mormon women shared this view because so many of those who were active in the campaign for woman's rights were plural wives of prominent Utah citizens. Rather than simply tacitly accepting polygamy as their burden, these women used their social position to promote a better life for others in society.8 8

courses

Ibid., February 16, 1870. Speech of George Q . Cannon, July 7, 1878, in Journal of Dis(26 vols., Liverpool, England, 1854-1886), X X , 36-37; Susa Young Gates and Leah

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It is hardly surprising, then, that the predominant sentiment of the community favored woman suffrage as soon as it was proposed. Representative George W. Julian of Indiana introduced a bill entitled: "A Bill to Discourage Polygamy in Utah" which simply granted women the right to vote. Professor J. K. H. Willcox of the Universal Franchise Association in argument before the House Committee on Territories said that if the experiment succeeded in Utah it could be extended elsewhere. By this means, he was certain, "polygamy would be destroyed." Delegate William H. Hooper said that he favored the bill and opined that the leading citizens of Utah would also. The bill never came to a vote.9 As the time for the legislative session of 1870 neared, the press of Utah demonstrated considerable interest in the proposal. The Utah Magazine through its editor E. L. T. Harrison and his associate Edward W. Tullidge published several articles supporting the idea. Harrison said that suffrage ought to be granted to women because it was inevitable in the progression of things. Tullidge argued that: The nation which does not assign to women a very high part to play not only in the home circle but also in all the vital concerns of humanity, is barbaric in its notions and estate. True civilization had not yet reached that nation. 10

A woman correspondant of the magazine took the position that women have the talent to occupy any professional position which men could hold and justified the right to vote by the Mormon doctrine of free agency. She was of the opinion that women's votes would not change things much because, just as in congregational voting, women would vote pretty much the same as men. She said, however, that they had the right to express themselves just the same. Harrison was sympathetic with the view.11 Not until the legislature had already passed the act providing for woman suffrage did church authorities comment editorially on the proviD . Widtsoe, Women of the "Mormon" Church (Jackson County, Missouri, 1928) ; and Edward W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom (New York, 1877). I n a conversation with the author, Leonard J. Arrington pointed out that so many polygamous wives could be freed for community service because of their position and other wives who could assist them by caring for children and taking other household duties. See also Ivins, "Notes on M o r m o n Polygamy" U.H.Q., 34, 309-21. 9 DNW, M a r c h 24, 1869; Jack, " W o m a n Suffrage in U t a h , " 15-18; Roberts, Comprehensive History, V, 324; Edward W. Tullidge, History of Salt Lake City (Salt Lake City, 1886), 435. " " W o m e n ' s Sphere in U t a h , " The Utah Magazine, I I (February 13, 1 8 6 9 ) , 2 5 2 ; E. W. Tullidge, " W o m a n and H e r Sphere," ibid., I l l ( J u n e 26, 1869), 119. " "A U t a h Woman's Thoughts on Womanly Employments, Marriage, etc.," The Utah Magazine, I I I (July 3 1 , 1869), 199; bee also "Talk About Woman's Wages," ibid., 203.

Woman Suffrage in Utah

sion, but their approval seems to have been unanimous. President Cannon wrote in the Deseret News that the right of suffrage ought to be granted to all who can exercise it intelligently. He took the view that neither men nor women could exercise their full rights while "the other labors under disability, however limited." He was convinced that women would do more to promote "legislation of such a character as would tend more to diminish prostitution and the various social evils which overwhelm society than anything hitherto devised under universal male suffrage."12 Franklin D. Richards in his newly established Ogden Junction took a similar tack and emphasized Mormon unity on social and political questions. "Mormonism," he said, "seeks to provide for, educate and make useful to the State the whole feminine portion of the race." He was quick to point out, however, that women ought not be raised "above the level of man to be his governor, guide or lawgiver," or invested "with powers for which nature has not fitted her." 13 It is not at all surprising, given the sentiment in favor of the move, that the legislature considered the proposal early in 1870.14 On January 27, 1870, Representative Abram Hatch of Wasatch County moved that the Committee on Elections be instructed to inquire into the propriety of passing a bill granting the suffrage to women. That afternoon, under the chairmanship of Representative John C. Wright of Box Elder County, the Committee of the Whole took up Hatch's motion and asked the Committee on Elections to consider the matter further. On February 2, Wright reported that the Committee on Elections recommended passage of the measure. The report pointed out that the Organic Act granted suffrage to every free white male inhabitant over twenty-one years of age and limited the right to hold office to citizens of the United States. The legislature appeared to have the right to extend the suffrage to any other group it wished. It recommended, also that the suffrage be extended to women who were wives or daughters of citizens, because, the report said, a federal act of April 14, 1802, had granted citizenship to widows and children of aliens who had received their first papers. "According to this," the committee reasoned, "we should natural^DNW, J a n u a r y 22, 1870. See also Mormon Tribune, (Salt Lake C i t y ) , J a n u a r y 22, 1870, for similar comments by a non-Mormon. 13 Ogden Junction, February 9, 1870. 14 T h e consideration in the legislature is based upon U t a h Territory, Legislature, Minutes of the U t a h Territorial Legislature, M S , Manuscript Section, File Box on U t a h Territory, Legislature ( C h u r c h of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Historian's Library, Salt Lake C i t y ) , xerox copy supplied by Leonard J. Arrington; DNW, February 16, 1870.

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ly infer that if the widow and children of an alien who had not perfected his citizenship, became citizens, that the wife of a citizen became a citizen by being united in marriage to her husband." By exercising the franchise, the committee report continued, women would be placed "in a position to protect their own rights by an appeal to the ballot box which we think they are quite as competent to use as uneducated foreigners, the negro or Chinese." The committee also recommended that women be ineligible to hold high judicial, legislative, or executive offices, though they might be allowed to hold minor positions. On the basis of this recommendation, Peter Maughan of Cache County, chairman of the House Committee on Elections reported back a bill on February 5, 1870. The Maughan bill passed all three readings on that day, was approved unanimously, and sent to the Council. It provided simply that any woman twenty-one or older, a resident of the territory for six months, who was born or naturalized in the United States or who was the wife, widow, or daughter of a citizen was entitled to vote in any election. On February 9, the Council passed the bill with some amendments which the House refused to accept. A conference committee agreed to accept the House bill and on February 10, both the House and Council passed the amended version. Orson Pratt, speaker of the House, sent the bill to Territorial Secretary and Acting Governor S. A. Mann. Though Mann said he had "very grave and serious doubts of the wisdom and soundness of that political economy which makes the act a law of this Territory," he signed it on February 12, 1870, because both the House and Council had passed it unanimously. Governor J. Wilson Shafer, who was still in Washington at the time, told Delegate Hooper that he intended to wire Mann to veto the bill, but he failed to do so.15 In true Utah fashion the Ghost Government of the Ghost State of Deseret considered the proposal. On February 21, 1870, the territorial legislature reconvened itself as the Senate and House of the State of Deseret, heard the message of Governor Brigham Young, and adopted the laws of the Territory of Utah for the State of Deseret. In addition the legislature passed and Young approved a joint resolution to submit an amendment to the constitution of the State of Deseret to the people which would allow the vote to all women over the age of twenty-one.16 Though the women of Utah had had little to do with the actual passage of the bill, they were gratified at its enactment. At a meeting 15 16

Jack, " W o m a n Suffrage in U t a h , " 19. See footnote 14 and DNW, February 23, 1870.

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of the Female Relief Society in Salt Lake City on February 19, seven days after the passage of the act, Eliza R. Snow, a plural wife of both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, proposed an expression of gratitude to Acting Governor Mann for signing the bill. The proposal was adopted and a committee made up of wives of some of the most prominent men in the territory drafted the resolution and presented it to the acting governor.17 Already, on February 14, 1870, two days after the passage of the bill, women had voted in a municipal election in Salt Lake City. Though it probably would have been difficult to prove, contemporaries say that the first woman voter was Miss Saraph Young, daughter of Brigham H. Young and grand niece of Brigham Young. Even though the women of Wyoming got the suffrage first, women in Utah voted before their neighbors to the east, owing to the timing of the municipal election.18 After the suffrage was granted, the women of Utah did not simply rest with their newly won freedom. Mrs. Sarah M. Kimball, a leader in the Relief Society and later a nationally known woman's rights advocate, began a program of civic education for the women of the territory. She helped form clubs, organized classes in history and political science, and directed the work generally. Mrs. Kimball and others saw that the Relief Society was put to good use in the promotion of activities and classes. Relief Society meetings became classes in government, mock trials, and symposia on parliamentary law.19 Women began to take an active part in public affairs. On one occasion, Brigham Young was asked if he wanted women in such offices as sheriff. He replied that if one of his wives, Harriet Cook Young, who had signed the memorial to Governor Mann and who happened to be six feet tall, "went out after a man she would get him every time." In keeping with Young's ideas, women began to participate in civic activities. Miss Georgia Snow, a niece of Judge Zerubbabel Snow, among others, was admitted to the bar. Women were placed on school boards in various districts, and as early as September 1874, two women served on a coroner's jury at Little Cottonwood.20 17 M a n y of the women were also plural wives. DNW, M a r c h 2, 1870; Tullidge, Salt Lake City, 4 3 5 ; Jack, " W o m a n Suffrage in U t a h , " 32. 18 Tullidge, Salt Lake City, 4 3 7 ; Jack, " W o m a n Suffrage in U t a h , " 2 1 ; Deseret Evening News (Salt Lake C i t y ) , M a y 9, 1947. 19 Susa Young Gates, " T h e Suffrage Movement," M S and "History, Chapter, W o m a n Suffrage in U t a h , " p . 16, Gates File, U S H S . 20 Gates, "History, Chapter, W o m a n Suffrage in U t a h , " 17 and "Copy," M S , Gates File, U S H S .

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Eliza Roxey Snow (18041887), poetess and Relief Society president, was a strong advocate and leader in woman's rights. Photograph from the Utah State Historical Society.

E. L. T. Harrison (18301900), editor of the U t a h Magazine, published several articles supporting woman suffrage. Photograph from the Utah State Historical Society.

The majority of the people in Utah appear to have been pleased with this experiment in democracy. Louise L. Green, editor of the Woman's Exponent, the organ of the Female Relief Society, expressed this feeling in June 1872 in an early number of the periodical when she said that she was proud that the women of Utah did not have to bear the burden of disfranchisement which the women of most of the United States did. Women ought to have the right "to say who shall disburse those taxes [which many of them pay], how that government shall be conducted, or who shall decide on a question of peace or war which may involve the lives of their sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands." 21 In April 1883, Apostle Erastus Snow said that it was the Lord who moved u p o n His servants a n d the Legislature of our Territory to be a m o n g t h e first to lead the van of h u m a n progress in the extension of the elective Woman's Exponent, I (June 1, 1872), 5.

Woman Suffrage in Utah

franchise to women as well as men, and to recognize the freedom and liberty which belongs to the fairer sex as well as the sterner; for the Gospel teaches that all things are to be done by common consent . . . . 22

Though comment outside Utah initially saw woman suffrage as an enlightened move, that view gradually disappeared. The principal reason for its dissipation appears to have been that women of Utah neither forced an end to polygamy, nor did they elect Gentiles to undermine the power of the Mormon church in Utah. Even the passage of the Edmunds Act did not change the situation, in spite of the disfranchisement of all polygamous men and women. Charges were thrown around about the illegal voting of alien women and under-aged girls, some of which were probably true â&#x20AC;&#x201D; though the act did allow some women, who would normally have been considered aliens, to vote. As Congress considered the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1886 and 1887, this sentiment in Utah reached a peak, and a provision of the act disfranchised all women in Utah Territory. 23 Thus ended a seventeen-year experiment in political equality between the sexes. It had burst on the rock of national anti-Mormon and anti-polygamy sentiment because the enterprise had not had the effect which national leaders expected it to have. It had not brought an end to polygamy and church domination in Utah. One question remains unanswered. Did the Mormon hierarchy promote woman suffrage in an attempt to strengthen its hold on Utah politics as some Gentiles believed? This seems hardly to have been the case. Never, throughout the history of Utah up to the time of granting the suffrage to women, was there any real possibility that Gentile men might outnumber Mormon men. Though the possibility existed that the coming of the railroad in 1869 might have changed this, there is little evidence that the church leaders expected it to happen. It appears, rather, that the reasons given in public for granting woman suffrage in 1870 are the real ones because they are congruent with the progressive sentiment among the Mormons at the time. Cannon's editorials in the Deseret News, the church organ, are progressive and optimistic in tone. They speak of the perfectability of man, the need for equality in the community, and the high place of women in Mormon society. Though women did not hold ecclesiastical offices, they had always 22

Speech of Erastus Snow, April 6, 1883, in Journal of Discourses, X I V , 69. Tullidge, Salt Lake City, 433 a n d 4 3 5 ; Jack, " W o m a n Suffrage in U t a h , " 26, 27, and 3 2 ; Statement of Mrs. Angie F . N e w m a n , J u n e 8, 1886, in U.S., Congress, Senate, Miscellaneous Document 122, 4 9 t h Cong., 1st Sess., 1885-86, Serial 2346. 23

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voted on matters brought before the congregation and Eliza R. Snow and her companions led the Relief Society and the "Young Ladies' Department of the Co-operative Retrenchment Association" which evolved into the Young Women's Mutual Improvement Association. Women were encouraged by church leaders to participate in public affairs, and such leaders as Sarah M. Kimball had a high place in the public esteem. It was only natural that church leaders and the majority of the people of Utah, given the community sentiment, should favor legal participation for women in public life. It is not at all surprising that when the people of Utah were again given the opportunity to express their feelings on woman suffrage in the 1895 Constitution, they favored it overwhelmingly. It is also not surprising, that principal opposition came from nonMormons in the mining districts of Utah. 24 It seems probable, then, that in 1870, progressive sentiment was simply in advance of the rest of the nation and because of their experience and beliefs, the Mormons were willing to move in where others feared to tread. 24

115-16.

Stanley S. Ivins, "A Constitution for Utah," U.H.Q., XXV (April, 1957), 102-6 and

S T A T E M E N T O F OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND C I R C U L A T I O N The Utah Historical Quarterly is published quarterly by the Utah State Historical Society, 603 East South Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah 84102. The editor is Charles S. Peterson and Margery W. Ward is associate editor with offices at the same address as the publisher. The magazine is owned by the Utah State Historical Society and no individual or company owns or holds any bonds, mortgages, or other securities of the Society or its magazine. The purposes, function, and non-profit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes have not changed during the preceding twelve months. The following figures are the average number of copies of each issue during the preceding twelve months: 2,500 copies printed; no paid circulation; 1,904 mail subscriptions; 1,779 total paid circulation; 125 free distribution (including samples) by mail, carrier, or other means; 1,904 total distribution; 596 inventory for office use, leftover, unaccounted, spoiled after printing; total 2,500. The following figures are the actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 2,500 copies printed; no paid circulation; 2,095 mail subscriptions; 1,970 total paid circulation; 125 free distribution (including samples) by mail, carrier, or other means; 2,095 total distribution; 355 inventory and 50 for office use, leftover, unaccounted, spoiled after printing; total 2,500.

Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, Utah State Senator.

Gentle Persuaders Utah's First Women Legislators BY J E A N B I C K M O R E

WHITE

H E N I G H T OF N O V E M B E R 3, 1896, marked the end of an election that is probably unsurpassed in the state's history for intense interest and bitter division over a major issue. It also marked the end of a race that attracted national attention-â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a contest for a state Senate seat that involved a prominent M o r m o n polygamist a n d his fourth wife. D r . White is assistant professor of political science a t Weber State College. O n e of her major fields of interest is early U t a h political history.

Utah Historical Quarterly

The major issue in the election was silver, one that split Utah Republicans into two rival camps and badly hampered their campaign efforts. Adding a note of human interest to the election, Utah's first since statehood, was a contest in the Sixth Senatorial District in Salt Lake County, where Angus M. Cannon, Sr., and his physician wife, Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, were competing. Ten candidates were running "at large" for the district's five seats, five nominated by the Republicans and five on a Democratic-Populist fusion ticket. Voters were free to vote for any five â&#x20AC;&#x201D; all Democrats, all Republicans, or any mixture they might choose. It was not true, as has often been stated, that Dr. Cannon and her husband were running directly against each other. Both could have won seats, or both could have lost. But they were in a lively contest, with Democrats benefiting from strong sentiment for William Jennings Bryan at the head of their ticket. It is small wonder, as the daughter of Angus M. and Martha Hughes Cannon has recalled, that her father was "sweating blood" on election night as he waited for the returns. 1 Two proud and strong-willed individuals were in a contest where someone's pride was likely to be hurt. When the returns were in, Dr. Cannon was one of the five Democrats elected in the district, having polled 11,413 votes. Her husband, who was expected to benefit by his prominence as president of the Salt Lake Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, drew only 8,742 votes. Dr. Cannon ran behind the rest of the Democratic-Populist ticket, while her husband ran ahead of all but one of the five Republican candidates. Also running on the Republican ticket was one of Dr. Cannon's personal friends and a co-worker for many years in the woman suffrage movement, Emmeline B. Wells.2 Dr. Cannon had become the first woman state senator in the United States in a contest with both her husband and a close friend â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a dramatic beginning for a legislative career. During the campaign this contest had attracted considerable attention, with two daily newspapers lining up on opposite sides. The Salt Lake Tribune, which was Republican oriented, supported Angus M. Cannon, while the Democratic Salt Lake Herald supported his wife. The public followed the contest with some amusement through the pages 1 Interview by the author with Mrs. Elizabeth C a n n o n McCrimmon, August 4, 1969, in Alhambra, California. 2 Election returns from Salt Lake County, Salt Lake Tribune, November 14, 1896.

