The Working Women of Salt Lake City: A Review of the Utah Gazetteer, 1892-93

Utah Historical Quarterly

Vol. 46, 1978, No. 2

The Working Women of Salt Lake City: A Review of the Utah Gazetteer, 1892-93

BY MIRIAM B. MURPHY

UTAH WOMEN HAVE WORKED OUTSIDE the home since the earliest days of pioneer settlement. Diaries, newspapers, and other sources show women employed as teachers, milliners, physicians, and storekeepers. However, the extent and nature of their role in the work force has been obscure. History recognizes exceptional professional women like Emmeline B. Wells and Dr. Ellis R. Shipp, but thousands of other working women remain unknown. Early state and city directories tend to ignore women, but Stenhouse's Utah Gazetteer, 1892-93, purports to list all heads of household and adults over sixteen who worked within the Salt Lake City limits. Almost 2,000 working women are listed in the Gazetteer as employed in education, manufacturing, retail trade, service occupations, restaurants and lodging houses, medical arts, printing, office jobs, and the creative arts. Many of the self-employed women used space advertisements or business listings in the Gazetteer. Additionally, the directory shows a few women in roles as corporate and union officers. A closer look at these women may create a better understanding of their contribution to the development of the territory and the life of the community.

Census data provide a basis for fitting Salt Lake City women into the national and local picture. The figures for 1890 indicate that there were 67,480 women ten years of age or older in Utah Territory. Of that number 7,076 or 10.5 percent were gainfully employed, substantially below the national average of 17 percent but higher than the neighboring states and territories of Idaho (8.4 percent), Arizona (9.6 percent), and New Mexico (7.8 percent). The less industrialized West did not provide as many work opportunities for women as the East.

The census divides occupations into five broad categories. The number of Utah women employed in each in 1890 was: 570, agriculture (8.1 percent of the total employed Utah women) ; 708, professional service (10 percent) ; 3,498, domestic and personal service (49.4 percent) ; 540, trade and transportation (7.6 percent) ; 1,760, manufacturing and mechanical pursuits (24.9 percent). The Gazetteer and other sources can help to identify some of these women and thus create a partial portrait, at least, of the Salt Lake City working woman.

A HANDFUL OF AGRICULTURISTS

As one might expect, few of the 570 agricultural workers listed by the census lived in Salt Lake City. According to the Gazetteer, Mrs. Edith Fisher, farmer, lived in East Mill Creek; Betsie Cornick lived and worked on the Jordan Stock Farm; and Catharine Steiner, a widow living on East Third South, was a cheese dealer. In the directory's business guide Anna Judson, an east bench resident and a widow, is listed under apiarists and Dorothy McAllister of North Salt Lake under dairies. These five women are the only ones identified by the Gazetteer with agricultural pursuits in the Salt Lake City area.

THE PRESTIGIOUS PROFESSIONALS

The most visible working women in Utah were the 708 in the professional fields of teaching, medicine, music, art, and literature. Utah women had led out as teachers, physicians, and writers. Following in that tradition, some of these women professionals are more well known than their male counterparts.

The Gazetteer lists more than 180 teachers and superintendents in Salt Lake City. Some of them worked for public, private, and parochial schools; others were self-employed as teachers of music, voice, and art.

On the administrative level Olive H. Avey was principal of the Twelfth Ward School and Frances Knight of the Eighth Ward School. Zina Bennion was lady superintendent of LDS College. Emily C. Curtiss ran McGurrin's Shorthand College on Main Street with the help of her assistant Rosie Evans. Charlotte E. Hayden was principal of Saint Mark's School.

Among the self-employed teachers was Mrs. Fanny Stenhouse Gray who advertised her skill at voice culture. Artist Kate L. Roberts, whose studio was in the Dooly Building, taught oil, watercolor, pastel, and drawing. Gratia Flanders, whose talents were endorsed by several Chicagoans, taught piano and music theory. In the old Constitution Building, Mrs. J. H. Van Horn, who boasted "the only set kiln in Utah," offered instruction in china painting and firing.

