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Salt Lake City's Reapers' Club
Salt Lake City's Reapers' Club
BY SHARON SNOW CARVER
ON MONDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1892, EMMELINE B. WELLS, prominent Salt Lake City editor, writer, and Mormon women's leader, recorded in her diary that she had "sent for some of the sisters to come and talk over the matter of a literary club. . . ."1 Eight prominent Salt Lake City women, all Mormons, answered her summons and decided to call an organizing meeting in two weeks.2
This study focuses on the membership of the Reapers' Club, the Salt Lake City literary club established by Wells, and demonstrates how the organization fits into the state and national literary club movement Recent studies by Karen Blair and Anne Firor Scott give a composite picture of American women's literary clubs at the turn of the century.3 Although they use an impressive array of personal collections and club records from the East and West coasts, touching down quickly in Ohio, Texas, and California, their view does not take into consideration the uniqueness of the West and raises the question of how the western woman fits into the literary club picture. Additionally, the study of Utah women's club movements has been very general or limited to the Mormon church's Relief Society or the specific women involved. For this demographic study of a specific Salt Lake women's club, the membership was identified for three years—1892, 1900, and 1907—and collective biography was used. It was possible to identify and categorize fifty of the fifty-seven women members (88 percent) for these three years The categories were determined by and compared to Blair's general description of women's clubs to ascertain if the Reapers' Club conformed to the national movement.
During the 1890s women in America participated in a frenzy of organizing despite early cries that such activities would result in ruined homes and neglected children.4 According to William O'Neill's history of feminism, by 1900 "half of the important American women's organizations had been established, most of them in the 1890's."5 This organizational activity can be attributed to a number of changes—including access to education and the increasing "respectability" of the suffrage movement—in the status of women that occurred in the decades immediately preceding it.6 However, the increased leisure (helped by the declining birthrate) of middle-class wives and mothers, according to Carl N. Degler, was the prevailing circumstance that contributed to the club phenomenon. 7
Urbanization and industrialization brought change to the middle-class home and reduced household chores. In addition, the concept of separate spheres for men and women, in which the leisure of the wife was a symbol of success, created a large group of middle-class women searching for an acceptable opportunity in society for companionship and excess energies.
When they were formed, a majority of the new middle-class organizations were originally designed for self-improvement Studies of these literary clubs suggest that they played a vital role in the movement of women from the private sphere of the home into the more public sphere of civic and political reform Clubs helped and encouraged women to broaden their influence and autonomy by capitalizing on their so-called inherent domestic and moral superiority. In The Clubwoman as Feminist Karen Blair investigates the role of these clubs in nineteenth-century feminism and concludes that they offered women a viable feminist alternative to the more radical suffragists. She further credits them with laying the foundation for the surge of support that the suffrage movement experienced around 1910.8 In Natural Allies Anne Firor Scott argues that the "culture club" was central to "American social and political development."9 The involvement of an enormous number of respectable "ladies" in the literary club movement indicates that rather than being an anomaly, clubs were a viable part of the Progressive Era.
During the middle and late nineteenth-century, Utah was an area of vigorous feminist activity. While most powerful American men resisted woman suffrage, many of Utah's Mormon leaders openly supported strong women who would sustain church doctrine while taking part in feminist activities.10 Because church leaders encouraged participation in the national suffrage movement, the role of Utah women's literary clubs in the extensive state suffrage activity could prove vital to understanding the feminist movement in the West.
Unique in the Intermountain West, Utah was settled by Mormon pioneers, a cohesive group with clearly defined leaders. Polygamy, the unorthodox marriage pattern participated in by a large group of Mormons, caused numerous problems between the faithful and later arriving non-Mormon settlers. Separate but often parallel women's reform and social clubs were organized with religion (including polygamy) being the major focus of division.11
In 1890, after intense federal prosecution of polygamists, Mormons officially discontinued the practice of plural marriage in the United States. While abandoning polygamy did not immediately reconcile the Mormons and their neighbors, it did lead to a period of cooperation.12 In her 1898 History of the Woman's Club Movement, Jennie Croly, in historic understatement, referred to less favorable social conditions in Utah, suggesting the population was made up of "strongly contrasted and picturesque but not easily harmonized elements."13
The Utah Federation of Women's Clubs, organized in 1893, was one forum in which both Mormons and non-Mormons were able to cooperate.14 Croly credits the need for a unifying element as the reason for Utah women's clubs being the second in the nation to organize a state federation.15 These nascent efforts at interaction and harmony between the two dominant groups in Utah fit into the larger women's club movement. Utah women were becoming conscious of the effectiveness of joint action. As one clubwoman somewhat dramatically expounded:
Utah women, Mormon and non-Mormon, were ready in 1892 to join the stream and sweep forward in the American women's club movement
From 1891 to 1893 Utah experienced a peak in club activity.17 On October 17, 1892, two weeks after her first inquiry, veteran club founder and supporter Emmeline B Wells organized the Reapers' Club at a meeting held in the Woman's Exponent offices.18 The president and the secretary were scheduled to be rotated at each meeting, after the minutes and roll call, but the treasurer was to serve for one year. The rotating chair was common in clubs nationally because it gave more women an opportunity to learn to conduct. Wells was chosen as president with May Talmage secretary and Carrie S. Thomas treasurer.19 The club arranged to meet every two weeks at the Exponent offices in the Templeton Building The Reapers' Club was organized at the height of the Utah club movement, and its correlation to the national literary club movement, as outlined by Blair and Scott, is the focus of this study.