Utah's First Women Legislators

of the two newspapers. In response to a Herald writer's suggestion that Dr. Cannon would be the better choice as a legislator, the Tribune offered some advice to her husband: "We do not see anything for Augus M. to do but to either go home and break a bouquet over Mrs. Cannon's head, to show his superiority, or to go up to the Herald office and break a chair over the head of the man who wrote that disturber of domestic peace." 3 Women also won other legislative contests in Utah. In elections for the state House of Representatives, two women competed in Salt Lake County, one in Weber County, and one in Utah County. Two Democratic candidates won: Mrs. Sarah E. Anderson of Ogden and Mrs. Eurithe K. LaBarthe of Salt Lake City. In the Third Senatorial District, which included Davis, Rich, and Morgan counties, a prominent Republican woman, Mrs. Lucy A. Clark, was defeated by Aquila Nebeker, a Democratic rancher, for the district's only Senate seat. During the campaign, Nebeker was candid about the agony he would suffer if he should happen to lose to a woman. "I am in an awkward position," he told a Tribune reporter. "If I don't get out, people will say I am frightened. If I do make a struggle for the place, the same people will declare that I am fighting a woman. Then if I win, no one will concede that any credit is due me, while defeat would make me the laughing stock of the whole state." 4 It seems that the presence of women in Utah's first statewide election was not accepted with complete equanimity, despite the fact that three women were elected to the legislature and eleven women were elected to the position of county recorder. All of the women legislative candidates ran behind their tickets, which may indicate that many Utah voters were not yet willing to accept women in legislative halls. By the time Utah gained statehood, women had had some practical experience as party workers and voters. Utah women had voted in territorial days, from 1870 until they were deprived of the vote by the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887. Women had served on party committees, had formed political clubs, and had been wooed with promises of suffrage by both major parties when delegates to the 1895 constitutional convention were chosen. During the convention, delegates were often reminded of those pledges, not only by the speakers but by the determined suffragists who 3 4

Salt Lake Tribune, November 1, 1896. Ibid., October 30, 1896.

Utah Historical Quarterly crowded around the convention hall and listened to the debates with intense interest. One of the most vocal champions of woman suffrage was Orson F. Whitney, a prominent Mormon leader and historian, who pictured women's participation in politics as a giant leap toward purification of government and society. Denying that women were meant only to be mothers and housekeepers, Whitney went on to say:

I believe the day will come when t h r o u g h t h a t very refinement, the elevating a n d ennobling influence which w o m a n exerts, in conjunction with other agencies that are at work for the betterment of the world, all t h a t is base a n d unclean in Orson F. Whitney (1855-1931), politics . . . will be " b u r n t and prominent Mormon leader and purged away," and the great rehistorian, advocated woman sult will justify woman's present suffrage. Photograph from the participation in the cause of reUtah State Historical Society. form . . . . I t is w o m a n ' s destiny to have a voice in the affairs of government. She was designed for it. She has a right to it. This great social upheaval, this w o m a n ' s m o v e m e n t t h a t is m a k i n g itself heard a n d felt, means something m o r e t h a n t h a t certain women are ambitious to vote a n d hold office. I regard it as one of the great levers by which the Almighty is lifting u p this fallen world, lifting it nearer to the throne of its Creator. . . , 5

Whitney was answering the arguments of many who opposed placing the woman suffrage clause in the new constitution â&#x20AC;&#x201D; most notably the popular Mormon official and orator, B. H. Roberts. During the course of the debates over this issue, some of the misgivings about women in politics were voiced, and some of the problems of woman suffrage peculiar to Utah were brought into the open. 5 U t a h , Constitutional Convention, 1895, Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates (2 vols., Salt Lake City, 1898), I, 508. Hereafter referred to a Convention Proceedings.

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It should be realized that the woman suffrage issue was interwoven with the long MormonGentile struggle for electoral strength during the territorial period. The law granting women the vote in territorial elections was passed in 1870 with the active support of Brigham Young. It was opposed by non-Mormons generally in the territory and was challenged in territorial courts on at least two occasions. The provision of the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887 withdrawing the right of woman suffrage seems to have sprung from a desire to reduce the number of Mormon voters and to add to the weight of non-Mormons (particularly that of such single men as miners and railroad workers ) in Utah politics. Through the years, the woman suffrage movement in Utah had had the blessing of the First Presidency of the Mormon church; the wives of

Brigham H. Roberts (1857-1933), writer and politician, was a strong opponent of woman suffrage. Photograph from the Widtsoe Family Collection, Utah State Historical Society.

aspostles had been among its leaders. By 1895 the issue of woman suffrage was one that divided many â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but by no means all â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Mormons and non-Mormons. One of the main arguments of B. H. Roberts against the inclusion of woman suffrage in the constitution was that it would cause non-Mormons (as well as those Mormons who were not enthusiastic about having women vote) to vote against the new constitution and end Utah's hopes for statehood. According to Apostle Abraham H. Cannon, members of the church First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles were divided over the question of including a woman suffrage article in the state constitution, fearing that "agitation" of the issue would open old Mormon-Gentile

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political wounds and lead to the rejection of the constitution and statehood.6 There could be little fear that women would "take over" political life by sheer numbers. In 1890 United States Census reports showed that males in the territory outnumbered females by a substantial margin, 110,463 to 97,442. By 1895 the territorial census showed a population of 126,803 males and 120,521 females, still a comfortable edge for the masculine population in the unlikely event that a political issue should sharply divide the sexes.7 Instead, delegates to the convention voiced fears that women would not act independently in political life but would obey the dictation of husbands and fathers. It was also asserted that women were of a "higher" nature, not suited to enter the political jungle. Some predicted that women would lose their finer virtues and be "unsexed" in the process of gaining political rights, becoming deeply involved in political life and destroying the tranquility of their homes. No less a personage than Cardinal Gibbons was quoted by Roberts, warning against the extension of political rights to women: Christian wives and mothers, I have said you are the queens of the domestic kingdom. If you would retain that empire, shun the political arena, avoid the rostrum, beware of unsexing yourselves. If you become embroiled in political agitation the queenly aureola that encircles your brow will fade away and the reverence that is paid you will disappear. If you have the vain ambition of reigning in public life, your domestic empire will be at an end. 8

Cardinal Gibbons's remarks seem to be directed beyond the question of woman suffrage to the question of women seeking the power of political office. In 1895 no one knew how many would seek office â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or what they would try to accomplish if they won. Would they, as some predicted, lose their femininity and destroy their homes? Would they act independently or obey their husbands' wishes? Would they be militant reformers, trying to impose "radical" programs on the state? Or would they simply fail to do anything constructive if they gained political office?9 " A b r a h a m H . C a n n o n Journal ( U t a h State Historical Society), April 4, 1895. 7 Results of both enumerations reported in the Salt Lake Tribune Almanac, 1896 (Salt Lake City, 1897), xii. For more detailed information on sex and marital status in 1890 see U.S., D e p a r t m e n t of the Interior, Census Division, Abstract of the Eleventh Census: 1890 (2nd ed., Washington, D . C , 1896), 10 and 56. 8 Convention Proceedings, I, 469. 9 According to the Tribune Almanac, women wasted little time before voting and seeking office after the new state constitution was adopted. T h e Almanac for 1899 reported that Mrs. M. J. Atwood was elected school trustee in Kamas, Summit County, on J a n u a r y 9, 1896 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; just a few days after statehood day. T h e same source listed the first woman to vote in U t a h after

Utah's First Women

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Some observations relating to these questions were m a d e after less than two decades of statehood by a prominent U t a h woman, Mrs. Susa Young Gates. I n an appraisal of the effects of w o m a n suffrage in the state, she wrote that the proportion of women in office in the state at that time (1913) was small, "as most women in this state are domestic in their habits and lives; they prize the franchise and use it independently, but their attention to politics consists chiefly in their desire, nay their determination, to see that good and honorable m e n are p u t in office." 10 Mrs. Gates held no illusions that women would behave very differently in political life than m e n did, except perhaps to make political parties "extremely cautious as to the moral qualifications of their candidates," particularly where "liquor and other moral affiliations of the candidates" were concerned. 1 1 " W o m e n themselves too often make the mistake of urging that the vote will enable them to purify politics, and to reform the world," she wrote. " W h a t nonsense!" Women would do as much good as m e n would with the same rights, she said, and would do no more h a r m t h a n men would. As for the disruptive effects of equal political rights upon domestic life, Mrs, Gates denied that giving women the franchise h a d h a d any ill effects. " O n the contrary," she observed, "it tends to increase woman's poise, for she has nothing left to ask for, and so turns with delight to giving her best self, her fuller attention in the usual channels of domestic and social life, with the added zest of vital interest in civic affairs." 12 With the constitutional convention debates and the observations of Mrs. Gates in mind, the careers of the first three women elected to Utah's legislature will be examined in this article. It should be pointed out that effectiveness in a legislative body rarely can be determined by examining the official records, for they tell us little about personal influence patterns or about all-important committee work on bills. Journals of the House and Senate give little of the flavor of the debates and none of the "behind-the-scenes" activity; fortunately, some of this is brought out in newspaper reports and personal reminiscences. Evaluations must be m a d e on the basis of records and reports now available â&#x20AC;&#x201D; after the passage statehood as Mrs. George Mullins, who cast a ballot in the municipal election at Mercur on April 21, 1896. Salt Lake Tribune Almanac, 1899, 36. 10 Letter from Susa Young Gates to A r t h u r W. Page of Women's Work, answering the inquiries of a number of prominent English women as to the effects of woman suffrage, 1913. Reprinted in K a t e B. Carter, comp., Woman Suffrage in the West ([Salt Lake City], 1943), 304. 11 Ibid., 305. 12 Ibid., 306-7.

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of nearly three-quarters of a century. Within these limitations, the kinds of bills sponsored by Utah's first three women legislators will be shown, as well as the success they had in getting their measures passed and the importance of some of their efforts. Utah's two women members of the House in the Second Legislature, Eurithe K. LaBarthe of Salt Lake City and Sarah E. Anderson of Ogden, did not capture as much attention as did the more colorful state senator. However, each made her own contribution to Utah political history.

H urithe K. LaBarthe was a prominent clubwoman in Salt Lake City and the wife of an express company official. She was particularly active in the Ladies' Literary Club and was president of that group at the time she served in the legislature. Under her direction plans were made for building a clubhouse, a structure that was opened January 1, 1898. The clubhouse, located between First South and South Temple, is said to be the first clubhouse built and owned by women west of the Mississippi River. 13 Although she is usually referred to as a clubwoman â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which sometimes is a pejorative term â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Eurithe LaBarthe was also a teacher and a former principal of a school in Colorado. Perhaps because of this experience, she served as chairman of the Education Committee in the House. A native of Peoria, Illinois, she came to Utah with her husband in 1892 and became active in Democratic politics.14 After her legislative service, Mrs. LaBarthe moved to Denver, where she continued to be active in women's club work. She returned to Utah for a visit, became ill, and died in Salt Lake City on November 22, 1910, at the age of sixty-five.15 The so-called "High Hat Law" was Mrs. LaBarthe's most memorable contribution to Utah legislative history. Often cited as an example of the trivial interests women pursue in politics, the bill provided that "any person attending a theater, opera-house or an indoor place of amusement as a spectator shall remove headwear tending to obstruct the view of any other person." A fine of from one to ten dollars was provided for persons convicted of violating provisions of the act.16 13 K a t h e r i n e B. Parsons, History of Fifty Years - Ladies' Literary Club (Salt Lake City 1927), 93. " "Salt Lake Tribune, J a n u a r y 10, 1897. 15 Deseret Evening News (Salt Lake C i t y ) , November 23, 1910. 10 Original and substitute H . B. 13 in file of House Bills, 1897 ( U t a h State Archives, State C a p i t o l ) .

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The "High Hat Law" was vigorously defended by the Ladies Literary Club historian a quarter of a century after its passage:

Eurithe K. LaBarthe, Democratic member of Utah House of Representatives in 1897. Photograph from the History of Fifty Years, Ladies' Literary Club, by Katherine Barrette Parsons.

Only those who can recollect the high hats, the broad hats, the waving plumes a n d nodding flower gardens t h a t w o m e n carried about on their heads thirty years ago, a n d who remember h o w utterly impossible it was to enjoy a performance at the theatre if you h a p p e n e d to sit directly behind one of these monstrosities, can fully appreciate how great a public benefactor Mrs. L a B a r t h e really was at the time. Although t h e " H i g h H a t L a w " was regarded at first as "freak legislation" by women who were averse to removing their decorative headgear in public places, it was from the first looked u p o n with favor by men, a n d it was not a great while before it received universal a p proval. 1 7

Mrs. LaBarthe introduced H. B. 50 establishing a curfew ordinance to keep children off the streets at night. The House rejected the bill, upon recommendation of its Committee on Municipal Corporations, on the grounds that such regulations should be within the province of the governing body of cities and towns.18 She also introduced a memorial to Congress that was passed in substitute form by both houses and approved by Governor Heber M. Wells. The memorial asked that the Industrial Home on Fifth East, built by the federal government as a refuge for women and children fleeing from polygamous marriages, be granted to the State of Utah to be used for educational or charitable purposes. The memorial pointed out that the building had stood idle for several years because of "changed conditions" in the state and was badly needed by the state for educational and charitable purposes.19 Apparently Congress turned a deaf ear to the prayers of this memorial, for the building was sold a few years later. 17

Parsons, Ladies' Literary Club, 95. U t a h , Second Legislature, Journal of the House of Representatives, 1897, 145. 19 See Senate Joint Memorial 9, incorporating Mrs, LaBarthe's House Joint Memorial 6 in file of Memorials, 1897 ( U t a h State Archives). 18

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O a r a h Elizabeth Nelson Anderson of Ogden, Utah's other woman House member in the Second Legislature, was described by a writer for the Ogden Standard as "naturally a strong woman, mentally and physically," and as "one of the most prominent and popular women in Ogden city and Weber county." 20 A legislative colleague, S. A. Kenner, wrote that she was a staunch advocate of equality of man and woman. Her political views were not marked with wavering indecision, he noted, but were thoroughly formed and remained firm. "Yet she did not lose her sweet, womanly repose," he added â&#x20AC;&#x201D; perhaps for the benefit of those who felt that women politicians inevitably would lose their feminine charm. 21 A Tribune writer took pains to point out that she was "not what might be termed a clubwoman, her large property interests and her home life with her children occupying the greater portion of her time." The writer added that she took time for reading and study and was "remarkably well posted on matters of current interest and public concern." 22 Born in 1853, Sarah married an Ogden physician, Dr. Porter L. Anderson, at the age of seventeen. He died in 1888, leaving her with five children. She died on December 22, 1900. Her major contribution to Utah political history was not her legislative record but her part in a lawsuit that threw Utah's registration procedures into turmoil briefly in 1895. As has been noted, Utah women were deprived of the franchise in 1887 by the Edmunds-Tucker Act. The Enabling Act passed by Congress in 1894 provided for the election of delegates for a constitutional convention by "all male citizens over the age of twenty-one years, who have resided in said Territory for one year next prior to such election . . . . " Delegates to the convention were required to have the same qualifications.23 The Enabling Act seemed to make it clear in Section 2 that voting on the ratification or rejection of the new constitution should be confined to "persons possessing the qualifications entitling them to vote for dele20

Standard (Ogden, U t a h ) , December 22, 1900. S. A. Kenner, Utah As It Is. With a Comprehensive Statement of Utah As It Was (Salt Lake City, 1904), 451. 22 Salt Lake Tribune, J a n u a r y 10, 1897. 23 Convention Proceedings, I, 3. T h e text of the Enabling Act is contained therein, I, 3-8. 21

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gates under this act," or male voters only. However, the Act stated in Section 4 that the "qualified voters of said proposed State" should vote in November for or against the constitution, and women were clearly part of the "qualified voters" of the new state under the new constitution. The act further provided in Section 19 that officers for a state government might be elected during the ratification election, but gave no instructions as to eligible voters.24 The Utah Commission, a federally appointed board that had conducted elections in Utah since the Edmunds Act of 1882, was to make up the regi- Sarah E. Anderson, member of stration list for the election of 1895, the House of Representatives of Utah's Second Legislature. in which voters would accept or re- Photograph furnished by ject the new constitution and choose the author. a slate of state officers. The provisions of the Enabling Act soon came into question, for some women were asking to be registered, and the often-unpopular federal commissioners apparently did not want to have to interpret the law. They suggested that all female electors be registered in alphabetical order on separate pages, so as to be readily distinguished.25 The commission was relieved of its unhappy burden of decision when Sarah Anderson appeared at the office of Deputy Register Charles Tyree in Ogden's Second Precinct on August 6. Mrs. Anderson asked to be registered to vote both on the ratification of the constitution and on the election of a slate of officers for the new state; Tyree refused to register her on the ground that she was a female. The next day, Mrs. Anderson went to court, seeking a writ of mandate to compel Tyree to register her. The battery of lawyers acting on Mrs. Anderson's behalf â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or perhaps using her as part of a scheme to show Democratic sympathy for woman suffrage (as the Republican Ogden Standard asserted) â&#x20AC;&#x201D;included a number of prominent Democrats. Attorneys bringing the action included both MorIbid., 4, 5, 8. Deseret Evening News, July 23, 1895.