Three of Salt Lake City's women artists purchased space advertising in the Gazetteer: Ms. Roberts, Kate Wells, and Lottie L. Willard. The special talents of Miss Wells included tinting photographs in pastel, crayon, or watercolor at her studio in the McCornick Building. Miss Willard, at 48 East Third South, painted landscapes in oil. Another woman who should be included among the artists is Mrs. Amelia Fox who, with her partner Charles W. Symons, ran a photographic studio on Main Street.

Actors and actresses were considered professionals by the censustakers. Three women are billed as such in the Gazetteer: Edith, Luella, and Mary E. Lindsay. Luella lived on F Street and the other two at 10 Kendall Avenue.

Utah women achieved great success in medicine. The Gazetteer lists 17 women physicians and dentists. Not all of those who called themselves doctors in 1892 would be recognized as such today, a situation general to both women and men. In addition to such bona fide doctors as Ellis R. Shipp, Maggie C. Shipp, Ellen B. Ferguson, Elvira S. Barney, and Romania B. Pratt, there were practitioners such as Mrs. M. V. Goodrich, an electro-magnetic healer, and Qng of many women in theMrs. Esther Yeadon, a herbalist physician. Dental practitioners included Kate D. Buck and Jennette (Nettie) F. Weaverling.

Much has already been written about some of these women doctors. Elvira Stevens Barney's life, about which less is generally known, will serve as an example of the kind of experience these women had. Elvira came to Utah as a young woman in 1848. Facing the stern economic realities of that time, she began to make straw hats for California gold rush travelers. She taught school for four years, and in 1864 left for Wheaton College where she studied for two years. Returning home, she had earned by 1879 more than $9,000 "by her own labors, and built a good commodious house." In October 1879 she again went east to continue her medical training until 1883. Back in Salt Lake City she "fitted up her large house to accommodate lady boarders, thus affording them the convenience of home and college under one roof." G Like Dr. Shipp, Elvira had evidently decided to share her medical knowledge with other women as a teacher and as a practicing physician.

Dentist Kate Buck was associated with her husband, N. M. Buck, in the Happy Hour Dental Parlors on State Street. Assisting the married couple was Miss Weaverling. The two women, who had begun their careers in Kansas in the 1880s, were described as "thorough adepts in the profession . . . [and] among the limited number of lady practitioners understanding the details of the art."

Allied with these medical professionals were two female druggists: Louisa Stansfield who, with her partner John V. Long, operated Stansfield & Long First Ward Pharmacy at 702 South Seventh East and Mrs. J. B. Thomson whose pharmacy was on the west side of the city.

Women pursuing literary careers in Salt Lake City in the 1890s included Susa Young Gates, editor of the Young Woman's Journal and an author, and Emmeline B. Wells, editor and publisher of the Woman's Exponent and a poet. Much has been written about this legendary pair. 8 Two self-proclaimed authoresses listed in the Gazetteer were Miss Josephine Spencer and Mrs. A. G. Paddock.

Librarian Annie E. Chapman should be included with the literary group. She began as assistant to Christopher Diehl at the Pioneer Library. However, "the record shows, [she] did most of the actual work, nursing the tiny collection in its out-of-the-way corner with a loving care that helped it to grow in spite of a general indifference on the part of the city fathers." The Ladies' Literary Club is credited with planning and opening the Pioneer Library in 1890. When its successor, the Salt Lake City Public Library, opened on February 14, 1898, on the third floor of the Salt Lake City and County Building, "Miss Chapman was no longer assistant—she was given the title she had so well earned, Salt Lake City Librarian, the first ever to wear it." She served in that capacity until her death in 1903. 9 Johannah H. Sprague, listed in the Gazetteer as a stenographic clerk for the Third District Court, succeeded Miss Chapman. Both women now have branch libraries named for them.

Women attorneys were rare at the turn of the century. Of the 208 women listed by the 1890 census in that profession, one was practicing in Salt Lake City. Miss E. R. Lee had offices 54-56-57 in the Hooper Building where a number of male attorneys also had offices. The amount of space she rented would seem to indicate an active practice, but little is known of this pioneering professional.

