The Way We Were: A Photographic Essay

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 45, 1977, No. 4

The Way We Were: A Photographic Essay

BY JANET G. BUTLER

Left: Utah women in the late 1800s enjoyed a prominent position in medicine. The directors of Deseret Hospital are: front: Jane Richards, Emmeline Wells; middle: Phoebe Woodruff, Isabelle Home, Eliza Snow, Zina Young, Marinda Hyde; back: Dr. Ellis Shipp, Bathsheba Smith, Elizabeth Howard, Dr. Romania Pratt. Right: Utah farmlands show an atypical pattern: homes in town and lands beyond residential limits. Bottom: Utah's Old Folk's Day, first organized by Charles R. Savage, featured an excursion to Lagoon in 1898.

Top: From the enforcement of the Edmunds Act of 1882 to the Manifesto of 1890, whereby Mormons officially abandoned the practice of plural marriage, about 800 men were convicted of polygamy. The sentence of Charles J. Arthur (third from left) of six months in jail and a $300 fine was representative. Left: Park City butchers at the turn of the century often owned herds of cattle, did their own slaughtering and processing. Butchers: Jim Rasband, Walter Bircumshaw, Joe Brandel. Right: Afton Love, daughter of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company president, owned and ran one of Sugarhouse's first and finest gift shops.

Left: Competition was keen before the electric street railway companies merged in 1901. Employees worked a ten to twelve hour day, seven days a week, for twenty cents an hour. Right: Miners changed from street clothes in a "dry" where clothes were stored and showers available. Lard buckets carried meals packed in layers, often with soup on bottom to keep food warm for the day.

Bottom: Bingham's mining society was rough and colorful. Its waves of immigrants helped promote Utah's distinctive multiethnic heritage.

Top: Practicality determined the site of early cemeteries like this one in St. George—remote but not too far from town for horse and buggy travel. Hearse owner: George Woodard; sexton: Aaron Nelson; driver: Alf Larson. Center: Amid loud protest of illegal voting practices, in February 1889 the Liberal ticket won a landslide victory in Ogden's city election. The Mormon People's party had ruled for thirty-seven years; this election marked the beginning of a Gentile administration. Seated: C. R. Hank, W. Chapman, W. H. Turner; rear: F. B. Hurlbut, N. Anderson, H. V. Bias del, H. L. Griffin, C. J. Corey, G. B. Douglass. Bottom: Camp Douglas, later renamed Fort Douglas, was founded in 1862 by the California-Nevada Volunteers to protect mail routes from the Indians. Shown here are officers of the camp in dress uniform.

Top: Camping in Utah's forests. Left: The Wasatch Mountain Club was formed in 1920 for men with shared interests in outdoor sports. The club, which finally accepted women in 1924 } introduced their wearing of pants and bloomers. Equipment was primitive by today's standards: Grand Teton mountaineering was accomplished in hobnail boots without ropes. Right: Ute Indian photographed by J. K. Hillers on the Powell Expedition, 1873 or 1874. According to Hillers's diary, "Their Breeches are of Buckskin and are sewn on their legs skin tight, with sinnew or 'Tammu. . . . The women . . . wear Buckskin dresses, fixed with beads. A dress of this kind is valued at about 50 dollars."

Left: Emma Lucy Gates Bowen, a granddaughter of Brigham Young and Utah's most famous operatic singer, toured the U.S. and Europe and recorded for what is now Columbia Records. Right: Orchestra at the first reunion of the Utah Indian War Veterans at Ephraim, Sanpete County, 1906. Bottom: Saltair after the 1926 restoration. This picture, an advertising gimmick, combined two photos. Wind and weather damage, sewage disposal, and fresh water became overwhelming problems, and Saltair closed in 1958.