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mons and non-Mormons, notably Franklin S. Richards, Samuel R. Thurman, and H . P. Henderson. 2 6 Sarah Anderson won the first round. Judge H . W. Smith of the District Court in O g d e n ruled that women were qualified not only to vote for state officers but on adoption or rejection of the constitution as well, and he ordered Tyree to register Mrs. Anderson. 2 7 T h e case was promptly appealed to the territorial Supreme Court by Tyree's equally prominent attorneys, which included Attorney A r t h u r Brown, later to be a Republican United States senator from U t a h . T w o of the three justices agreed with Brown that Mrs. Anderson h a d not been enfranchised by the Enabling Act. T h e M o r m o n member of the court, Associate Justice William H . King (later a Democratic congressman and senator from U t a h ) offered a dissenting opinion. 28 Utah's women h a d to wait until after statehood to vote â&#x20AC;&#x201D; although their hopes h a d been raised while the case was being appealed. During this time the Republicans in their state convention h a d nominated a woman to run for state superintendent of public instruction in case women should receive the franchise. 29 Sarah Anderson served as chairman of the House Committee on Public Health, which handled a number of important bills. However, she does not seem to have been active in introducing and getting her own bills passed. She introduced one bill (H.B. 39) regarding police and fire commissioners that was killed by an unfavorable committee report. She also introduced H . B. 26 to provide for teaching the effects of alcoholic drink and narcotics in schools. A substitute bill with these provisions was incorporated in the state's revised statutes. 30

T. M a r t h a Hughes Cannon is the best known and most Utah's women politicians of her era. 3 1 Born on July 1, 1857, dno, Wales, she came to U t a h with her parents as a young father died only three days after the family's arrival in Salt 26

colorful of in Llanduchild. H e r Lake City,

Standard, August 7, 1895. Deseret Evening News, July 23, 1895. 28 Anderson v. Tyree, 12 U t a h Reports 129 ( 1 8 9 5 ) . 29 Deseret Evening News, August 29, 1895. Mrs. E m m a J. McVicker was nominated, with Dr. J o h n R. Park as a substitute to run if women were denied the right to vote and run for office. Dr. Park's name was placed on the ballot after the Supreme Court ruled in the Anderson case, and he was elected. 30 See file of House Bills, 1897 ( U t a h State Archives). 31 Several biographical articles on Dr. Cannon have been published. D a t a herein, unless otherwise cited, is from an unpublished manuscript by her daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth C. McCrimmon, in the U t a h State Historical Society library, and from Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia (4 vols., Salt Lake City, 1 9 0 1 - 1 9 3 6 ) , I V , 86-88, 27

Utah's First Women

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and her mother married a widower, James P. Paul. Despite the family's limited means, she dreamed of studying to become a physician. T o realize this goal she saved as much as she could from her salary as a school teacher and later as a typesetter for the Deseret Evening News and the Woman's Exponent. She had been "called" by the First Presidency of the L.D.S. Church for the typesetting position and h a d learned to set Scandinavian type in order to earn higher wages. In 1876 she enrolled in the pre-medical department of the University of Deseret. T w o years later she was blessed and "set a p a r t " by L.D.S. church President John Taylor for medical studies. Arriving at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1878 with slender financial resources, she began her studies, washing dishes and making beds at a boardinghouse to help defray costs. She graduated with the M . D . degree on her twenty-third birthday, July 1, 1880. Feeling that training in oratory would enable her to be more effective as a lecturer on public health, she went to Philadelphia and enrolled in both the University of Pennsylvania and the National School of Elocution and Oratory. In 1882 she received a Bachelor of Science degree from the university, the only woman in a class of seventy-five. She also received a Bachelor of Oratory degree from the school of elocution. After returning to U t a h she built a private medical practice and served as a resident physician at Deseret Hospital. O n October 6, 1884, she became the fourth wife of Angus M . Cannon, a m a n who was twentythree years her senior and a member of the board of the hospital. After the birth of her first child, she left the state in an effort to permit her husband to avoid imprisonment by federal authorities. She went to Europe, where she visited leading hospitals; after returning to U t a h she established the first training school for nurses in the state. W h e n her second child was born she again left her medical practice to live in San Francisco. O n her return she resumed her practice, specializing in the diseases of women and children. Mattie Cannon, as she was usually known, became an ardent Democrat and also played an active role in the woman suffrage movement. Before her election to the Senate she was active in suffrage groups in U t a h and spoke at a national suffrage meeting at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. In 1898 she went to Washington, D . C , to speak at a convention marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Seneca Falls declaration of women's rights and appeared before a congressional committee urging the lawmakers to give women the vote. Of this convention Dr.

Utah Historical

Quarterly

: if

Senate and staff of Utah's Second Legislature. Dr. Martha first woman state senator in the United States, is standing Senator John T. Caine and President of the Senate Aquila The other two women are clerks. Photograph was a gift of Mrs. Elizabeth McCrimmon.

Hughes Cannon, between Nebeker.

Cannon wrote to her friend, Emmeline B. Wells, that "Utah received her full share of honor and recognition, and was acknowledged to be in the vanguard of progress. On every occasion was her representative treated in the most courteous and considerate manner." 32 Dr. Cannon's strong Democratic party loyalties were evident in the same letter when she described President William McKinley as "a great man, notwithstanding he is not a Democrat." 33 ^McCrimmon MS, 17. Ibid.

Angus Munn Cannon, church leader and businessman, was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the Utah State Senate in 1896. Photograph was a gift of Elizabeth McCrimmon.

Utah's First Women Legislators

Because of her unique position as a physician, state senator, and plural wife, Mattie Cannon was the subject of several interviews by writers for leading publications. She was described by the English socialist, Beatrice Webb, as a "vivacious frank little Senator . . . ." Mrs. Webb's appraisal continued: She was such a self-respectful vigourous pure-minded little soul: sensitive yet unself-conscious, indiscreet yet loyal. She had no training for the political career she had chosen, and I suspect her medical knowledge was as fragmentary as her economics. As a citizen I should doubt her wisdom as a legislator â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and as a patient I certainly should not trust her skill in diagnosing my case. But as a friend I should rely on her warm sympathy and freedom from the meaner motives of life.34

As usual, Dr. Cannon strongly defended polygamy in the Webb interview. She also offered a firm defense of plural marriage when she was interviewed a few days after her election by a writer for the San Francisco Examiner. Dr. Cannon maintained that a plural wife was not as much a slave as a single woman. She noted that "If her husband has four wives, she has three weeks of freedom every single month." She was firm in her defense of women working and engaging in worthwhile activities outside of the home: Somehow I know that women who stay home all the time have the most unpleasant homes there are. You give me a woman who thinks about something besides cook stoves and wash tubs and baby flannels, and I'll show you, nine times out of ten, a successful mother.

She said she felt women should run for political offices, except perhaps for such offices as governor â&#x20AC;&#x201D; they were too "mannish." 35 It is unlikely that Mattie Cannon was ever described as "mannish." She was frequently described by her contemporaries as attractive, charming, and completely feminine. With the charm went an independent spirit; she had a mind of her own and interests of her own to pursue in her legislative career. Not even the redoubtable Angus M. Cannon could control her vote. When she took her seat in the Senate at the opening of the Second Legislature on January 11, 1897, it was noted in the Tribune that she was a little late arriving, and that a handsome bouquet of roses adorned her desk.36 Within a month she had introduced three bills: "An Act to 34 David A. 1963), 134-35. 35 Interview Salt Lake Herald, 30 Salt Lake

Shannon, ed., Beatrice

Webb's

American

published in the San Francisco Examiner, November 11, 1896. Tribune, J a n u a r y 12, 1897.

Diary,

1898

(Madison, Wisconsin,

November 8, 1896, reprinted in the

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Quarterly

Protect the Health of Women and Girl Employees" (S.B. 31), "An Act Providing for the Compulsory Education of Deaf, Dumb and Blind Children" (S.B. 22), and "An Act Creating a State Board of Health and Defining its Duties" (S.B. 27). The first made it mandatory for employers to provide "chairs, stools, or other contrivances" where women or girls employed as clerks might rest when not working." 37 The second made education of deaf, dumb, or blind children at the state school mandatory (with certain exceptions) ,38 The third measure was the one in which Dr. Cannon was most vitally involved, since her interest in sanitation and public health had provided much of the motivation for her entry into politics. The act became part of the revised statutes that were compiled by a special commission and provided the basis for a statewide attack on problems of sanitation and contagious disease.39 The act established a seven-member State Board of Health to stimulate and encourage establishment of local boards of health and to carry out a number of other functions designed to improve sanitary conditions, water supply, and disease control. Dr. Cannon was one of the first members appointed by Governor Wells to the board, all unpaid except the secretary. The annual report of the new health board makes it clear that Dr. Cannon and other members had a difficult and frustrating first year in 1898 trying to get apathetic local officials to organize boards of health and to get public support for enforcement of a law prohibiting school attendance of children with contagious diseases.40 It was also clear that more legislation, with "teeth" for enforcement, was needed. During the second half of her four-year Senate term, in the Third Legislature in 1899, Dr. Cannon introduced an act that contained much needed rules and regulations in a number of public health areas. The act (S.B. 40) provided for the suppression of nuisances and contagious diseases, prescribed quarantine rules and regulations, provided for burial permits, promoted protection of water supplies, and established rules for inspection of school buildings and exclusion of persons with contagious or infectious diseases from schools.41 Another measure relating to health introduced by Dr. Cannon in the Third Legislature (S.B. 1) authorized the erection of a hospital build87

U t a h , Laws of Utah, 1897, Ch. X I , 24-25. Ibid., Ch. X X , 36. 39 U t a h , Revised Statutes, 1898, Title 24, 315-18. 40 See U t a h , Public Documents, 1897-98, Sec. 22, " R e p o r t of the State Board of Health." 41 U t a h , Public Documents, 1899-1900, Sec. 22, " R e p o r t of the State Board of H e a l t h " 38

4-8.

Utah's First Women Legislators

ing for the Utah State School for the Deaf and Dumb. A member of the board of the school until she resigned to serve on the newly created State Board of Health, Dr. Cannon was a sympathetic supporter of the school.42 Another bill she introduced in 1899 providing for the teaching in the public schools of the effects of alcholic drinks and narcotics (S.B. 37) was passed by the Senate but defeated in the House. She spent considerable time studying narcotics problems; perhaps her suggestions for extensive education on drug problems would meet with a more favorable response today. Mattie Cannon was expecting her third child during the 1899 session. She was sometimes absent from roll-call votes during the long balloting for United States senator but generally seems to have been present to pursue her interests and to serve as chairman of the Public Health Committee. Any fears that women legislators would accept the dictation of their husbands were unfounded in the case of Mattie Cannon. Her daughter reports that in 1897 Angus M. Cannon was upset because she had voted for the excommunicated Mormon apostle, Moses Thatcher, for United States senator against his wishes and in the face of strong opposition by Mormon church leaders. 43 His annoyance may have been compounded by the publicity his wife received when she switched her vote to Thatcher. During the first part of the prolonged balloting for senator by the two houses in joint session, Mattie Cannon appeared to be staying out of the battle, voting first for Senate President Aquila Nebeker, and later for a Democratic attorney, Orlando W. Powers. On the forty-third ballot on February 1, she suddenly switched her vote to Moses Thatcher, explaining that she feared a prolonged deadlock might mean the entrance of "an inferior dark horse, backed by Republican influence and gold . . . who might be elected." 44 The Tribune the next day ran a large frontpage story with a two-column drawing of Dr. Cannon. "Senator Cannon prefaced her vote with an address so eloquent that despite parliamentary decorum and the rigid rules against demonstrations she was cheered and cheered again at its conclusion," the Tribune reported on February 2. She stayed with Thatcher through the fifty-third and final ballot, when Joseph L. Rawlins was elected by a bare majority of thirty-two. Another United States senator was to be elected in 1899 during the Third Legislature. Again, according to her daughter, she defied her hus42

Bill as amended in file of Senate Bills, 1899 (Utah State Archives). Interview with Mrs. Elizabeth C McCrimmon. 44 Salt Lake Tribune, February 2, 1899. 43

Utah Historical Quarterly

band's wishes as well as the pleas of a charming and persuasive nephew, Senator Frank J. Cannon. Elected as a Republican in 1896, Frank J. Cannon faced an uphill fight for re-election in 1899 by an overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature. Needing every possible vote, he visited his Democratic aunt and asked her to support him. She refused, telling him that she could not vote for a Republican since she had been elected on the Democratic ticket. He left Dr. Mattie's home by the back door, feeling "quite depressed" by her refusal.45 The Senate and House members struggled unsucessfully through 164 ballots trying to find a candidate on whom 32 members could agree. Near the end, Angus M. Cannon's brother, George Q. Cannon, counselor in the First Presidency of the Mormon church and father of Frank J., entered the race. He did not receive Mattie Cannon's vote, either. She voted from the beginning to the end of the balloting for the millionaire mining man, Alfred W. McCune, apparently unimpressed by charges (investigated by a special committee but not proved) that he tried to bribe a House member. She proved to be a highly independent woman in a body full of legislators too independent to reach a common decision in 1899. The end result of all this independence was that one of Utah's seats in the United States Senate remained vacant. Mattie Cannon did not run for office after her term expired. She continued to serve on the State Board of Health and to practice medicine. During the last years of her life, she lived in Los Angeles, where she worked in the Graves Clinic. She died in Los Angeles July 10, 1932, and was buried in Salt Lake City. The main funeral speaker was none other than B. H. Roberts, who had predicted dire consequences if women were given the vote â&#x20AC;&#x201D; to say nothing of entering office. Both faithful Democrats, Mattie Cannon and Roberts had become good friends over the years since the constitutional convention.

U t a h ' s first three women legislators did not reform the state overnight; they did not even attempt to do so. They were typical of the earnest suffragists of their times, with political aims not markedly different from those of their male colleagues. They showed, perhaps, a greater concern for women, children, and the phyiscally handicapped. However, they left to the Populists the introduction of most of the labor 45 M c C r i m m o n interview. Dr. C a n n o n received several "courtesy votes" for United States senator from her colleagues in 1897 a n d one vote for senator in 1899.

Utah's First Women Legislators

and "progressive" legislation, apparently having little inclination to sponsor sweeping reforms. Dr. Cannon was able, because of her professional training, to help the state move forward in the area of public health. But even in this area, the approach was one of "gradualism," moving at a moderate rate and seeking to build public support. Except for the memorial asking for the Industrial Home, the three women legislators did not sponsor any of the many pieces of legislation that sought favors or funds from the federal government. If some of their bills seem trivial â&#x20AC;&#x201D; notably the "High Hat Law" â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a day-by-day reading of the legislative journals shows that their colleagues also introduced much legislation that was equally trivial and catered to parochial interests. In short, their legislative records need neither a contrived defense nor unwarranted praise. They were about the same as those of their fellow legislators, containing both the significant and the relatively unimportant. Governor Wells was reported by Beatrice Webb to have said that the women in the Senate and House in 1897 had not accomplished anything except a law prohibiting large hats at places of amusement. And this law, he added, had been passed "out of courtesy" by the men. 40 Perhaps he signed it for the same reason. If the governor ignored the more substantial victories of the women legislators, he inadvertently made a vital point about women in politics before the turn of the century â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and perhaps today as well. They were always reliant upon the "courtesy" of the men. With militant tactics they would have accomplished nothing. With quiet charm and gentle persuasion they contributed much to Utah's Second Legislature. 46

Shannon, American

Diary,

130.

Give us the power and we'll dispel, The reign of tyrants born of hell: From men's unblushing demon deeds, Her earnest soul for freedom pleads. (Woman's

Exponent,

22 [January 15, 1894], 81.)

Magerou: The Greek Midwife

BY H E L E N Z. PAPANIKOLAS

Magerou and Nick Mageras in their later years. Photograph furnished by Mrs. John Klekas and Mrs. L. O. McMichael.

than a hundred years ago, a baby girl born in a PeloA ponnesian village of Greece was fated, in the idiom of the Greeks, to leave LITTLE MORE

her country, to come to a land called Utah, and to become a legend among its South European immigrants. Often from the time she was a child, the girl, Georgia Lathouris, was sent up the mountains beyond her village to bring a bundle of bread and cheese for her father and brothers pasturing goats there. As she climbed a mountain slope one day in her fourteenth year, she heard a voice calling. In the entrance to one of the many caves on the mountain, a woman stood, calling and beckoning to her. She was frightened and began to run; it was a Nereid, she was sure, one of the beautiful creatures of glens and woods whom it was dangerous to follow. The voice called insistently, "Don't leave me! Come, come!" Cautiously the girl approached. The woman was not a Nereid but from the village and in great distress. She had been gathering wheat when labor pains had started. The girl followed her into the dark cave and with the woman's guidance, delivered the baby. From then on she was affectionately called "Mami" the Midwife. In the following years she attended other women in her village of Ahladokambos (Pear Valley), a scattering of white stone houses and a few trees set in an arid landscape much like that of Utah where she would live for a half-century. To midwifing she added folk cures. The village was poor, and she was paid in wheat and flour. The Mami's family could not provide her with a dowry, the means destitute countries used to distribute their little wealth. Centuries of foreign rule, the Revolution of 1821 to free themselves from Turkish despotism, and the resulting chaos when the energies of the country were unrealistically channeled into futile attempts to regain their lands lost to the Turks and other European powers had drained their resources. The little Mami, small, yet of great energy, was destined to remain unmarried and at the summons of the sick and of women fortunate to be wives and mothers. But the young midwife's fate, which in Greek folklore is decided by the Three Fates during the child's first three days of life, was favorable. For the first time since Greece had been conquered by the Turks in 1453, a premier, Charilaos Trikoupes, came to power intent on reconstruction of the country. 1 Greece lacked people with technical skills, and foreigners Mrs. Papanikolas, a resident of Salt Lake City, is a former contributor to the Quarterly a n d presently serves on the Advisory Board of Editors of the U t a h State Historical Society. 1 L. S. Stavrianos, The Balkans Since 1453 (New York, 1 9 6 6 ) , 472.

Utah Historical

Quarterly

came into the country to head construction crews. O n e of these foremen was a tall, young Austrian, Nikos Mageras. H e was sent to the Mami's village to build a bridge over a nearby river. Nikos h a d been a wanderer since the age of fourteen. His mother h a d died, and his father h a d married again. R a t h e r than accept his stepmother, the boy left his town of Gospic, Austria, and traveled through Russia, Asia Minor, and the Balkans. O n his journeys he h a d learned several languages and the principles of mechanical construction. Young people of the village who were not pasturing the family goats and sheep in the mountains found work on Nikos Mageras's labor crew. T h e Mami was among them. T h e foundations of the bridge were built of stone, and the young people brought the plentiful rocks of the land to the construction site. Soon after work was begun, the foreman went with the Mami to her parents' house. H e asked to marry her and waived his rights to the traditional dowry. After their marriage, Nikos continued building wherever there was work in the Peloponnese. Four children were born during a time of great national instability. By the end of the century, Greece's financial and political problems brought the country to national bankruptcy in 1893, humiliating defeat by the Turks in 1897, and impositions of foreign financial control in 1898. 2 All over the Peloponnese, bankrupt peasants were uprooting their currant bushes. Currants, the principle export of Greece, h a d fallen in price seventy per cent in the year 1893. 3 T h e precarious position of the peasants in Greece was now perilous. T h e building of roads and bridges under the Trikoupes regime was halted. T h e exodus of young men to escape the hunger and desolation of their mother country had always been constant, but now thousands were leaving to find work to help their families provide dowries and to pay off usurious mortgages. While Greece and other Balkan and Mediterranean countries were struggling desperately, America was just beginning to develop her immense and varied resources. Early emigrants returned to their native lands as labor agents and emptied villages and seaports of idle men and boys for work gangs. 4 In 1902 Nikos signed a contract with one of these labor agents. H e left his family and taking forty Greeks from all parts of the country, 2

Ibid., 467, 468. "Ibid., 472. 4 Theodore Saloutos, The Greeks in the United States Chapter 2.

(Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1964),

Magerou, The Greek Midwife

went to Fresno, California, to lay track for the Santa Fe Railroad. His goal was to save enough money to bring his wife and children to America. Three years later he met an Austrian he had known in Gospic who told him that his brother and several cousins were working at Utah Copper Mine in Bingham and at the Magna Mill. Nikos, now called Nick, took time off to visit Utah to see his relatives and decided that the Midvale- Bingham- Magna area was a profitable place for a business. In that year of 1905 there were two thousand Greek men in Salt Lake County,5 and each day more came. There had been only three Greeks in Utah in 1900.6 The 1903 coal mine strike in Carbon County brought Greeks into Utah in large numbers. These newest of European immigrants were unaware that an employer could be challenged as to wages, long hours, and working conditions. The Wyoming Labor Journal said: ". . . American and English speaking miners were driven from these camps. . . . The corporations considered Greeks better adapted to their needs than others and encouraged the employ of these by the hundreds." 7 Greek labor agents advertising in Greek newspapers published in America and in Greece had an inexhaustible supply of countrymen for the West. Broadinghouses were needed in every company town. Nick opened a boardinghouse in Snaketown, west of Magna, the present tailings pond of the Garfield smelter. Greeks and other nationalities lived there in make-shift houses and tents. Nick offered food, lodging, and a convenient saloon. The boardinghouse was a success with laborers, but not with a wellknown Greek labor agent and his underlings. The labor agent had become powerful; at will he could decide who would be hired by the mine, mill, and smelter; how much tribute he would take from the men's wages; and where the laborers would trade. The boardinghouse was burned down. Nick rented a second boardinghouse below the Magna firehouse of today. This was also destroyed by fire. The vendetta continued. The third boardinghouse, situated across the street from the present powerhouse, was set on fire at eleven o' clock on a payday night while Nick was in Salt Lake City attending to his duties as a representative for the Salt Lake Brewery. Thirty-five hundred dollars in gold and silver hidden in a trunk 5

Thomas Burgess, Greeks in America (Boston, 1913), 165. U.S., Bureau of the Census, A Report of the Seventeenth United States Census of Population: 1950, Vol. I I , Characteristics 44, Utah (Washington, D. C , 1952), p. 29. 7 Wyoming Labor Journal (Cheyenne), J u n e 16, 1922. 6

Decennial Census of the of the Population Part

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Quarterly

was melted into a mass. The money was Nick's savings for his family's future in America. 8 At the time of the fire, the family was on their way to Utah. It was 1909, seven years after Nick had left them. Adhering to propriety, he had sent a friend to bring his family to America. The family settled in Snaketown among three other Greek families. Two of these had German immigrant mothers who had learned to speak Greek. In the entire state there were fewer than ten Greek women, but Greek men and boys were streaming in to work on the railroad gangs, in the coal mines, the Midvale smelter, the Garfield smelter, the Magna mill, and the copper mines of Bingham. Few of the men were married. Their families had sacrificed necessities to send them to America to fulfill the responsibility of providing dowries for their sisters. When this was accomplished and their parents helped, they could then send for picture brides. Living in boardinghouses and shacks, the young men were extremely susceptible to disease. The influx of immigrants was overwhelming; their living conditions were not considered the concern of employers and townspeople. In tent colonies and shacks built by the workers from powder boxes and scrap lumber, water and sewage disposal were hazards. In response to angry editorials in Greece, a Greek woman journalist visited Utah mining towns in 1914. It would take, she wrote, the pen of Edgar Allan Poe to describe the horrors of the Greek immigrant worker's life. R. C. Gemmel, general manager of Utah Copper Company, replied to her complaints and demands that proper housing and hospitals be built for the Greeks and other immigrants: "They choose their own habitations. And if we built them new quarters, they would prefer to stay where they are." 9 The journalist found that the workers were afraid of the company doctors. Although a dollar a month was deducted from their wages for medical care, they felt they were coldly treated, like animals, not human beings. Amputations were hastily performed. This was the men's great fear. Three to five hundred dollars were paid for the loss of an arm or a leg. Uneducated as the laborers were, an amputation was the end of selfreliance and the beginning of descent into penury. 8 T h e biographical notes on the midwife were obtained from her daughters, Mrs. John Klekas and Mrs. L. O. McMichael, and several of her friends. 9 M a r i a S. Oikonomidou, Oi Ellines tis Amerikis Opos Tous Eida [The Greeks in America as I Saw Them] (New York, 1916), 85.

Magerou, The Greek

Midwife

The midwife, called since her marriage Magerou, the genitive form of Mageras, was eager to help her sick countrymen. When she heard of someone's illness, she relayed advice through her husband or others who came to his saloon. She often answered a knock on her door and opened it to find a sick man or boy. Long before the Greek men brought wives to America, they knew and respected Magerou. The small cluster of Greek families grew, and Magerou was the matriarch. She was often the matchmaker, too. As the men married, she was there, smiling, helping to lay out the wedding feast while the men clasped hands and danced to old-country songs of courage under Turkish bondage. She was there to attend at the birth of children and there to administer folk cures. She spoke as she felt and used Greek curses and proverbs liberally. "Too much Kyrie Eleison wearies even God." "Better to have a wise enemy than a foolish friend." Not only Greek, but Italian, Austrian, and Slavic women called Magerou at all hours. They preferred her to the company doctors. As the immigrants in American labor life became an increasing influence, industry was forced to improve living conditions; a new generation of medical school graduates came to the company towns with an interest, some with sympathy, for the immigrants. Although the young husbands Ragtown, near the site of present-day Magna, in the first decade of the century. This was one of the towns settled by Greek immigrants to Utah. Photograph from the Utah State Historical Society.

:, ,:-:^:,

«!£,«• r f W ! * * « . f f ^ J ^ * * ^ MMM,ff:

Utah Historical Quarterly

quickly accepted the authority of these doctors, they could not persuade their wives to be delivered by them. Life in the new country had affected the women immediately. The traditional sign of modesty for married village women, the white or black head scarf, was out-of-place in America, an invitation to gaping. Husbands forbade them. Women wore them only about their houses and yards. They wore hats to church and to town. Hats, the symbol of educated town and city women of Greece, were now theirs. The appearance of the immigrant mothers changed drastically, but not their ideas. Modesty impelled them to ask the midwife, not American men doctors, to attend them. Magerou, then, ruled over the birth of children, the proper realm of midwives. She did not lose a mother or child in her long years of practice. If she detected an abnormal pregnancy, she insisted that a doctor be called and took the lesser role of assistant. Cleanliness was a compulsion with her. Early each morning she performed a ritual of washing herself, combing her hair into a bun at the top of her head, and dressing in clean cottons to be ready for any call. She was continually mopping and airing her house: "Soap and water are too cheap in America to be dirty." The water pumps, at easy access even in camps like Snaketown and Ragtown, were a marvel to her. There was no longer the arduous work of bringing water from the village well, often only a thin stream. Regularly pregnant herself, Magerou took care of her women patients with the efficiency of a contemporary obstetrician. While olive oil and baby blankets were kept warm in coal stove ovens, she boiled cloths, kept water hot, cut her fingernails, scrubbed her arms and hands well, and after observing American doctors using alcohol and rubber gloves, she added these to her accoutrements. Women clamored for Magerou. Small though she was, her voice carried through the neighborhoods, exhorting, shouting, "Scream! Push! You've got a baby in there, not a pea in a pod!" Once the baby was born, Magerou gave her entire time to the newly delivered mother, the lehona, and to the baby. She neither cooked nor took care of the rest of the family. From the backyard she chose the plumpest chicken, simmered broth, stood over the mother forcing her to wash and to dress in a clean housedress, combed her long hair, and twisted it into a knot. For the first time in her life, the woman knew what it was to be pampered. The autocratic young husbands were reduced to errand boys.

Magerou,

The Greek Midwife

"Bring plenty of butter. The lehona needs butter for strength! Send a ton of coal. The lehona musn't catch cold! Go to J.C. Penney and buy a robe. The lehona must be warm!" A legion of immigrant mothers wore J.C. Penney robes made of blankets stamped with Indian designs. When the mother and baby were taken to church, the mother to be "cleansed" of the Biblical forty-days' uncleanliness, the baby to be blessed as Christ was, Magerou's duties were fulfilled. The early twenties were the days of her greatest activity. Still new in America, the immigrants depended on folk cures. Some of these had a physiological basis; others were unexplainable, and the victim or his relatives' faith in them produced psychological healing. The Evil Eye was a common complaint. A child would suddenly fall into lassitude. Unexplained fevers brought on convulsions; or he whined, cried and was sleepless. Someone with the Evil Eye had looked on the child with envy. Magerou used several prescriptions: three pinches of livdni (powdered resin, an incense burned on Saturdays to purify houses for the Sabbath) in water, or three drops of holy water, or three symbolic spittings (three, the holy number representing the Trinity) all accompanied by the Lord's Prayer. Hot red wine and powdered cloves, tea and whiskey, mustard plasters on the chest, back, and soles of the feet cured pneumonia and bronchial infections. Olive oil softened burned skin. For soufra (rickets) Magerou burned a bay leaf with a blessed candle leaving only the stem. On three different moonless nights, she touched each joint with the stem. Bleeding was a favorite remedy of the midwife's and she used it for almost every ailment, especially infections. In America there was no need to search in ponds for leeches; drugstores sold them. For respiratory infections, Magerou applied vendouzis. She heated water glasses with a tuft of burning cotton and placed them on the patient's back. The heat and pressure inside the glass drew up the flesh. If the patient were very ill, Magerou cut crosses in the swelled flesh to drain off the "bad" blood. To cure jaundice she made a small cut with a razor blade in the thin string of flesh connecting the inside of the upper lip with the tissue above the teeth. For abdominal pain attributed to a spleen that had grown and "traveled," Magerou nicked the skin of the abdomen drawing black blood and forcing the spleen to "go backwards." To stop bleeding Magerou used a small amount of soap or the scrapings of the inside of a leather belt on the wound, then applied pressure and a bandage. One of her most successful cures was called pakia

Utah Historical Quarterly

for backache presumably from pressure on the kidneys. The patient lay face down. Magerou clutched the flesh at the small of the back and deftly lifted. A small crack was heard, and the backache was gone. For colds and influenzas the midwife used vizikdnti, a powdered Spanish fly that produced blisters on the skin. With a quick twist of her fingers, Magerou broke the blisters and the "uncleanness" in the body broke out. The midwife was noted for Magerou, matriarch of the first setting bones. She mixed powderGreek families who settled in the Midvaleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Binghamâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Magna area. ed resin and egg white with clean Photograph furnished by sheared wool and bound this over Mrs. John Klekas and Mrs. L. O. McMichael. the set bones with cloth. A son was thrown off a horse in front of the Magna post office. While six people held him, his mother set the broken arm and applied her cast. Magerou used no anesthetics except whiskey. Whatever whiskey was left over, she poured on her hair to make it strong and to take away headaches. Two men owed their legs to her. A Greek baker in Garfield had mashed his knee; the surgeon decided to amputate. The baker left the doctor's office and went to Magerou. She used her remedies and "in a week the baker was walking about." A justice of the peace had crushed his leg at Mercur and sought the midwife's help rather than submit to an amputation. Again she was able to save a leg. In the second and third decade of the century, Greek brides came in increasing numbers. Magerou's name was known by all. Babies were brought to her from distances after doctors had despaired of them. Sometimes she traveled to families; she spent four months with one Nevada family whose mother had died. During these years the Mageras family moved several times, to Murray, Tooele, and again to Magna. Wherever she went, patients followed.

Magerou, The Greek Midwife

The Magna Greek Town became established in the western side of the town. All of the houses had gardens, and the mothers delighted in the plentiful irrigation water that ran down the alleys of the back yards. Magerou spent her spare time tending her garden. The canning of fruit and vegetables, unknown in Greece and only just now being introduced there because of the prohibitive expense of bottles and caps, was another joy to her. Magerou prepared well for her large family. When making hilopetes, thin egg noodles cut in small squares, she began by breaking thirty dozen eggs. As the immigrants lived longer in America, they began to call in the local doctors. Also Magerou found that what she had been doing was called "practicing medicine without a license." She began assisting doctors in deliveries, more often than being in charge herself. At times babies were born before the doctor arrived, and he had only to sign the birth certificate. Several doctors delivered the babies and left Magerou to cut the cord and to finish the process. Among the doctors she worked for were: Drs. Russell Owens, George McBride, T. C. Weggeland, Stephen Netolicky, Dean A. Moffat, Phillips M. Chase, Burton Musser, and much later, Owen Reese. They called her "Mamma" or "Grandma" and understood her version of English. The large number of births among the immigrant people coincided with an increasing prejudice against these "unassimilable aliens." The anti-immigrant propaganda of the World War I years and the earlytwenties' campaigns against the South European immigrants by newspapers, the American Legion, and the Ku Klux Klan completely turned the isolate Greeks inward. Hostility exploded into night raids through Greek Town, crosses burning on the foothills of the Qquirrh Mountains, and Klan marches from the graveyard down through Main Street. The mothers became afraid to call in the American doctors. Whisperings became hysterical fears: the doctors could be Klan members themselves. Many women returned to Magerou. For those who remained faithful to their doctors, Magerou, instinctively protective of them, minimized the importance of the Klan, even after a group of young Greeks followed the marchers to the town park and tore off their robes. "Leading citizens" were exposed. The Klan's influence waned and slowly relationships were restored. Children of Klan members and those of immigrants formed lasting friendships during the Depression years. For the majority of Greek mothers, however, the pattern set by their Greek Town enclave and the

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events of those years was never altered; their husbands, children, and Magerou were their only tenuous link with non-Greek life. Magerou's life, in contrast, was not diminished by the prejudice she found in America. She had faith in time's solution to problems. The many pictures of her show a smiling, serene woman appearing much younger than she was. The Mideastern ach and hand-wringing against Fate had barely brushed her nature. She was stoic over the deaths of her own infants and family reverses. She endured without knowing that she did. The feast days of her church gave her life order and happiness. The Mageras family celebrated each holiday twice. Magerou was Greek Orthodox; her husband Roman Catholic. The children born in Greece were baptized in the Greek Orthodox church. The children born in America were baptized in the Catholic church. The Greek Orthodox church in Salt Lake City was consecrated in 1905, but the eighteen miles of travel were a hardship. The household observed both the Julian Calendar of the Eastern Orthodox and the Gregorian Calendar of the Roman Catholics. The traditional lamb of the Greeks was followed by the roasted pig of Austrian Christmases and Easters. A few weeks before New Years, the family planted wheat in a coffee can. According to Austrian folklore, if the wheat was up by New Years Day, a good year would follow. Candles were lighted about the can of green shoots and placed on the dinner table. On Greek Easters, Nick Mageras butchered lambs at his daughter's farm for many Greek families. The lambs were put on spits and barbecued in a long row. The feast of Agape (Christian Love) was eaten at the Klekas farm for several decades. Soon the generation Magerou brought to life was beginning to marry. Another world war began. Many of her grandsons were soldiers and sailors. In 1946 her husband died at the age of eighty-three. Magerou continued going wherever she was called. She was actively working until her late seventies. She died in 1950 at the age of eighty-three. Her progeny includes seven children,10 thirty-seven grandchildren, and sixty-five great-grandchildren. At all gatherings of the remnants of the first Greek generation in America, anecdotes about Magerou are told. She is a symbol of the color and uniqueness of Greek immigrant life. 10

Helen, Annie, Wilma, Tony, Millie, John, and Eva.

Mary Howard as she appeared when she was mayor of Kanab.

An Example of Women in Politics BY MARY

HOWARD

.s our election was intended as a burlesA que, and we all treated it as a joke and had no idea of qualifying, but YOU HAVE NO DOUBT HEARD,

the leading men all insisted upon our doing so, they pledged us their support, volunteered to secure our bonds, and left us without an excuse, so we consented to try and do the best we could, and as we are now nearD u r i n g the years 1912-14 the city of K a n a b , U t a h , was governed by a n all-woman T o w n Board. T h e following history of their election a n d what they accomplished was written by Mrs. M a r y W. H o w a r d , who was chairman of the board and mayor of K a n a b . Originally published in The Improvement Era for July 1914, this article is reprinted with the permission of the editors of the Era.

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ing the end of our two-year term we feel that we have accomplished a little good. In fact, our supporters say that we have done more for the town than all the male Boards they have ever had. They urge us to run again at the coming election, but we are not at all selfish, and are perfectly willing to share the honors with others. We are in hopes they will elect other ladies to fill the vacancies, as we know they are perfectly able to carry on the work; and, in fact, are better able, because the men are away from home most of the time looking after their sheep, cattle, etc., and the town is left without any supervision. It is a noted fact that nine-tenths of the people never knew before who the members of the Town Board were, or that there even was a Board, but you can ask any child on the street who the present Board is, and they can tell you every one of our names for we are discussed in every home for good or ill. Don't think for one moment that we haven't any opposition to contend with, for we feel sometimes that we have more than our share of it. Some members meet it every day in their own homes, but they are all women of character and have been able to hold their own. They have come out on top of every skirmish so far, but it makes it very unpleasant for them, as you may know. Our first official act was to increase the license of the peddlers and traveling merchants who infested our town to the detriment of our local merchants whom we felt it our duty to protect. Second. We prohibited cattle, horses, and other animals from running loose upon the streets. Third. Prohibited any person from building any corral, stable, or feed yard within fifty feet of any street or public highway. Fourth. Placed a tax on dogs and had all killed that were not registered before a certain date. Fifth. Prohibited the use of flippers and slings within town limits, thus protecting our feathered friends. Sixth. We had the cemetery surveyed and plotted and are now giving deeds to all parties who pay a small fee for the lots. Seventh. We purchased lumber and built bridges over all the irrigating ditches in town. Eighth. We joined with the Irrigation Company and built a huge dike above town to protect our homes and property from the floods which have been a menace to our town ever since it was settled. This enterprise cost $1,000 and we are paying one-half of the amount.

An Example of Women in Polities

We appointed a clean-up day and offered a prize of $10 for the cleanest and best kept street and sidewalk surrounding any home, $5 for the second best and $2.50 for the third best. You will know that this meant a lot of work for the people, as most everyone owns a quarter of a block and lives on the corner, so they had to clean two sides of the street. Tenth. We prohibited all foot races, horse races, ball games and all other noisy sports on the Sabbath day. Eleven. Prohibited gambling and all games of chance. Twelve. We passed a liquor ordinance which was prepared by the Municipal League of Utah, under the new liquor law passed by the last legislature. Our greatest trouble has been in fighting the liquor evil, which is a terror to our town. A year ago now, liquor was being shipped in here on the U.S. mail, which carries express as well, and our town was full of it. We could get no redress through the course, so we wrote direct to the Postmaster General, at Washington, and explained our situation, and asked him if it was necessary for us to put up with such conditions. He answered that the matter would be investigated immediately, and in a very short time the mail contractors all along the line had strict orders not to carry another drop of liquor from Marysvale to Kanab, so we have not had much trouble from that source since, though it is still shipped in by freight and other ways. They know we are on the look-out, and they have to be pretty sly about it. Our marshal seized twelve gallons at one time which was addressed to different parties; some of them were able to prove to the satisfaction of the justice of the peace, though not to ours, that it was sent for medical purposes, and were allowed to keep theirs, and Kanab, Utah, in the 1900's. Between the years 1912-14, the Town Board was composed entirely of women. Photograph from the Utah State Historical Society.