The census includes clergy in the professional category. Women in Salt Lake City who might have qualified for inclusion are two Christian Scientists, Mrs. Mary A. Bagley and Mrs. A. F. De Long, both of whom had rooms in commercial buildings. Perhaps they operated early versions of the Christian Science reading room. Two officers of the Salvation Army in Salt Lake City were Capt. Alice A. Smith and Lt. Ella F. Locke.

Difficult to categorize, and individually anonymous as far as the Gazetteer's alphabetic listing is concerned, are the Sisters of the Holy Cross who operated Saint Mary's Academy and Holy Cross Hospital. In addition to a sister superior who managed the hospital, 16 sisters and 5 male nurses staffed it. The academy was directed by a sister superior who supervised 20 teachers, most of whom were probably members of the order. These were certainly working women, although their remuneration came in the form of maintenance rather than wages. All except the nurses—oddly classified by the census under domestic and personal service—would qualify as professionals.

DOMESTIC AND PERSONAL SERVICE

Almost half of Utah's working women in 1890 were engaged in domestic and personal service, a mixed category that includes nurses and midwives—who would seem to be as professional as art teachers—and boarding and lodging house keepers and restaurant owners—who would seem to be engaged in trade—as well as hairdressers, laundresses, cooks, waitresses, and domestics. Having acknowledged the limitations of this category, one can examine more closely some of the Salt Lake City women who pursued such careers.

The Gazetteer lists 33 female nurses in Salt Lake City. If one includes the 16 Sisters of the Holy Cross who were nurses but who were not listed in the Gazetteer, the total is 49. Many of the nurses were not attached to hospitals but practiced in private service. This can be deduced from the fact that 19 of the nurses listed themselves in the directory's business guide. Hospital employment may have been limited in that period when much medical care took place in the home. Possible institutional employers were Saint Mark's Hospital, Deseret Hospital, and the county infirmary. Some of the nurses may have assisted physicians and the city's five midwives in delivering babies at home and caring for the mother and newborn afterward.

Women who operated hotels, lodging houses, and boarding houses or let furnished rooms total more than 60 in the Gazetteer. Mrs. Julia Alexander, for example, was the proprietor of Alexander House at 374 South Main Street. Her advertisement touted "home comforts and pleasant surroundings" plus the convenience of the streetcar. Tivoli Lodging House one block north of Alexander's was run by Mrs. Nellie Bonner, and May Cavin operated the Tontine Hotel on Commercial Street.

Mrs. L. Fitzgerald ran a quarter-page ad for her furnished rooms at 129 West Second South. Each room had a stove and electric lights. Another woman who advertised her furnished rooms was Mrs. H. S. Nowlin, proprietress of the rental units in the Clayton Block at 214 1/ 2 South State Street.

Mrs. Elizabeth A. Corker was proprietress of the Grand Hotel at 164 East First South. Other Corkers living at the Grand Hotel were Lucy, a student; Gertrude, no occupation listed; and J. Fred, notary, patent attorney, and real estate and investment dealer. No familial relationships can be determined from the Gazetteer, of course, but the four Corkers were presumably related.

That women dominated the lodging and boarding business is clear from the listings in the Gazetteer's business guide. Another observation worth noting is that many of these women—and perhaps most—were genuinely in business; they were not merely renting out an extra room or two in their homes. Many of the addresses are in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City.

Unique in the local restaurant business was Mrs. E. Houghton's Woman's Exchange that featured "first-class home cooking" at 42 East First South. She served breakfast from 7 to 9 A.M., lunch from noon to 2:30 P.M., and dinner from 5 to 7:30 P.M. Mrs. Houghton also offered breakfast and a midday dinner on Sundays. One suspects from its name that the restaurant catered to the many women working in the downtown area.

More than 150 women listed themselves as laundresses or washwomen in the Gazetteer. The city had five steam laundries where both women and men were employed. For example, the Empire Steam Laundry at 21 Commercial Street had been established by three men from New York and Ohio. The firm employed some 30 persons, two of whom were Miss Millie Hansen who lived at 156 East Third South and Martha McGee of 535 West Third South. Nothing more is known of these two women except that neither lived with another person of the same last name. Perhaps they were new to the city and trying to make a living on their own.