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the rest about six gallons, was poured out on the ground in front of the court house. September 12, 1912, we tendered a reception to His Excellency, Governor William Spry, and his party, who were touring this p a r t of the state at the time. M a y 16, 1913, we held a " G r e a t e r U t a h Development" meeting, and h a d an excellent program. Could you have witnessed the enthusiasm on that occasion you would know t h a t we are loyal citizens of our beloved state. September 10, 1913, we prepared a great fruit festival, in honor of the U t a h Automobile Club, on their pioneer trip to the G r a n d Canyon of the Colorado, as they are boosting for better roads into our country, and t h a t is one of our greatest needs. W e sent to Dixie for grapes and peaches, furnished the melons ourselves and treated the entire town. N o w these are a few of the many things t h a t we have done, though there are very many other little things that we have tried to do for our civic improvement. W e have always been united in our labors, have laid aside our personal feelings and always worked for the public good. Mrs. King of the U t a h Legislature, writing to us about our work, asked if we were married women of families. I told her emphatically yes, that each of us h a d from two to seven children, and that three of the five members have given birth to babies during our term of office. W e do all our own home work, make our own carpets, rugs, quilts, soap a n d all other things that pioneer women have to do. I clerk in the store p a r t of the time, and do my own work, which at this season includes bottling fruit, preserving, pickling, drying corn, etc., etc., between times; and then there are my religious duties which I try not to neglect. I a m local superintendent of Religion Class, teacher of the second intermediate department in Sunday school and treasurer of the Relief Society. I, and my two boys, which is all the family I have, each received a badge of honor for never being late nor absent from Sunday school last year, a n d have m a d e the same record so far this year, so you will see that I haven't much leisure.

Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts BY RAYE PRICE

Emma Lucy Gates Bowen in LaTraviata.

of covered wagons was loaded with seed, powder, foodstuffs, clothing, portable furniture, and farming implements — only that which would help to make civilization of a wilderness, jewelry and trinkets, table linens, and heirloom silver, had been sold or abandoned with other luxuries in the tragic flight from Nauvoo, Illinois, It was a serious journey, there was no room for frills, but the Arts went West with the Mormon pioneers. Days on the trail were fraught with rivers to be forded, oxen to be driven, wagons to be jostled over rutted mountain tracks and endless prairie, yet evening bonfires rang with music of Captain William Pitt's Brass Band and blistered feet danced gaily on the frozen ground. 1 A stanza of poetry, the soothing lyrics of a hymn, sounds of flute or trumpet — and the ordeal was made more bearable. •HE LONG CHAIN

Thomas L. Kane described it: Some of their wind instruments, indeed, were uncommonly full and puretoned, and in that clear dry air could be heard to a great distance. It had the strangest effect in the world, to listen to their sweet music winding over the uninhabited country. Something in the style of a Moravian deathtone blown at day-break, but altogther unique. It might be when you were hunting a ford over the Great Platte, the dreariest of all wild rivers, perplexed among the far-reaching sandbars and curlew shallows of its shifting bed; — the wind rising would bring you the first faint thought of a melody; and, as you listened, borne down upon the gust that swept past you a cloud of the dry sifted sands, you recognized it — perhaps a homeloved theme of Henry Proch or Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn Bartholdy, away there is the Indian Marches! 2

And when the exhausted emigrants had reached their new Zion, when small huts were thrown up against the elements, streets laid out in geometric regularity, and seedlings rooted to insure survival in a desert land, the Arts were present. There were poems and hymns by "Zion's Poetess," Eliza Roxey Snow. The Deseret Musical and Dramatic Association was formed in 1850 and their first play, Robert Macaire, was presented in the Bowery in 1851. Eighteen fifty-two saw completion of the Social Hall, where newcomers were astounded to discover Dominico Ballo, a former West Mrs. Price, resident of Salt Lake City, is the author of a bpok on Park City just recently published by the University of U t a h Press. ' R o b e r t B. Day, They Made Mormon History (Salt Lake City, 1968), 9 8 ; The Contributor, XII (July, 1891), 334. 2 Day, They Made Mormon History, 9 9 ; T h o m a s L. K a n e , The Mormons: A Discourse Delivered Before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, March 26, 1850 (Philadelphia, 1850).

Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts

Point band-master and graduate of the Milan Conservatory of Music, conducting the Social Hall Orchestra in far-off, isolated Great Salt Lake City. In the sixties Joseph H. Ridges built the great tabernacle organ and "made possible a culture in music that could not have existed without it." 3 The Salt Lake Theatre raised its curtain on a new dramatic era in Utah in 1862. Fitz Hugh Ludlow, a traveling journalist, found little to praise about the Mormons, but did admit that The Opera-House was a subject we could agree upon. I was greatly astonished to find in the desert heart of the continent a place of public amusement which for capacity, beauty and comfort has no superior in America, except the opera-houses of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. 4

Jtossessing beauty, comfort, and capacity were not the Salt Lake Theatre's only distinctions; it was on this stage that one of America's most famous actresses made her first appearance. To say that an actress made her theatrical debut as a roast of beef, peaked her career in the role of a little boy, and made one of her final performances disguised as a barnyard cock would not be saying much â&#x20AC;&#x201D; unless it was added that the star in question was the great Maude Adams. She was Maude Kiskadden at birth, in Salt Lake City, November 11, 1872. Her parents were Asenath Ann (Annie) Adams and James Henry Kiskadden. Annie was the daughter of Barnabas and Julia Adams, staunch pioneers of the Nauvoo exodus, but James was a Gentile. So, when it was decided that Annie and James would marry, it seemed diplomatic to perform the ceremony at the old Adams home in Iowa. Perhaps it is significant that on their wedding journey to San Francisco, Annie and James were on the first transcontinental railroad and witnessed the "Wedding of the Rails" at Promontory, Utah, May 10, 1869, for their only child5 was later to be claimed by Americans from coast to coast.6 Annie Kiskadden was involved in Utah theatre productions from the time she played childrens' roles in the Social Hall until she became 3 Alice Louise Reynolds, "Art in U t a h in Pioneer Days," in Max Binheim, ed., Women of the West: A Series of Biographical Sketches of Living Eminent Women in the Eleven Western States . . . (Los Angeles, 1928), 170. 4 Fitz H u g h Ludlow, "Among the Mormons," Atlantic Monthly (April, 1864), 490. 5 They lost twin boys in infancy. 6 " M a u d e Adams spent so much of her time in New York and in the East of the United States that Easterners feel she belonged to them. O u t in the West they think of her as their own, for it was there that she was born in 1872, and lived as a child, in a most fascinating period of its history." Phyllis Robbins, The Young Maude Adams (Francetown, New H a m p shire, 1959), 17-18.

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Painting by S. de Tvanowski of Maude Adams in her most famous role, of Peter Pan. The painting is owned by the Utah State Institute of Fine Arts. The insert is a photograph of Maude Adams in the first year of her career. The photograph is from the George D. Pyper Collection, Western Americana, University of Utah Library.

Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts

a leading lady on the Salt Lake Theatre stage. Unlike other Mormon settlers, whose "playacting" was a pleasant avocation, Annie took her dramatics seriously. It is not surprising that her precocious daughter should follow in her footsteps. It was late in the summer of 1873. Little Maude was in a cradle backstage at the Salt Lake Theatre while her mother performed in the play The Lost Child. One scene called for a platter to be carried on-stage with a sleeping child in place of a roast, but, at the time of the cue, the regular baby was having a noisy tantrum. Annie, waiting in the wings, offered her nine-month old offspring as a stand-in. Maude was place on the platter and carried in, but, rather than stay asleep, she sat up and looked around in fascination and her first triumph in front of the footlights was accomplished.7 Miss Adams 8 could not have remembered her first performance, but she always remembered the persons who helped her along the way. Phil Margetts, a blacksmith who acted at the Salt Lake Theatre in his spare time, had been the one who insisted upon using a real child, rather than a doll, for the platter scene. Years later, when Miss Adams brought her company to Salt Lake City, she heard that Phil was ill and would not be able to come to the theatre he had done so much to build. She therefore arranged to have him carried on a stretcher to a place where he could enjoy the play.9 Apparently, this early emphasis on realism influenced Miss Adams. At the age of five, when she played her first speaking role in San Francisco, she was prepared for the "make-believe" of the scripts but insisted that her properties be authentic. When she was told to fetch a pitcher of beer, she refused to return carrying the traditional cold tea, and still be obliged to call it beer. She won her point, to the satisfaction of the actors destined to drink it . . . . Besides, she liked to see it fizz, and to watch the froth spill over the top. This was the early start of what was to be her greatest interest in the theatre: the staging of the playsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the production end. 10

Perfectionism carried over into her acting as well. When playing Susanne opposite John Drew in The Masked Ball, she was required to do a tipsy scene. 7 8

Ibid., 32.

Because her father objected somewhat to her theatrical career, she adopted her mother's maiden n a m e professionally. 9 Robbins, Young Maude Adams, 32-33. 10 Ibid., 64-65. Miss Adams became very interested in stage lighting, and in the 1920's she invented high-powered incandescent lamps in the General Electric laboratories. H e r lamps later m a d e colored movies possible. She received little money or credit for this invention, but refused her lawyers' advice to sue General Electric. Phyllis Robbins, Maude Adams, An Intimate Portrait (New York, 1956), 203-7, 212.

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She had skirted vulgarity in all of the rough and tumble days in the West. She had been pathetically revolted as a child by a drunken woman taken to jail by the police in San Francisco. Every time she swayed it seemed vulgar to her. Then one day at rehearsal someone gave her a long-stemmed rose. As she held it, she noticed it swayed in a "dignified manner." So she and the rose went home together to practice. 11

A career as legendary as Maude Adams's is well chronicled â&#x20AC;&#x201D; her triumphs in San Francisco billed as "La Petite Maude" in La Belle Russe, Across the Continent, Barney's Courtship, Fritz, and others; with Charles Frohman's stock company in All the Comforts of Home, Men and Women, Lost Paradise, My Geraldine, and Diplomacy; and John Drew's leading lady in The Masked Ball, The Butterflies, Christopher, Jr., etc.; and in her own company with such plays as The Little Minister, Romeo and Juliet, Quality Street, Peter Pan, and Chantecler. Although her time in Salt Lake City was relatively brief,12 her triumphs have been shared in spirit by Utah thespians throughout the years. Until the old Salt Lake Theatre was razed, initiation ceremonies for the local chapter of Theta Alpha Phi dramatic fraternity were held in the famous Green Room over Maude Adams's cradle. 13 In 1909, when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was on tour in New York, Miss Adams arranged for complimentary seats for her Brooklyn performance of Peter Pan. When the curtain fell, the choir stood and sang "Auld Lang Syne" in her honor, and the entire audience joined in the singing. Perhaps the inspiration she evoked is best described in Miss Adams's own reaction to her most famous role, Peter Pan. It was . . . a situation absolutely new to the stage to make an assemblage of people suddenly a part of the play, and to call upon them to respond with the same readiness the trained actor would take up his cue . . . . But when an actress steps down to the footlights and says, "Clap your hands and wave your handkerchiefs, if you would save Tinker Bell," there is no means in the world of knowing what the people on the other side of the footlights are going to do. . . . There was a pause â&#x20AC;&#x201D; it seemed to me a long interminable pause, and I shuddered. Then, all at once, the wonderful thing happened. In a moment everybody became an actor in the play. The house broke into the applause that I had called for; they waved their handkerchiefs, and " J . K e i t h Melville, Feminine Contributions to Mormon Culture: The Mormon Drama and Maude Adams (Provo, U t a h , 1965), 10. 12 She was born in Salt Lake City, moved to Virginia City, Nevada, when two years old, and to San Francisco, California, at three. At ten she returned to Salt Lake City to live with her g r a n d m o t h e r and attend the Collegiate Institute (now Westminster College) for two years before beginning her stage career in earnest. 13 Interview with Lila Eccles Brimhall of Salt Lake City.

Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts

Tinker Bell's life was saved. It was glorious, a happy, a triumphant moment for me and I believe that the audience experienced the same delight that I did.14

Maude Adams never married. There were rumors that she was the mistress or secret bride of Charles Frohman, but one of her biographers wrote "She has never married, or rather she has been much married ever since she can remember to her profession . . . . Her thoughts of romance, her close friends say, have always taken the direction of effective stage scenes."15 In 1918 Miss Adams retired, due to ill health and exhaustion. It was during this time that she did her work with stage lighting. In 1931 she staged a short comeback and made her final Salt Lake City appearance in The Merchant of Venice at Kingsbury Hall on the University of Utah campus. She became professor of drama at Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri, from 1937 until 1946. She died at her little farm in the Catskill Mountains on July 16, 1953.

"Uitah's

first lady of music" 16 combined a brilliant international operatic career with a determination to foster music in her home state. That Emma Lucy Gates Bowen possessed talent and devotion to home and church is not surprising as she was a granddaughter of Brigham Young and daughter of Susa Young Gates, an accomplished writer, organist, head of the choir at Brigham Young Academy, and in charge of the Music Department at the academy. 17 At the age of fourteen, having won the Welsh Eisteddfod competition held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle by performing Gottschalk's "Last Hope" on the piano, Lucy Gates18 was bent on a musical career. When she was eighteen, she joined Dr. John A. Widtsoe and his wife Leah (her sister) on a trip to Germany. Miss Gates was to study piano under a Professor Freiberg. One day the professor entered her practice room unobserved, and "heard her singing to herself. Impressed by the beauty of her untrained voice, he advised that she take vocal lessons."19 14

Robbins, Young Maude Adams, 142-43. Robbins, Maude Adams, An Intimate Portrait, 213. 16 Brigham Young University, Dedication and Naming of 22 Buildings, Brigham Young University, May 26, 1954 ([Provo, 1954]), 54. 17 E m m a Lucy was born November 5, 1880, at St. George, U t a h . 18 H e r professional name. 19 B.Y.U., Dedication and Naming of 22 Buildings, 54-55. This quotation places the event at the Berlin Conservatory of Music where Miss Gates studied in 1899, but, since she had already decided upon a vocal career at this time, I feel the incident took place in 1898 when she was studying with Professor Freiberg. 15

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On November 8, 1898, she wrote her parents, I have not fully decided which I shall take as a specialty but feel in my heart that it will be vocal. I have thought it all over and this is what it is; first my whole soul seems to be brought out more when I sing. I love to sing and I think one of the greatest pleasures of my future life will be in singing praises to God in His Holy Temples. There is no good Mormon teacher or singer in Utah. 2 0

The following May Susa Young Gates and her mother, Lucy B. Young, attended the International Council of Women in London, England, and Miss Gates joined them there. It was decided that she would apply to the Berlin Royal Conservatory of Music and her grandmother would accompany her as chaperone. At the conservatory, she was tutored by Professor Adolphe Schulze, head of the school, but, when he commented that she had "a very sweet voice" and said, "I don't know whether you could earn your living by singing or not, but you wanted to be teacher, didn't you?" 21 temperament got the best of Miss Gates and she wrote her parents, He thinks nobody can be a great singer unless he has a large voice. I have noticed so much in all of his speakings of his pupils he says, "She is my best soloist and she has a fine large voice," and generally they are the ones that make the most noise.22

After six months, she quit the conservatory and started her tutelage under Madame Blanche Corelli. Of all her coaches Lucy Gates was most indebted to Madame Corelli. Professor Shulze had despaired of her small voice, but Madame Corelli devised a new method to strengthen it. She was to have one halfhour lesson daily, no practicing, and not to attempt actual songs for three months. Within ten months Madame Corelli arranged an audition with a famous concert director, who claimed that Miss Gates was for opera and possessed the voice, figure, face, and artistic sense to be a great singer.23 In later years study with other coaches in the United States and Paris strained her voice until it failed. Miss Gates returned to Madame Corelli and her singing was restored in five months. 20 John Louis Coray, "Emma Lucy Gates (Bowen), Soprano â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Her Accomplishments in Opera and Concert" (master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1956), 11. 21 Ibid., 15. 22 Ibid.

Ibid.

Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts

Emma Lucy Gates Bowen as she appeared in various operas. From left to right Die Entfuhring, Rigoletto, and the last two are from Philine. Photographs from the Widtsoe Family Collection, Utah State Historical Society.

After many years of study, travel back and forth between Europe and the United States, and frequent visits to Utah, Miss Gates made her debut as Anchen in Der Freischuetz, conducted by Dr. Carl Muck at the Royal Opera House in Berlin. As far as she knew, she was the first American girl to debut at the Royal Opera House in a role that demanded dialogue in a foreign tongue.24 Two years later she transferred to His Majesty's Royal Opera House in Kassel, where she sang coloratura roles as prima donna until the advent of World War I. During her four years in Germany, "she sang more than fifty roles, ranging from 'Queen of the Night,' the highest role written for a coloratura soprano, to 'Carmen,' written for mezzo-soprano."25 She was invited to perform at Kaiser Wilhelm's palaces, was guest artist in many opera houses, and made numerous concert appearances. Wartime brought an end to Lucy Gates's international career, but it heralded the fruition of her long-time goal of fostering music in Utah. "Ibid., 42. 25 B.Y.U., Dedication

and Naming of 22 Buildings, 55.

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She was a leading music teacher and, in 1915, became the first prima donna impressario to organize her own company when she started the Lucy Gates Opera Company with her brother B. Cecil Gates. 26 With the purpose of bringing grand opera to the Rocky Mountains, she became organizer, stage manager, and artistic director of the group. Marriage came late, but after becoming the bride of widower Albert E. Bowen and stepmother to his twin sons Albert and Robert, she commented, "looking back on my life now, if I had to choose between home and children and a career, I'd take the home and children." 27 Her reputation as a homemaker and gourmet cook thrived, but Lucy Gates was ever the prima donna. Her friends remember her "holding court," seated on a bag of potatoes in ZCMI grocery department, calling her order good-naturedly to a host of scurrying salesclerks.28 She was hostess to visiting musical dignitaries and often entertained them at her home after their concerts. It is said that following a delightful luncheon, Alec Templeton, the blind pianist, was asked what he thought of Lucy Gates. He answered that she was probably heavy, wore a good deal of jewelry, and "had a bit of an ego." 29 On October 25, 1948, Lucy Gates closed her musical career when a testimonial concert was given in her honor at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square. An overflow crowd, whose admission fees were donated to the Utah Symphony at her request, and numerous letters and telegrams paid her tribute. Arthur Judson, a leading musical manager from New York, wrote T o m e h e r artistry as a singer has been most enjoyable, b u t w h a t she has been able to d o in Salt L a k e City is of m u c h greater importance. W h a t we need is n o t so m a n y touring artists b u t m e n a n d w o m e n of great musical ideals w h o will m a k e their influence felt in their o w n city. 30

When the concert ended, Lucy Gates mischieviously responded to a standing ovation by remarking T h e last time I sang was La Traviata a t the last performance a t t h e Salt L a k e T h e a t r e before it was torn down. A n d t h a t was the last time I remember, right off, t h a t I sang w i t h orchestra. I t w o u l d n ' t be fitting for m e to sing a little ditty with the piano. So with t h e consent of M r s . ^Zina Hickman, "Royalty Has Heard Her Voice," Salt Lake Telegram, July 26 1937. Ibid. 28 Interview with Miss Becky Almond of Salt Lake City. 29 Ibid. 27

"'Testimonial Concert in H o n o r of E m m a Lucy Gates Bowen" (Recording Salt Lake City, October 25, 1948), p a r t 5.

Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts

Wooten 31 I will repeat just the 1-a-a-a-st bit of the same thing they have just sung.32

The encore was her last public performance. Lucy Gates died April 30, 1951. For her funeral her long-time friend and accompanist, Miss Becky Almond, wrote, To present a song in a way that satisfied her high ideals was to establish a standard; she took into consideration everything; the composer, the musical conception, the projection. It had to be a fusion of all things . . . and above all it must impart a message or it was worthless.

Veery little has been written about artist Mary Teasdel, but, since she was the first Utah woman to be accepted in the French Salon (at a time when society frowned upon women having a profession or achieving much distinction) it seems fitting that she take her place among Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts. Miss Teasdel was born in Salt Lake City on November 6, 1863, to Mr. and Mrs. S. P. Teasdel. Her father was a well-to-do merchant, proud that he was able to provide his three sons and two daughters with a beautiful home and the cultural opportunities of education and travel. Mary inherited aesthetic tendencies from both parents, but was also of a practical nature. She studied art and music at the University of Deseret, graduating in 1886, and painted under the instruction of J. T. Harwood in 1891. Her father insisted that it was his place to support his daughter, but Mary always banked a portion of her allowance with the dream that some day she would study abroad. Her frugal nature was fortunate, for her father's trusting way with debtors eventually led to financial ruin. Unable to collect a number of accounts, his business failed when a contractor for the railroad to Park City became insolvent and could not pay a bill amounting to thousands of dollars. Tragedy compounded a few months later when two of Mary's brothers died and she lost her only sister in childbirth. However, Mary's savings and a legacy left her by a brother allowed her to realize her ambitions. In 1897 she and a friend, Cora Hooper (later Mrs. Ernest Eldredge), headed for New York where she spent the winter studying at the National Academy. Paris followed two years later. 31 32

Mrs. Wooten had performed in the preceding concert. "Testimonial Concert," part 14.

Utah Historical Quarterly

Mary and a companion, May Jennings Farlow, found Paris stimulating but not an easy place for women to study. There were separate studios for men and women, and facilities were dirty â&#x20AC;&#x201D; barren rooms furnished with a few wooden stools and a model's platform. There were no extra frills in the women's studios, but prices were double; the proprietors claimed it was more expensive to keep them cleaner for "fussy" women.33 After applying three months in advance, Mary was accepted in the classes of Jules Simon. She took two of three possible periods, studying four hours in the mornings and evenings.34 Studio facilities improved appreciably when James McNeil Whistler moved from England to Paris and opened a spotlessly clean studio in a quaint old house with tinted walls and harmonizing draperies and furnishings. Mary enjoyed classes 33

Alice Merrill H o m e , Devotees Lake City, 1914), 60. "Ibid., 6 1 .

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Watercolor titled "Monday Wash Day," by Mary Teasdale. The painting is owned by the Utah State Institute of Fine Arts.

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Art

Salt

Utah's Leading

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with the immaculate Whistler, whose black kid gloves darted over a picture when he was criticizing. 35 During the summers eight or ten girls pooled resources to secure a teacher and rent a house in some scenic location. M a r y favored her sketch classes in the old fortified town of Normandy, where she summered in a lovely farm house with a bright little garden. Every afternoon the group would walk three miles to the river, picnicking along the way, then stroll homeward, carefully studying subtle twilight effects so they could make the two memory sketches required at class next morning. 3 6 Admission to the French Salon was an achievement coveted by late nineteenth century artists; Miss Teasdel was the first U t a h woman and second U t a h artist 37 to achieve this honor when a group of her ivory miniatures was accepted. T h e next season, one of her oil portraits was added to the collection, and the following summer Miss Teasdel became the only U t a h painter to exhibit in the International French Exposition when two of her ivory miniatures were placed in the show. M a r y remained in France three years (1899-1902). Shortly after her return to Salt Lake City, Mary's father died and she devoted her energies to her mother and spent a year in Holland with her. Miss Teasdel then opened a private studio and taught painting at West High School. Governor Heber M . Wells appointed her to the board of the U t a h Art Institute, and she was later elected president of that body. An impressionistic scene of City Creek Canyon in autumn brought her the grand prize at the U t a h State Fair in 1908, and during her stay in U t a h she won all major prizes offered by the U t a h Art Institute. M a n y of her paintings are in private collections, two h a n g in the State Capitol, and thirty-two works are at the Carnegie Public Library in Smithfield, Utah, and the University of U t a h . She died on April 11, 1937, in Los Angeles, California.

.aud M a y Babcock championed women's rights and insisted that "our women must and are freeing themselves from the false ideals of our grandmothers that little girls should 'sit still,' 'be quiet,' 'fold their hands,' and grow u p 'little ladies.' " 3 8 But she deplored inadequacy. I n a talk 35

Ibid. Ibid., 62. 37 Sculptor Cyrus Dallin preceded her. 38 Ronald Quayle Fredrickson, " M a u d M a y Babcock and the Department of Elocution at the University of U t a h " (master's thesis, University of U t a h , 1965). 30

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presented at the National Speech Association in November 1950, Miss Babcock said, "I told my students with all the power I could command that unless they were willing to do some honest thinking that they would fail to complete the first step . . . . Yes, I found that asking people to think was asking a great deal." It was this combination of crusader and perfectionist that made her an inspiration to students for over forty-six years. Miss Babcock was born in East Worcester, New York, on May 2, 1867. Her family moved to Binghamton when she was ten. The petite, blue-eyed girl was rather frail and, as she matured, some unexplicable affliction weakened her voice so it was a great shock to her family and teachers when, at fifteen, she delivered a stirring Webster oration to her class â&#x20AC;&#x201D; her voice returned, clear and strong. It was then that she decided to be an elocutionist.39 She pursued her goal by earning a bachelor's degree in elocution at the Philadelphia National School of Oratory (1886) ; receiving a diploma from the American Academy of Dramatic Art (1890) ; studying under Alfred Ayers, Eleanor Goergen, and Franklin Sargent; and undertaking independent study in London and Paris. With the light calisthenics and Delsarte system of exercise required in her oratorical classes, Miss Babcock noticed a gradual improvement in her health and became impressed with the importance of further study and experiments in the line of physical culture. In time her condition was perfect. Following her schooling, Miss Babcock taught in New York schools and private homes and, in 1890, started to teach practical physical culture in the Hemingway Gymnasium at the Harvard Summer School. It was during her second year there she met Susa Young Gates. Mrs. Gates, daughter of Brigham Young and editor of the Young Woman's Journal, had come to Cambridge to take Miss Babcock's summer class. The two women became close friends and, as Miss Babcock told a Deseret News reporter, She gave most wonderful descriptions of the land a m o n g t h e m o u n t a i n s , the beauty of its scenery a n d the intelligence of its people. Above all this c h a r m i n g w o m a n spoke of the intense need of physical culture a n d elocution, a n d t h a t one coming here now would be, as it were, a missionary or chief reaper in this field already white for the harvest. 4 0 39 "Literary Department: Biographical Sketch of Maud May Babcock, B.E.," The Young Woman's Journal, The Organ of the Y.L.M.I. Associations, V (June, 1894), 410. 40 Fredrickson, "Maud May Babcock."

Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts

By 1892 Miss Babcock had accepted an invitation to teach at the University of Utah at a salary of $500.00 a year, canceling a position as supervisor of Physical Education and Oral Expression in the Bridgeport, Connecticut, schools for three times the salary. She accepted the position despite warnings of friends "who considered the plan a fanatical and even a dangerous one." 41 Her former student, Ethel Baker Callas, imagined her arrival. She had taught at Harvard, lived in the East, she had every kind of refinement and culture and beautiful clothes. She never had a shoe that wasn't handmade. She came out here . . . muddy roads, everything dirty . . . imagine how it would be for her with those beautiful handmade shoes going down in the mud. 42

She intended to stay one year, but, within four months Maud Babcock was baptized into the Latter-day Saints Church. Mrs. John A. Widtsoe described Mrs. Babcock's reaction to her daughter's conversion when she was informed the following summer. Her mother was shocked beyond words to express her disappointment and disgust. She and her mother spent a whole night discussing the awful disgrace that Miss Babcock had brought upon her family . . . . She believed all the lies about the church. You couldn't convince her that Miss Babcock wasn't guarded, and that if she left the church, she'd be murdered, and that somebody was watching her all the time, and that she wouldn't leave because she daren't. 43

But Maud Babcock claimed her religion was the "keystone of her life"44 and, upon her death, she bequeathed her personal genealogical records and real estate valued at $10,000 to the Mormon church. 45 As the first woman to hold professorial rank at the University of Utah, Miss Babcock conducted classes in oratory, speech, and physical education. In 1893 her brother Dr. William Wayne Babcock, a noted specialist in spinal surgery and author of several medical texts, joined her in a supervisory capacity. Together, they purchased $2,500 worth of equipment from Harvard University and opened the first gymnasium in the remodeled Social Hall. Later, she started a physical education summer school which featured outstanding visiting professionals in the field. The blending of oratory and physical culture developed into what is reputed to have been the first university theatre in the United States.46 41

Ibid.

Interview with Ethel Baker Callas of Salt Lake City. 43 Fredrickson, " M a u d M a y Babock." "Deseret News (Salt Lake C i t y ) , M a r c h 15, 1935. 45 Salt Lake Tribune, J a n u a r y 23, 1955. 46 R a l p h Vary Chamberlin, The University of Utah, Years, 1850-1950 (Salt Lake City, 1960).

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Utah Historical Quarterly

Maud May Babcock, and to the right is her physical culture class of 1895. Miss Babcock is standing, second from the left. Photographs from the Widtsoe Family Collection, Utah State Historical Society.

Miss Babcock directed her students in their first public performance in the Salt Lake Theatre May 23, 1893. While the production was largely a demonstration of drills with dumbbells, wands, Indian clubs, and dances, it possessed dramatic elements of picturization, selection, and climax.47 In 1895 "An Exhibition of Educational Gymnastics" combined drama and dance in a presentation based upon the Greek harvest festival of Eleusthenia, and by December 11, 1897, the newly organized University of Utah Dramatic Club offered the plays The Happy Pair and A Box of Monkeys in the Eighteenth Ward amusement hall. From that time one or two productions were given annually. Maud May Babcock received many honors. She was a guest director for the Washington Square and Provincetown Players (1916) ; organized the first University Little Theatre west of the Mississippi (1917); was largely responsible for the University of Utah being among the first to 47 Carl G. Markworth, Jr., "Prominent Teachers of the Speech Arts in U t a h Before 1920, Their Significant Theories a n d the Effect of Their Teachings U p o n Their Contemporaries" (master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1958), Part I I I , " T h e Instruction of Non-Mormon Theories by Gentile Teachers," C h a p . 4, " M a u d M a y Babcock."

Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts

offer undergraduate classes in dramatic production; was charter member, national president, and honorary member of several professional associations; served twenty years on the board of the State School for the Deaf and Blind; and, as president, was the first woman to preside over the trustees of a state institution. She was a friend of Maude Adams and Ruth St. Denis; Madame Chiang Kai-shek wrote her a personal note to thank her for her efforts in behalf of Chinese victims of the Sino-Japanese War; her letter to George Bernard Shaw procured for Joseph F. Smith an interview with the playwright, who had formerly written for catalogues of the renowned University of Utah Speech Department; she authored several books and traveled the world. But the inspiration she gave her students came on a very human level. Lila Eccles Brimhall remembers, "She opened up for all of us a whole new world of culture. And we needed it; it was a young age, where everyone had been struggling for survival and existence."48 Ethel Baker Callas said, I can remember when we used to go up to her cabin at Brighton. It seemed that we knew a woman who was different from our teacher . . . we knew the woman, the mother. We'd have to take nuts in our pockets and have raisins, prunes and all the things to give us energy for the hike. And she always had interesting foods to eat. She taught us how to eat artichokes, avacados, Chinese food . . . things we'd never heard of.49

Yet, professionally, Maud Babcock was all business. She insisted that her students select only pieces of literary excellence and then read them "with brains" â&#x20AC;&#x201D; understand the thought, hold the thought, and give the thought. She claimed, "Literature was written to be voiced. A poem is not truly a poem until it is voiced by an accomplished artist. It must be born again." 50 Mrs. Brimhall remembers that she was so positive in her high standdards that "she dominated us so much that it took me a long time to dare to like anything without her approval." It was very difficult for Miss Babcock to retire. "The theatre has been my life," she said, "and it cannot stop." 51 But, when problems of old age made it necessary, her former students tried to soften the blow. A "University Theatre Golden Jubilee" was planned with a special production of Pygmalion directed by Miss Babcock. 48

Brimhall interview. Callas interview. 60 Markworth, "Prominent Teachers of the Speech Arts." 51 Salt Lake Tribune, M a y 5, 1946.

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Ethel Callas remembers, . . . she just wasn't able to function as she should. So to show you how m u c h love we all h a d for her, we would meet a n d H a r r y Allen would direct us a n d we would do all the blocking of the play so we knew all our positions a n d we'd go back with Miss Babcock a n d H a r r y would let her think she'd directed the whole thing.

And after all the hours of double rehearsals, the play triumphed. Mrs. Callas continued " I will never forget as long as I live the thrill it was for me that night in the theatre when all the bows were given to her and all of us with our heart a n d soul loving to know that she was honored . . . and H a r r y Allen taking nothing." 5 2 Miss Babcock died December 31, 1954. As a final tribute to her, the University of U t a h gave her n a m e to the little theatre on the lower level of the Pioneer Memorial T h e a t r e .

he Arts could not flourish without patrons, and U t a h art had a dedicated champion in Alice Merrill H o m e . While the nineteenth century saw a flowering of literature in the New World with authors such as Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, Melville, Hawthorne, Poe, and Longfellow, Mrs. H o m e despaired that "American art has not found opportunity to take root in the rich soils needful for its development because, from its very foundation, America has been passing through stages of rapid transition." 5 3 Yet she saw cultural kernels in activities of the Mormon pioneers and devoted her life to their nurture. "If art reigns in the home," she wrote, "there will grow out of it beautiful parks, streets, thoroughfares and cities." 54 Alice Merrill H o m e was born in a log cabin at Fillmore, Utah, on J a n u a r y 2, 1869, the fourth of fourteen children born to Clarence and Bathsheba Merrill. She attended classes in Fillmore's old rock schoolhouse and won prizes in reading and spelling before her eighth year, when she moved to Salt Lake City to live with her widowed grandmother, Mrs. George A. Smith. H e r grandfather h a d been historian for the L.D.S. church, and his home was furnished with many hand-crafted pieces, hand-woven fabrics, and mementos from his travels throughout the 52

Callas interview. Alice Merrill H o m e Gallery, Art Strands (Salt Lake City, 1931). 54 Alice Merrill H o m e , "For the Rights of Women of Zion and the Rights of Women of All Nations," Woman's Exponent, 29 (February 1, 1901). 53

Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts

world. Mrs. Smith, an artist herself, encouraged young Alice's interest in art. Alice became an organizer at an early age. When she was nine, she started the Juvenile Association, which in later years became a part of the L.D.S. Primary Association; at seventeen she organized thirty young men and women in the Shakespeare Society for the purpose of reading, studying, and acting works of the Bard. She studied painting under J.T. Harwood and Mary Teasdel, and in 1887 graduated from the University of Deseret as valedictorian of her class. Marriage and six children 55 worked no barrier on Alice's cultural and civic interests. As she wrote, A life consumed by following society's unprofitable and foolish fashions has a parallel in that of a woman who never takes a moment for study and self-improvement, but makes herself a very slave to her home. The home must be kept sweet and clean, but the brain is as prone to get cobwebby as the best room. 56

Alice's brain was not "cobwebby." As a member of Utah's Third Legislature, she helped secure a congressional grant of land for the first buildings at the University of Utah; she introduced a bill to offer fouryear scholarships for students majoring in education with a provision that they remain to teach in the state for two years following graduation. 57 Mrs. Home was the first chairman of the Public Health Commission which sponsored a "Clean Milk for Utah" campaign, worked in behalf of smokeless fuel, was the first secretary and second president of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, and served on the general board of the national Relief Society. Alice Home's greatest contributions were in the field of art. While in the legislature, she wrote a bill to establish the first state association in the country for the fostering of fine arts. The Utah Art Institute (now the Utah State Institute of Fine Arts) was established in 1899 "to advance the interests of the fine arts, including literature and music, in all their phases within the state of Utah." The bill called for annual art exhibits (not to be held in the same city twice in succession) and a collection of artworks owned and paid for by the state. This collection became known as the "Alice Art Collection," in her honor. 55 She married George H . H o m e on February 20, 1890. Their children were M a r y (Mrs. Leo C a h o o n W i n d e r ) , Dr. Lyman H o m e , Miss Virginia H o m e , Zorah (Mrs. Joseph G. J e p p s o n ) , a n d Dr. Albert H o m e . One son, George Henry, Jr., died in infancy. 58 H o m e , "For the Rights of W o m e n , " Woman's Exponent, 29 (February 1, 1901). 57 Previous scholarships had been for two years.