The Gazetteer often lists where a person is employed as well as her occupation. Some of the laundresses are shown without a place of employment, leading one to conclude that they might have "taken in washing" or provided laundry service in someone's home. This assumption is borne out to a degree by help wanted and situation wanted advertisements in the city's daily newspapers.

The positions of waitress and cook occupied some 30 women in Salt Lake City, a relatively small corps considering the size of the city and the number of restaurants and fairly large hotels. Mrs. Hannah Olsen was a cook at Deseret Hospital. Miss Annie Harrop was a waitress at the Brooks Arcade on a corner of State and Third South streets. Maria Schuler, the proprietress of Brooks Arcade, rented furnished rooms. The premises also boasted dining parlors.

The largest number of women in any single occupational classification in Salt Lake City were domestics; more than 460 of them are listed in the Gazetteer. Included in this group are housekeepers, janitresses, maids, chambermaids, and domestics. The city's hotels employed some of the women. Mary Peterson, for example, was a chambermaid at the Hotel Knutsford and also boarded there. Hannah Olson was a domestic at the White House. However, most of the women listed as domestics have no place of employment given. Advertisements of the day reflect the popularity of these jobs for women and show that many of the opportunities were in private homes.

A look at the Swensons listed in the Gazetteer leads one to believe that domestic work may have been a necessity for recent immigrants not too familiar with English. Of the 25 individuals with this Scandinavian surname, 15 are women. Four of the women were domestics and one was a chambermaid at the Hotel Templeton. Two men worked at steam laundries. Domestic and personal service certainly gave the newly arrived, the non-English-speaking, and unskilled persons job opportunities they might have lacked otherwise.

One of the city's 13 female hairdressers was Mrs. Ray Robinson who operated the Sylvan Hair Dressing and Manicure Parlors on the second floor of the Walker Mercantile Block.

Other miscellaneous occupations in this category are school and hospital matrons. Six women were so occupied. Mrs. S. A. Barton was matron of the Industrial Home. Mrs. Florence C. Metcalf served as matron at the deaf school. (Frank W. Metcalf was principal of the Deaf Mute Department at the University of Utah. Both Metcalfs lived at the same address and were, perhaps, a wife-husband working team or mother and son.) Dental attendant, spa attendant, and hired companion were other positions filled by women.

One final occupation that might fit this category is medium. Mrs. J. B. Elliot offered such service at 129 West Second South in tandem with her husband, a magnetic healer. Their clients could solve health problems and contact the spirit world at one convenient stop.

TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION

Most of the 540 Utah women listed by the 1890 census in this category were involved in trade rather than transportation. In Salt Lake City, one woman, Martha J. Frees of 95 Rio Grande Avenue, is listed in the Gazetteer as an engineer for the Rio Grande Western Railway. According to the census, only four women in the United States were pursuing careers as engineers or brakemen for the railroads. One would like to know more about the rare Ms. Frees, but she remains a faceless historical curiosity.

Retail trade occupied some 260 Salt Lake City women, according to the Gazetteer. They included almost 40 store or business owners or managers and about 220 salesladies, forewomen, clerks, and cashiers.

Women owned and managed grocery and general merchandise stores, employment services, and real estate businesses. Eliza Snow Dunford was superintendent of the George Dunford Shoe Company, one of the city's oldest mercantile houses, having been founded as a general store in 1854." She is listed with the company's officers in the Gazetteer under incorporated companies. Other women corporate officers were: Mrs. Juliette L. Roundy, Nettie L. Reinsimar, and Mrs. Claire L. Clawson of Little, Roundy and Company, dealers in crockery, glassware, and cutlery; and Mrs. M. I. Home, Mrs. M. W. Thomas, and Miss Gladys Woodmansee of the Woman's Co-op Mercantile and Manufacturing Company.

Mrs. Isabella McEwan ran the Salt Lake Employment Office, which she had established in 1882, to provide help for women and others seeking employment. One of her specialties was domestic employment in "gentlemen's families, hotels, and elsewhere." Her fee was $1.00 in advance. Four women were engaged in real estate locally. Mrs. Rosana M. White and Mrs. Emma A. Williams operated as real estate agents under the firm name of White and W'illiams at 57 East Second South.

Women store owners in Salt Lake City included Mrs. M. E. Buhring who operated the Wasatch Meat Market at 22 West First South. Emma Ball, Agnes Bolto, Jennette Gowan, Mrs. L. F. James, Mrs. B. Lindsay, Mrs. Thomas Mclntyre, and Sarah Williams ran general merchandise stores. Nettie M. Abbott, Mrs. A. Butterworth, Agnes Crockett, Sarah A. Hickok, Mrs. Caroline Hill, Jane Pope, and Mary E. Rodehaver were grocers. Mrs. Nellie Osborne managed the Twenty-second Ward Store, and Mrs. Mary Ann Rich the Fifth Ward Co-op.

In other areas of trade, one finds women in the positions of forewoman, saleslady, cashier, and clerk. For example, Miss A. Bickel, who boarded at Mrs. Ford's, was forewoman of the millinery department at Walker Brothers and Fyler Company, and Mrs. Geneve E. Grosscup was forewoman of the millinery department at ZCMI. The major retail stores in Salt Lake City employed many women: ZCMI was staffed by 300 women and men; Walker Brothers employed 45 female clerks and assistants and 40 males.

The Bowmans who lived in the Marmalade district on the west side of Capitol Hill contributed more than their share to the city's retail trade. Robert ran a general merchandise store at 55 Pear. At that same address wore Amy, a clerk at the store; Elizabeth, another clerk; and Dora who clerked at R. G. Dun and Company, a mercantile agency.

Although women did not dominate in sales positions, they did constitute a significant portion of the sales force. Nationally, there wore 58,451 saleswomen in the United States in 1890 and 205,943 salesmen. Locally, men had been discouraged by Brigham Young from engaging in some types of retail sales work. The LDS church leader is quoted as saying that he found it "disgusting . . . to see a big, fat, lubberly fellowhanding out calicoes and measuring ribbon; I would rather see the ladies do it. The ladies can learn to keep books as well as the men." What effect such pronouncements had on employment in Salt Lake City cannot be known, but women do have a long tradition behind the sales counter in Utah.

General office workers comprise a subsection under trade in the 1890 census. The Gazetteer lists almost 80 female stenographers, secretaries, typists, bookkeepers, and copyists in Salt Lake City. If that seems like a small number, one must remember that at the turn of the century men also pursued such careers.

Miss Annie Bowring was a bookkeeper at the J. G. McDonald Candy Company, and Miss Emily R. Hillam kept the books of the Singer Manufacturing Company. Miss J. Field was a stenographer at ZCMI, and Miss Annie C. Maddison was a secretary for the waterworks. Few generalizations can be made about these women except that most of them were single.

Several women advertised their stenographic services in the business guide. Two enterprising women organized a partnership to serve local business. Miss B. F. MacMasters and Miss M. L. Stansfield, whose offices wore in the Dooly Building, advertised stenographic and typing service.

Another job in the category is telephone and telegraph operator, an occupation that attracted men as well as women. The Gazetteer identifies eight women operators.

One final entrant in this category is Mary Jacobson, Murray postmistress. Mary and her sister apparently had the federal position locked up. One was a Republican and the other a Democrat. During a Republican administration, the Republican sister would serve as postmistress and the other as her assistant. When the party in the White House changed, the sisters switched jobs.

MANUFACTURING AND MECHANICAL PURSUITS

Almost one-fourth of the employed Utah women, 1,760 of them, found work with manufacturing firms or in mechanical jobs, especially printing.

Some women were themselves manufacturers. Mrs. John Manning was the proprietor of the Great Western Trunk Factory at 64 East Second South. Mrs. L. I. Bradley manufactured Bloom of the Lilies soap that she promoted in a half-page Gazetteer ad. According to Mrs. Bradley, her product was ideal for cleaning and beautifying the skin and also removed freckles.