Utah Historical Quarterly

The state sponsored shows in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Logan, Provo, and the first exhibition in Springville High School. The Utah Agricultural College and Brigham Young U n i v e r s i t y held winter exhibits which were so enthusiastically attended that children from nearby farming communities came to them in large bobsleighs.58 When "hard times" caused the governor to refuse to appoint a gov'i erning board of the Utah Art Institute, the exhibitions ceased and art sales rapidly declined. Alice was furAlice Merrill Home, patron of the ious; she said that the state seemed arts. Photograph from the to be able to buy cars for all of their Widtsoe Family Collection, Utah State Historical Society. departments, but could not help the artists.59 Alice Merrill Home devised many ways of helping artists. She wrote a program of art study for the Relief Society, believing if art were taken to older people, children would be influenced.60 After two years the series was canceled, but a portion of the text was published in 1914 under the title Devotees and Their Shrines: A Hand Book of Utah Art. The book was later adopted as a text in the state public schools and has long been a primary source of material on early Utah artists. She also wrote a children's play Columbus, Westward Ho! She believed in introducing art throughout the state and often carried pictures to sparcely settled outlying communities. When artist John Hafen died, Mrs. Home arranged a memorial exhibition of his works at the Layfayette School. When J. T. Harwood moved to California, she gathered his works for a show at Webster School. Exposing school children to art works was one of her greatest ambitions. She loaned her private collection to West High School, West Junior High School, and Washington School. Mrs. Home did a little bargaining when she was asked to serve as president of the P.T.A. She said she would accept the position if there 58

H o m e Gallery, Art Strands. Interview with Miss Virginia H o m e of Salt Lake City. 60 H o m e Gallery, Art Strands, 16. 89

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would be a school exhibition of works by U t a h painters. She m a d e her point, and the following September a show featured paintings by Waldo Midgley from New York; Lawrence Squires, Lee Green Richards, and M a h o n r i Young from Paris; A. B. Wright, LeConte Stewart, Joseph A. F. Everett, Florence Ware, H e n r i Moser, and M a r y Teasdel from Los Angeles; and J. T. Harwood from San Francisco. I n 1922 Mrs. H o m e started to hang informal exhibits in Salt Lake City, Provo, and Ogden banks and personally carried the pictures each week via interurban trains. She also opened a gallery in the Z C M I tearoom and the O a k Room of the Newhouse Hotel. T h e H o m e s bought the former home of Dr. Ernest V a n Cott at 868 Second Avenue when Alice decided that she needed more gallery space and a place to entertain artists. T h e Alice Merrill H o m e Gallery financed the combined exhibitions of the U t a h Art Institute and the U t a h Art Colony when they were without state funds and commissioned Oriental rugs from Syria and the Holy Land. I n less t h a n ten years, Mrs. H o m e sold 474 paintings for which she received $49,000 and placed over 30 collections of works by U t a h artists. 61 She never charged an artist a commission for his first picture sold by her gallery. 62 Mrs. H o m e was honored many times. I n 1904 she was a speaker at the International Congress of Women in Berlin, she was n a m e d among the first group in the U t a h Hall of Fame by the U t a h Federation of Women's Clubs, and, in 1942, she received the M e d a l of H o n o r from the Academy of Western Culture. Mrs. H o m e died October 7, 1948. T h e r e are many who could be included in Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts, some whose contributions were local, some who achieved national or international acclaim. They lived in a forbidding frontier country at a time when women were struggling from the bonds of "civil death." 6 3 Perhaps the roles of the sexes were equalized in their common struggle on the westward trek; perhaps there was need for a persecuted people to seek solace in the Arts. I n the words of Alice Merrill H o m e , "Strange indeed, it is, that this isolated west, forbidding in its isolation, became to an earnest people a guerdon in its forbiddance." 6 4 61 62

Ibid., 22.

H o m e interview. According to the English jurist Sir William Blackstone, "As the marriage creates the unity a n d the husband is religiously the head of the family, the law declares, that the external powers of this family, in respect to property and government, shall vest in the husband." Feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in 1854, declared that on entering wedlock a woman met "instant civil death." M a r y E. Beard, Woman As Force in History (New York, 1946). 64 H o m e Gallery, Art Strands, 4. 63

REVIEWSAND PUBLICATIONS The American West: Frontier & Region. Interpretations by J o h n Walton Caughey. Edited a n d with a n introduction by Norris Hundley, Jr., a n d J o h n A. Schutz. (Los Angeles: T h e W a r d Ritchie Press, 1969. xxvii + 287 p p . $10.00) I t would be well for the generation of historians, trained during t h e hectic decade that has closed behind us, to keep J o h n Walton Caughey's volume of essays within easy reach. F o r those who are prone nostalgically, but unrealistically, to reflect on the uncomplicated life within the cloistered halls of learning, this collection of essays will serve, in part, to remind the non-academician of the unadvertised liabilities of university life. Born in Wichita, Kansas, three decades after t h e closing of t h e frontier, Caughey was educated a t t h e University of Kansas, later receiving his advanced studies under Bolton a t t h e University of California. His interest in the Spanish borderlands was cemented to his future career when, in 1930, h e was accepted by the University of California a t Los Angeles as a fledgling instructor of history. I n essence this volu m e reflects his professional career a t that institution. A mild-mannered, softspoken scholar a n d teacher, Professor Caughey is linked to the history of California a n d the West in the same m a n n e r that Frederick Jackson T u r n e r is identified with the frontier, Herbert Eugene Bolton to t h e Spanish borderlands, or as Walter Prescott Webb is closely as-

sociated with t h e Great Plains. T h e comparison is well deserved. As a historian h e has examined t h e structure and dynamics of the West from its beginnings to the critical era of our day in more t h a n twenty books and close to a h u n d r e d articles. T h e two principal editors of this work, Norris Hundley a n d J o h n A. Schutz, have selected, with unusual skill, samplings of Caughey's major articles and addresses, arranging the selections to present a continuing chronicle of the American frontier. The American West is divided into five p a r t s : T h e first analyzes the inherent qualities that m a d e the West different from other sections; t h e second traces t h e development of t h e O l d Southwest while the third collection of essays provides a thoughtful, descriptive, and analytical survey on the writing of California history. A subordinate but ever-present thesis underlying this work is the plea for more dedicated efforts in the field of local history. T h e central frame of reference in the last two segments of the study is past and contemporary vigilante justice with special attention to its long effect on the due process of law as it comes into play within the operational framework of the university system. I n our era of dissent, the last selections seem timely. I n 1949 the faculty of the University of California was informed that an oath of allegiance would b e included in all 1950 contracts a n d that n o salaries would be paid to professors who failed

Reviews and Publications to accept this imposition of outside standards. After careful reflection Caughey and a small community of scholars refused to sign the new test oath, arguing that it neither guaranteed loyalty to the nation or served the interest of higher education or the people of California. T h e nonsigners were summarily fired. Although the loyalty oath was later ruled unconstitutional by the courts, the fight waged by Professor Caughey was a scarring, traumatic experience. " T o be a partisan of the freedoms entails genuine risk. I t is a familiar concept t h a t freedom is seldom free, that it must be bought with a price . . . . I t is still more of a shock t h a t to be a champion of freedom of religion, of speech, of the press, or of assembly, or an advocate of due process or equality before t h e law, exposes one to criticism as a menace to society and un-American. Notwithstanding the weight of this antagonism, there are those who speak u p for freedom." Although m a n y m a y disagree with some of Caughey's defenses, t h e reader is struck by the intensity of t h e pressures exerted upon Caughey a n d his colleagues and the personal sacrifice he was called u p o n to make, frequently without the support of his friends within the university system. T h e material in the back of this attractively designed volume contains a valuable list of Caughey's published works. This is a well-written, lucid, a n d illuminating book â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a handsome tribute to one of the finest gentlemen in the West.

87 ( N o r m a n : University of O k l a h o m a Press, 1968. xliii 4- 208 + Ix + lxxxiii p p . $15.00)

Professor of History Weber State College

This fascinating volume is full of surprises, not the least of which is the discovery t h a t the artist's comments prove ultimately to challenge or exceed his painting in terms of both surface interest and intrinsic worth. H a v e you known living painters who exhibit this same artistic dualism? I could n a m e one or two from my own limited acquaintance in the current scene. I t would be interesting to investigate in depth the relationship between verbal a n d visual expression. Are the powers (or talents) to observe keenly a n d then to report creatively in b o t h words a n d pictures more often t h a n not companions in the "artist" of unusual ability? I wonder. I n any event The West of Alfred Jacob Miller is a West of documentary sketches a n d entertaining, informative commentary, the latter spiced with a delightful sense of h u m o r a n d a fondness for borrowed words. T h e format, each two-page spread devoted to a single painting and its accompanying text, makes a most palatable volume t h a t leads the reader swiftly through the material. Regarding the craftsmanship which one must consider in passing j u d g m e n t on a volume devoted essentially to works of art, it might be said that the pictorial reproduction is of good quality. T h e color plates have richness, depth, a n d clarity. T h e black a n d white halftones seem entirely adequate. T h e binding a n d p a p e r stock are excellent, the former sturdy a n d h a n d some, the latter rich in texture a n d weight.

The West of Alfred Jacob Miller (1837) from the Notes and Water Colors in The Walters Art Gallery with an account of the artist. By M a r v i n C. Ross. Revised a n d Enlarged Edition.

T h e typography a n d design are conservative and legible, at best, b u t make no creative contribution to the volume. Although this might be attributed to a conscious desire to avoid permitting other factors to compete or interfere

D O N A L D R.

MOORMAN

Utah Historical Quarterly

with t h e pictures, the same reasoning it would seem to this reviewer would lead one to find a format a n d design— possibly a horizontal one (Are my scholarly readers n o w shifting nervously in their seats?)—which would permit larger a n d m o r e nearly actual-size reproduction within t h e same p a g e size, m a k i n g the pictorial detail m o r e accessible, i Aside from such speculation a n d critical observation, it should certainly be granted that, in the brief journey t h r o u g h the book, one feels he has accompanied a n interesting a n d talented m a n o n a series of colorful adventures. K E I T H E.

MONTAGUE

Bailey-Montague & Associates Salt Lake City, Utah Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 18481865. By R o b e r t M . Utley. (New York: T h e M a c m i l l a n Company, 1967. xv + 384 p p . $9.95) This book is the second in a multivolume series being edited by Louis M o r t o n a n d bearing the general title: " T h e Wars of the U n i t e d States." E a c h volume is designed to present t h e reader with a synthesis of existing works on a given period or subject. Frontiersmen in Blue is no exception to this approach, b u t Robert M . Utley's mastery of the sources has enabled him to reach a set of conclusions — while pursuing a detailed narrative account — which goes far beyond a m e r e summary of existing studies. T h e a u t h o r has, for example, lived u p to his subtitle by giving the Indians equal time a n d coverage. T h e distinguishing ethnic characteristics of the tribes, the n a t u r e of the local environment, the causes of a " w a r , " a n d the strategies a n d personalities involved are clearly delineated. Using a full cast of comprehensible I n d i a n leaders a n d believable generals, Utley chronicles vir-

tually every battle a n d skirmish which occurred between the end of the Mexican W a r a n d the closing of the Civil War. W i t h o u t being definitive the book will serve as a useful quick reference text for scholars a n d buffs. So far as Utley can tell there was no grand strategy, no great heroes, never a n army in t h e real sense, no overriding differences between professional and volunteer, a n d seldom any great successes in m a j o r battles. O n e of his admitted difficulties is t h a t he must write about a skeleton army, a makeshift strategy, a n d a set of accomplishments which are often h a r d to identify as being in the plus or minus column. Utley's reasons for this unimpressive record are w o r t h noting. While it was obvious t h a t t h e n a t u r e of the terrain and the enemy would dictate things, he concludes t h a t the army never learned to live off the land or be highly mobile. Both military leadership a n d military requirements were inadequate, but the most i m p o r t a n t factor for failure was "the Congressional passion for economy" which he says "shaped the frontier army." Only superior weaponry appears to have given the frontiersmen in blue an a d v a n t a g e over the enemy. I n short the book describes a democratic, pluralistic society trying to pursue a n expansionist "manifest destiny" policy without any overall formula or adequate resources so t h a t both the process and its results can be called chaotic. I n assessing the army's role, he states that it was b u t "one of m a n y groups some organized, some not, joined in a largely uncontrollable movement that, in the course of subjugating a wilderness empire, also subjugated one people to another." While the book covers a r m y operations in California a n d the Pacific Northwest, understandably t h e largest sections deal w i t h the Great Plains and the Southwest. After analyzing the tradi-

Reviews and Publications tionally hostile nature of MexicanIndian relations, Utley concludes that the Americans replaced the Mexicans in the struggle and inherited an inevitable war. His observations that Southwestern Indian problems were appalling in their complexity are not new, but his description of the gradual evolution of a defense system under Generals Sumner, Garland, and Canby sets in perspective the much-touted accomplishments of Kit Carson and General Carleton in that region. Since operations on the Pacific Slope and in the Pacific Northwest were of such sporadic nature, Utley tries to make the account hang together by pursuing the careers of the generals in charge of these departments. What emerges is high praise for Ethan Allan Hitchcock, George Wright, and Persifor Smith, and considerably less praise for others. Even so the coverage of the Rogue River, Yakima, and Spokane "wars" seems incomplete since the political intrigues and personalities involved are not fully treated. Generally speaking Utley finds that by 1860 the major Indian problems had been resolved on the coast and in the Northwest. In treating warfare on the Great Plains during the Civil War period, Utley argues that hostilities were fomented by whites pursuing either a blundering or a cynical policy. Governor John Evans, Colonel John Chivington, and General S. R. Curtis are roundly condemned for their parts in the Sand Creek Massacre. His candid assessment of the Powder River Expedition under Mormon-hating General Patrick E. Connor is used to highlight the army's unrealistic approach to the Indian problem. It is in the discussion of plains warfare and in the treatment of the Sioux "Outbreak" that Utley comes closest to stating an underlying theme of the volume: that the wars and the whole shape of Indian policy could have been different. He suggests that

89 the settlers themselves could have handled Indian problems with less bloodshed, for the very presence of the army led them (the settlers) to be bolder and less responsible. In his last chapter Utley asserts that while there was no peace in 1865 and still no real army, certain things had been accomplished or resolved. The basic framework of the commands, the defense policies, and the fixed post system had been set. The army had accumulated much useful information, had eliminated the tribes in the Great Basin and Pacific Slope areas as a problem, and had learned that winter campaigns and total war were very effective. But there remained twenty-five more years of war and many haunting dilemmas: Was total war humane in the long run or indefensible? Was the army there to defend white against Indian or Indian against white? Was the Indian to be under military or civilian control? With these questions and others, Utley sets the stage for his next volume which will cover Indian-white warfare from 1865 to 1890. The balance and honesty of this general narrative, plus its thoughtful interpretations, make this a useful book for scholar and buff alike. The specialist will miss any technical discussions of weaponry or the science of warfare. And the political historian will note that the book slights, with the exception of Colorado, the local political situations and, more generally, the relation of the soldiers to their white brethren. Utah readers, for example, will find no adequate description of Connor's relations to the Saints. There is also less about Washington's role in policy-making than one would like. These omissions are not so serious, however, as to affect the contribution of this useful and readable HOWARD R. LAMAR

Chairman Department of History Yale University

90 The Land Office Business: The Settlement and Administration of American Public Lands, 1789-1837. By Malcolm Rohrbaugh. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968. 331 pp. $8.75) The accolade "this is an important book" is frequently used, but it is almost essential in describing Professor Rohrbaugh's work. It is a competent study of an aspect of our history that is of a great deal of importance to the development of the nation and that is much too infrequently the subject of serious and fruitful study. It is also a revealing and meaningful study of governmental institutions in the period. The subject is the Land Office and its operation between 1789 and 1837. The major focus is on the development of the office in Washington and the ways it was organized and administered. At the same time there is careful and revealing investigation of the way the Land Office extended itself through the creation of land districts and district offices to handle land sales in the areas where they are needed. In this way the book covers in an intimate way the land disposal practices of the federal government from eastern Ohio and Alabama through Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. A number of things about the Land Office and its operations receive a perspective and emphasis that has not normally been accorded them. The amount of business and the problems of the Land Office in handling that business with the delays, uncertainties, conflicts over title, and related problems emerge clearly. Also the attractiveness and prestige of managing the district offices with control of survey, purchase of supplies, and considerable patronage are clearly indicated with the resulting interest of prominent people in vying for these offices. The book conveys a sense of the drama and the importance of the Land

Utah Historical

Quarterly

Office and its operation to the America of 150 and more years ago so that the reader catches the attitudes and feelings of the Americans of the time. The Land Office had its impact on the actual settlers of course, but its importance to the surveyor, lawyer, merchant, and real estate operator among others is clearly shown. The author used sources that have not previously been as extensively and effectively used in studying our land system, and especially the Land Office, chief among these were the records of the office in the National Archives. The lack of study of our land system is revealed in that this is not a parallel or replacement or revisionist study of a former work. The books on land policy have been on policy as revealed in legislation or land policy as revealed in local administration or development. Professor Rohrbaugh makes a very important contribution in this study of the Land Office and its importance in the first half of the nineteenth century. W. D. AESCHBACHER

Head Department of History University of Cincinnati Campftre Frontier: Historical Stories and Poems of the Old West. By Ann Woodbury Hafen. (Denver, Colorado: The Old West Publishing Company, 1969. 248 pp. $5.50) The stories collected by Ann W. Hafen are stories that belong together as she has arranged them in this book. Unashamedly romantic, Mrs. Hafen's heroes stand tall, are glorious and great men. Because from her vantage point in time she can look at the exploits of the individuals here recounted with the appreciation of the struggle, strength, and daring required merely to survive, let alone accomplish, she may be inclined to color her characters with too

Reviews and Publications much innocence and purity of motive. In her choice of stories the white man is most usually the good man, and the good Indian is the one who appreciates this fact and behaves accordingly. Mrs. Hafen's introductions to each section provide the background against which the various aspects of frontier life unfold: Indian guide, trapper, scout, dragoon, government explorer, even the miner â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and each story is representative of an experience that was multiplied several fold in the western drama. The stories are fascinating and provide insights, personal and human, which would be lost in a formal history book. This book was written to be enjoyed by young and old. One does wonder at times, however, if the technique of using dialogue, mannerisms, and thoughts of the characters in novelized form might not detract from the sense of reality rather than contribute to it. Greater credibility might have been achieved if the characterizations had been drawn in straight historical narrative. The poetry section is particularly delightful. And with it all this book makes one smell the campfires and feel the prairie winds, the summer's dusty heat, and the winter's biting cold. One can see the wagons winding along the trail, hear the thundering herds of buffalo, sense the greed of the land hunter and miner, and understand the position the Indian was forced into and the righteousness of the white man in doing it. The land that is the West shines through, is the magnificent stage, and in this book the characters act out its destiny. DOROTHY Z. MORTENSEN

Business Manager Organization of American Historians Westward to Promontory: Building the Union Pacific across the plains and mountains. A pictorial documentary.