More than 50 Salt Lake City women made or trimmed millinery; and more than 300 women, according to the Gazetteer, worked as dressmakers, seamstresses, and tailoresses. Some of these women were selfemployed and some were employers, hiring other women as assistants. Alice Nunn, for example, was employed as a milliner by Mrs. N. G. Burrows, an importer of French millinery goods. Miss Ella Hills advertised both millinery and dressmaking at 109 South West Temple. Mrs. M. Tracy had dressmaking parlors in the Progress Building. Madame R. Hall took a half-page ad to promote her goods: evening costumes, trousseaux, tailor-made suits, and robes, soliciting out-of-town as well as local orders.

More than 90 dressmakers are included in the directory's business guide, underlining the independence of many of these women. Sometimes members of one family combined their talents in cooperative dressmaking enterprises. The Mather sisters, Georgia and Helen, lived at 337 South Second West and were business partners at offices in the Culmer Block. Miss Maria Nowlin, modiste, seems to have employed a relative, May Nowlin, in her dressmaking parlors. Miss Nowlin featured "the popular 'American Excelsior System' of cutting and fitting." The Nowlins were an enterprising family of women: Mrs. H. S. Nowlin, mentioned above, operated a lodging house.

Almost 200 women worked in knitting mills and in carpet, shoe, and other kinds of factories. They made an almost endless variety of products from cigars to crackers. Mrs. Delia M. Brown, Josephine Colletti, Miss Lulu Daman, and Louisa Domain were Salt Lake City's four female cigarmakers. Mary A. Noyce was employed at the ZCMI shoe factory, one of many women who worked on the manufacturing end of the large merchandising firm.

The Deseret Woolen Mills employed a number of women at the plant on Fifth North and Third West, including Mamie and Rachel Collett who lived just up the hill at 36 Almond. The Utah Cracker Factory, with a capacity of 30 barrels a day, employed 8 women and girls and 14 men. To go with the crackers, one might have enjoyed a glass of beer from the California Brewery at 64 East First South, managed by- Margaret Wagener.

Women were certainly accepted in many manufacturing roles. Had Utah been more highly industrialized in the 1890s, it seems likely that more women would have found employment in factories.

As typographers and printers women affected the union movement in Salt Lake City to some extent. The Gazetteer lists 29 women compositors and printers. The compositors set type for several printing companies and for such local periodicals as the Salt Lake Herald, the Salt Lake Times, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Salt Lake Stock and Mining Journal, the Juvenile Instructor, the Woman's Exponent, and the Swedish-language Korrespondenten.

Two of the compositors wore officers of the Salt Lake Typographical Union, Local 115: Mrs. E. E. Sylvester, who worked for the Tribune, was recording secretary, and Sadie Asper, a Herald employee, was treasurer. Miss Asper began working for the Herald in the 1880s. When she resigned to enter the university in the fall of 1888, the newspaper saluted her skill by stating that she could "lay claim to being the quickest and most expert lady compositor ever known in this section of the country." She must have rejoined the Herald following her university experience.

When women began entering the typesetting field in Salt Lake City, members of Local 115 expressed concern. In 1886 union officers complained that none of the nine women employed locally was a union member. In 1890 the local reported to the International Typographical Union convention that "cheap female labor" was a problem for the union in Salt Lake City. However, some women did realize the benefits of union membership. Records show that in 1891 female union members totaled 12, nonunion females 14.

OBSERVATIONS

From this brief review of Stenhouse's Utah Gazetteer, 1892-93, several general observations can be made. Although Utah was not heavily industrialized in the 1890s, local factories, mills, and laundries provided some women with jobs. Using ingenuity and tenacity, many women in Salt Lake City created jobs for themselves, especially as milliners, dressmakers, and lodging house keepers. They entered trade on their own or in partnership with others, using advertising to promote their products and services. They worked at a wide variety of occupations requiring different levels of education or training, experience, mental and manual dexterity, management and leadership skills, business acumen, and even physical endurance. Although many women worked at jobs low in prestige such as domestic, laundress, or seamstress, a significant number entered the professions or owned and managed businesses. One may fairly say that women played an important role in the local economy as employees and employers.

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