91 With text by Barry B. Combs. (Palo Alto, California: American West Publishing Company, 1969. 79 pp. $10.75) To celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad, the American West Publishing Company and Barry Combs prepared this handsome, colorful documentary volume â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in collaboration with the new Oakland Museum and the American Geographical Society. Many of the striking plates in the collection are original glass negatives from the Andrew J. Russell Collection now at the Oakland Art Museum. Russell was the official photographer of the Union Pacific Railroad during the Civil War era. His photographs constitute a fascinating pictorial record about the building of the Union Pacific. Understandably, the volume contains little relating to the Central Pacific Railroad and the Big Four. Conveying much of the epic quality which the project entailed, these pictures include some of the best yet published about railroad construction in the West. Among the photographs included in this volume are early views of Omaha and various construction sites in Utah and Wyoming. The pictorial record is especially valuable for immortalizing the existence and appearance of temporary construction camps along the Union Pacific trail, such as Bear River City and Miller and Patterson's Camp at Tunnel # 2 . These have long since disappeared, for their day of glory was short and brief. Other scenes provide glimpses of tunnels being bored, timbers being shaped, difficult railroad bridges being put into place, and excavations of seemingly impenetrable canyons underway. Lovers of Western Americana as well as railroad buffs will enjoy perusing this informative collection, accompanied as it is by an apt commentary. The volume

Utah Historical Quarterly

will find a place o n the shelf of p o p u l a r works which c o m m e m o r a t e t h e centennial of the first transcontinental railroad. GERALD D.

Professor of University of New

NASH

History Mexico

The Sound of Mountain Water. By Wallace Stegner. ( G a r d e n City, N e w Y o r k : Doubleday & C o m p a n y , Inc., 1969. 286 p p . $5.95) T h e essays of this collection, written by Stegner over t h e past twenty-five years, are w o r t h reading for their impressive style, their incidental interpretations of American civilization a t large, a n d their intense reaction to the culture of the m o d e r n West. T h e culture of the m o d e r n West is, of course, t h e unifying subject of these essays, alt h o u g h Stegner himself declares: " T h e r e is no Western face . . . . I t takes m o r e generations t h a n they [the people of the West] have yet h a d for the making of a regional culture." Stegner is wrong in this assertion: there is a western identity a n d h e is p a r t of it. I n m a n y of his essays, Stegner shows t h a t he is m o r e t h a n western. H e has obviously mastered a n d become a p a r t of the large humanistic tradition of the Occident. A notable example is the last essay of the book. Celebrating the dedication of a U t a h library in 1968, this essay gently chides a n era p a r a noiacally rejective of the past a n d affirms t h e importance of preserving the t h o u g h t a n d feeling of the ages. Novelist, academician, a n d American intellectual, Stegner is a person as likely to know Sophocles, Aquinas, or Goethe as to know T u r n e r , Wister, or Rhodes. Yet for all his genuine supraregional cultural possessions, Stegner shows himself to be indelibly a n d totally a westerner. I n some of his essays, h e p r a c tices in t h a t literary type compulsive to western writers—the landscape descrip-

t i o n — a n d he performs well, even poetically, in his endeavor. I n other essays, h e responds correctively to western m a l practices, as w h e n he satirizes the billboards of H i g h w a y 66 or when he considers the uncertain effects of white civilization u p o n Indians. H e responds, too, to t h e problems a n d duties of the western historian a n d writer, noting in one essay, for example, t h a t native western optimism fails to p r e p a r e regional writers to compete well in a national literary scene requiring axiom a t i c disbelief in anything cheerful or complacent. These essays m a r k Stegner as a westerner not merely because their topic is western scenes a n d people but especially because they show t h a t Stegner's emotions are b o u n d to the West. This bond of a m a n to a place is most obvious in Stegner's reaction to the western wilderness. Everyone recognizes t h a t the center of western tradition — of the meaningful past of the West — is the encounter of civilized m a n with the untouched wilderness; we call this the frontier experience. T h e feeling that this experience was somehow overwhelmingly imp o r t a n t was fixed u p o n the West by the non-West: as the non-Western States developed their regional identities u p o n memories of puritans, revolution, and civil war, they assigned to the West the role of curator of t h e frontier tradition. T h e large meanings of the frontier — t h e heroism of civilized m a n ' s settlem e n t of the wilderness, the freedom of his escape from civilized restraints, a n d the beatitude of his isolation with the god of the wilderness — became domin a n t motifs of western identity. W h a t is not so often recognized is t h a t the actual wilderness, the hemmed-in, traversed, scarred residual wilderness, is as i m p o r t a n t to the West as the vanished wilderness of tradition. H e r o i c settlement a n d anarchic freed o m are no longer actualities, but w h a t

Reviews and

Publications

Stegner calls "the wilderness experience" remains because mountains, deserts, and canyons remain. It is still possible to find beatitude in the western wilderness. Stegner's essays show him to have been illumined by it. Like Bernard DeVoto, A. B. Guthrie, Joseph Wood Krutch, and others living and dead, adopted and native in a growing fraternity of worthy westerners, Stegner shows us the face of the West. We see in his essays further evidence that the West does indeed have a distinctive identity, a vital, dignified ethos centered upon an irresistable urge to be on western soil, to hear the whisper of the western past, and to feel the western god. LEVI S. PETERSON

Associate Professor of English Weber State College High Road to Promontory: Building the Central Pacific (now the Southern Pacific) across the High Sierra. By George Kraus. (Palo Alto, California: American West Publishing Company, 1969. 317 pp. $9.50) Over a period of years, Mr. Robert Hancocks gathered a large amount of material relating to the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad; unfortunately he died before he had an opportunity to use it. George Kraus fell heir to this collection and, using it as his main source, has written High Road to Promontory. This book tells the story of the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. It begins with the long struggle to obtain federal legislation favorable to the building of a pacific railroad and concludes with the Driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit completing the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. It is mainly involved with the financing and construction of the road and the involvement of "The Big Four" â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Stanford, Huntington,

93 Hopkins, and Crocker â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in that exciting venture. To tell this story Kraus has chosen to quote directly from the multitude of personal letters, railroad and government documents, newspaper articles, and other materials that were at his disposal. Approximately three-fourths of the book is composed of direct quotations from these sources. In many instances the author has poorly joined the quotes and in depending so heavily on them the book lacks continuity. The excessive use of quotations also hampers the smooth transition from one subject to another. However, because of the excellent selection of source material the book is interesting and the reader gains a feel for the almost insurmountable problems encountered by the officers, engineers, and construction crews of the Central Pacific in financing and constructing the railroad. Nearly a third of the book is devoted to the completion of the first fifty miles of the road; this mileage had to be completed before any federal aid would be forthcoming. The basic struggle during this period was in obtaining the capital to continue construction. The high point of the book is the period of construction in the Sierra Mountains. Construction of the Central Pacific was achieved, to a large degree, by the use of Chinese laborers. Their work, personal habits, organization into groups, and the problems the railroad officials encountered in working with Oriental laborers are well told. Description of the work as told by actual laborers is most colorful and dramatic. The book is highlighted with a large number of photographs taken by Alfred A. Hart of Sacramento. He was employed by the Central Pacific to make a photographic record of construction progress. Hart traveled along the line extensively during construction and caught the personality of the railroad.

Utah Historical Quarterly

As an appendix Kraus has provided the reader with short biographical sketches of "The Big Four," Judah, and also the engineers and superintendents responsible for completion of the road. He also includes a report from the chief engineer of the preliminary survey and an estimate of cost of construction. This document was prepared by Theodore Judah and was used in convincing Congress to pass favorable legislation in support of the road. While Kraus's style and heavy dependence on quotations leave much to be desired, it is a book that holds interest for the casual reader of Western Americana and is of source value on the historian's shelf. C. A. REEDER, J R .

Registrar University of Utah

ARTICLES O F INTEREST American Heritage, The Magazine of History—XX, October 1969: "Down the Colorado [John Wesley Powell]," photographs by ELIOT PORTER, 52ff.; "Lament for a Lost Eden," by ELIOT PORTER, 61

American History Illustrated—IV, October 1969: "Independence [Missouri]: Gateway to the West," by GLADYS MARIE W I L S O N LIAM C. DAVIS, 36-42

AND W I L -

Arizona Highways—XLV, October 1969: "Barbed Wire: the fence that tamed the west," by CAROL OSMAN BROWN, 12-39—November 1969: "My Southwest," by JOSEF M U E N C H , 4ff.; "Notes For Photographers," by JOSEF M U E N C H , 12-30; "Part Two: Northern Arizona's

Plateau Country," [by JOSEF M U E -

NCH], 31-35; "Part Three: The Desert In Arizona's Neighboring States," [by JOSEF M U E N C H ] , 36-39

Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought—TV, Summer 1969: "Governor Thomas Ford and the Murderers of Joseph Smith," by KEITH H U N T R E S S , 41-52

The Explorers Club Explorers Journal —XLVII, September 1969: "Powell's Colorado Centennial," by GEORGE CROSSETTE, 174-78

Horizon, A Magazine of the Arts— XII, Winter 1970: "Genealogy: The Well-Pruned Family Tree," by J. H. PLUMB, 118-20

The Improvement Era—72, December 1969: "The City of Zion in the Mountain West [characteristics of Mormon cities and towns]," by RICHARD V. FRANCAVIGLIA, lOff. Journal of the West—VIII, July 1969: "Mexico and the Mountain Men, 1821-1828," by DAVID J. WEBER, 36978; "George Tyng's Last Enterprise, A Prominent Texan and a Rich Mine in Utah [Miller Hill and Tyng Mine in American Fork Canyon]," by LAURENCE

P. JAMES,

429-37—October

1969: "The West as a Desert in American Thought Prior to Long's 1819-1820 Expedition," by TERRY L. ALFORD, 515-25 Kennescope—No. 119, July-August 1969: "Daniel C. Jackling [biography]," 4-7; "Ashley Area—Gorgeous Variety [Flaming Gorge]," 1013—No. 120, September-October 1969: "Utah's unbelievable Canyonlands country," 8-11 The Masterkey for Indian Lore and History — 43, October - December 1969: "Analytical Interpretations of Petroglyphs," by KATHLEEN W H I T AKER, 132-43

Missouri Historical Review—LXIV, October 1969: "The Expulsion of the Mormons from Jackson County, Missouri," by WARREN A. JENNINGS, 41-63

Reviews and Publications Montana, the Magazine of Western History—XIX, A u t u m n 1969: " M a j or Powell & T h o m a s M o r a n in Canyon

Country,"

THURMAN

WIL-

K I N S , 16-31; "[Mexican] Revolution, Agony South of the Border," by H A L DEEN BRADDY, 32-45; "Air T r a n s p o r t -

ation a n d t h e American West," by G E O R G E H . T W E N E Y , 68-77

Express," by D O N L . R E Y N O L D S , 3-6

National Parks Magazine — 4 3 , J u n e 1969: "Last Rail, Last Spike! A N a tional Historic Site in U t a h marks the meeting place of t h e rails t h a t linked east with west," by M U R R A Y MOLER,

8-9—September 1969:

"Dinosaur [National] M o n u m e n t to the Age of Reptiles," by O . F . O L D ENDORPH,

5-10—November

1969:

" L o g a n Canyon Standards for D e s t r u c t i o n , " by G E O R G E A L D E R S O N , 18-

20 Nebraska History—50, Fall 1969: " T h e Medicinal Herbs of O u r Forefathers," by L I L A GRAVATT S C R I M S H E R , 309-22

Our Public Lands—19, Summer 1969: "Raft Riding T h r o u g h Desolation Canyon, W h e r e J o h n Wesley Powell Entered t h e U n k n o w n , " by EDWARD J.

HOFFMAN,

18-20—Fall

P A U L H O L S I N G E R ^ 154-60

Plateau, The Quarterly of the Museum of Northern Arizona—42, Summer 1969: "A Periglacial A m p h i t h e a t e r on t h e northeast side of Navajo M o u n t a i n , southern U t a h , " by J O H N W.

Museum Graphic—XXI, Spring 1969: " G r a n d O l d Gentlemen of t h e Pony

H o m e : T h e A t t e m p t to Unseat Senator Reed Smoot, 1903-1907," by M .

1969:

" J o h n Wesley Powell a n d t h e Public L a n d s , " by J E R R Y A. O ' C A L L A G H A N ,

6-9 The Pacific Historian—13, Fall 1969: "William H . Emory a n d the Mexican Survey," by O D I E B. F A U L K , 47-62;

"Some Views of the M o u n t a i n M a n , " by H A R L A N H . H A G U E , 81-92

Pacific Historical Review—XXXVIII, M a y 1969: "Anodyne for E x p a n sion: Meiji J a p a n , t h e M o r m o n s , a n d Charles LeGendre," by SANDRA T . C A R U T H E R S , 129-39

Pacific Northwest Quarterly—60, July 1969: " F o r G o d a n d t h e American

BLAGBROUGH

AND WILLIAM

BREED, 20-26

The Pony Express—XXXV, M a y 1969: " T h o m a s Hill's 'Driving of t h e Golden Spike' [artist]," 1-2; " T h e Pacific Railroad U n i t e d — 1 8 6 9 , " by H . H A M L I N , 3-11

Reclamation Era, A Water Review Quarterly — 5 5 , November 1969: "William E. Smythe: Irrigation Crusader," by M A R T I N E. C A R L S O N , 17-

21 The Smithsonian Journal of History— 3, S u m m e r 1968: " J o h n Wesley Powell's Colorado River Exploration, 1871-1872," by D O N D . AND C A T H E R I N E S. F O W L E R , 1-44

Southwestern Historical Quarterly— L X X I I I , July 1969: " T h e T r e k S o u t h : H o w t h e M o r m o n s W e n t to M e x i c o , " by B. C A R M O N H A R D Y , 1-16

Sunset, The Magazine of Western Living—143, July 1969: " T h e Navajo's canyon of history: A r o u n d Canyon de Chelly by car, down from t h e rim on foot, into t h e canyon by jeep," 52-57 Utah Economic and Business Review— 29, M a y 1969: "Territory of U t a h Economic Statistics [economic a n d business d a t a of o n e h u n d r e d years ago presented in t h e words of t h a t day]," Iff. Utah Educational Review — 62, M a y J u n e 1969: " T h e Nation is U n i t e d By Rail," 18-19 Utah Farmer—89, October 16, 1969: " 'Green Belt' A m e n d m e n t Will Bring

96 Many

Utah Historical Changes,"

CHRISTENSEN,

RONDO

8ff.

AND LOIS M. Cox,

In Utah," by J E D O N A. EMENHISER,

526-35

Utah Science—30, June 1969: "The Ecologies of Utah's Watery Lands," by J. B. L o w

Quarterly

36-

43 Western American Literature —• I I I , Winter 1969: "Research in Western American Literature [completed theses and dissertations and works in progress]," edited by T H O M A S J. LYON, 337-41 — IV, Spring 1969: "Owen Wister's 'Hank's Woman': The Writer and His Comment," by NEAL LAMBERT, 39-50 Western Gateways: Magazine of the Golden Circle—-9, July 1969: "Mormon Country [from northern Utah through the state]," by GAYLORD STAVELEY, 6ff.; "100th Anniversary of the Golden Spike," by MARVIN HEDEGARD, 12ff.; "Is It a Language? Grammatical Structure of American Indian Pictography," by LA VAN MARTINEAU, 20ff.; "Facets of Flaming Gorge," by T O N Y GAUBA, 29-32;

"Utah State Parks in Frontier Country," 34—September 1969: "Outdoor Recreation on Indian Lands," by PEARL BAKER, 24ff. Western Humanities Review—XXII, Summer 1968: "Intolerable Zion: The Image of Mormonism in Nineteenth Century American Literature," by LEONARD J. ARRINGTON and J O N

HAUPT, 243-60

The Western Political Quarterly — X X I I , September 1969: "The 1968 Election in the West," by CONRAD JOYNER, 451-55; "The 1968 Election

The [Chicago] Westerners Brand Book —XXV, February 1969: "Mormons in the Trans-Mississippi West, 18371860," by FRANK L. KLEMENT, 89ff. The Westerners New York Posse Brand Book—14, Number 4: "Nez Perces and The Appaloosa Horse . . . . False History?" by ALVIN M. JOSEPHY, JR.,

73ff.—15, Number 2: "The Pony Gives Way to the Talking Wire," by HARRY

SINCLAIR DRAGO,

25ff.—16,

Number 2: "Powell of the Genessee," by ROBERT W E S T HOWARD, 25ff.— Number 3: "Fremont's Winter Tragedy In The Colorado Mountains," by PETER DECKER, 60-62 Westways—60, July 1968: "Revolution on the Reservation [Navajos]," by J O H N V. YOUNG, 3-6; "California Classics Reread—Ramona" by LAWRENCE

CLARK

POWELL,

13ff.—61,

May 1969: "Appointment at Promontory," by FRANK A. TINKER, 2ff.— June 1969: "In the Wake of John Wesley Powell," by J O H N V. YOUNG,

26ff.; "A Recreation Guide to Lake Powell," by J I M GEBBIE, 30-35; "Fishing It [Lake Powell]," by GAYLORD STAVELEY, 36-38 Wisconsin Magazine of History—51, Summer 1968: "The IWW and the Question of Violence," by JOSEPH R. CONLIN, 316-26 Wisconsin, then and now—XV, May 1969: "Leland Stanford's Wisconsin Years," by NORMAN E. TUTOROW, 14

U T A H STATE H I S T O R I C A L SOCIETY Membership in the Utah State Historical Society is open to all individuals and institutions who are interested in Utah history. We invite everyone to join this one official agency of state government charged by law with the collection, preservation, and publication of materials on Utah and related history. Through the pages of the Utah Historical Quarterly, the Society is able to fulfill part of its legal responsibility. Your membership dues provide the means for publication of the Quarterly. So, we earnestly encourage present members to interest their friends in joining them in furthering the cause of Utah history. Membership brings with it the Utah Historical Quarterly, the bimonthly Newsletter, and special prices on publications of the Society. The different classes of membership are: Student Annual Life

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Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 38, Number 1, 1970

Articles inside

Women as a Force in the History of Utah

Woman Suffrage in Western America

An Experiment in Progessive Legislation: The Granting of Woman Suffrage in Utah in 1870

Gentle Persuaders Utah's First Women Legislators

Magerou: The Greek Midwife

An Example of Women in Politics

Utah's Leading Ladies of the Arts