According to Blair, the average literary club was usually a homogeneous group of mostly "mature" women with grown families who shared a common experience, possibly birthplace, school, or religion; however, often the occupation or economic status of the husbands was the major commonality. The women frequently showed determined loyalty to the club, remaining members year after year and introducing their women relatives to membership.20
The Reapers' Club in most ways fits Blair's description of the "average" woman's literary club Reapers' were not only members of the Mormon church, but most shared the common experience of polygamy. Ninety-one percent of the club members whose personal circumstances could be positively determined were involved in plural marriage as wife, mother, or daughter. This figure is even higher than a recent Salt Lake City study of polygamy suggests.21 Another common experience shared by the Reapers' was birthplace. When the birthplace of fifty of the fifty-seven representative members was identified, the British Isles topped the list with 38 percent, and Utah came second at 30 percent. When parentage is taken into account for the fifteen Utah-born club members, nine (60 percent) were secondgeneration British.
Blair suggests that literary club members were mature, but her failure to give figures for her estimate makes it difficult to determine if the Reapers' were average. However, the large number of women in their thirties suggests a younger club than the mature collection that Blair describes. A breakdown of the Reapers' membership for the three representative years shows a slightly aging group with an overall average age of forty-five. In 1892 the average age was forty-four, but the largest age group was in its thirties. Eight years later in 1900 the mean age was forty-eight, and in 1907 it was down to forty-five The largest group in both those years was between forty and forty-nine Sample member s include d bot h May Booth Talmage, who was twenty-four years old when she joined, and seventy-four-year-old Mary Isabella Hales Home , who had three daughters in the club.22
Blair suggests that the husband's occupation, status, or income was the most common unifying factor in clubs. Because the Reapers' contained so many prominent Mormon women, the status of both the woman and her husband and/o r father was considered. Of the members classified, 76 percent were the highest status, including LDS church auxiliary general board members, wives and daughters of church presidents Brigham Young, John Taylor, and Lorenzo Snow, and representatives of state associations. Wealth was not considered because of the difficulty of determining it with multiple wives.23 Traditionally, plural marriage was reserved for those men who were considered "worthy" and was a prerequisite for higher advancement in the church hierarchy. These figures suggest that the club was representative of prominent Mormon women rather than an association of polygamous wives.
Blair indicates that the majority of club women nationally had already raised their families. The declining birthrate (down to 3.56 per woman nationally in 1900) is seen as one reason for the increased activity in literary clubs.24 In the Reapers' Club the representative women averaged 7.4 children; ten of the women had nine children each and two reported twelve According to the 1900 census, however, the mean number of children under eighteen in the homes of clubwomen was 2.1, and 38 percent of the sample women did no t have children eighteen or unde r in their homes at all. Another 24 percent had only one or two minor children. Although three women had six, seven, and eight children in the home in 1900, these figures show that the majority of women did have fewer children at hom e (despite the high birthrate) in the years when they were active in the Reapers' Club, conforming to the national pattern.
Club women, according to Blair, showed loyalty to their club and often introduced their women friends and relatives to membership. Where this difficult variable could be determined, 40 percent of the women in the Reapers' Club were identified as having relatives in the club.25 When ecclesiastical ward membership and close associates working in auxiliary organizations on local and churchwide levels were added to the relationships considered, all identified women were associated with each other in some way.
The names of women's literary clubs usually reflected either the meeting time or purpose, according to Blair. Utah clubs followed this pattern with the Ladies' Literary Club, the Reviews' Club, the Authors' Club (comprised of students of authors not authors themselves) , the Historical Club, and others.26 The Reapers' Club was no exception to this pattern. The name was chosen to represent gleaners that "grasp the sickle of industry and enter the fields of science and knowledge to reap and bind into sheaves, golden truths. . . ."27
Generally the clubs required only a small budget because expenses were minimal. According to Blair, the dues usually ranged from fifty cents to ten dollars a year with an initiation fee from two to five dollars.28 The Reapers' paid a fifty cent initiation fee and their annual dues of one dollar were paid semiannually in October and April. In addition, donations were made to help fund special events such as a reception honoring club founder Emmeline B Wells and hosting a reception for the Utah Federation of Women's Clubs. During the years 1898 and 1900 the club records also show donations of ten cents by most members for a traveling library, a state project mentioned in Croly's History of the Woman's Club Movement in America. Occasionally, the treasurer recorded fines, usually twenty-five cents, but listed no reasons for the levy.29
Nationally, Blair concludes that in most clubs of the time dues were usually expended on ballots, reports, programs, flowers, postage, and rental of a meeting place.30 The Reapers' were no exception. Club papers include receipts for flowers, postage, supplies, and dues to both the State and General Federation of Women's Clubs. The club rented meeting space at the Woman's Exponent offices from Wells Blair mentions that club badges (paid for by members) and colors, carefully selected by organizers, were standard in clubs of, the era. 31 The Reapers' color was red and the badge was a wheat head. Club members paid twenty-five cents each for their badges and usually wore them to special meetings and functions.32
Newspapers faithfully reported club meetings and special events, giving accounts of topics discussed but also detailing the refreshments, table settings, and flowers, and including the color scheme and the ladies attending. This elitist reporting has been the target of criticism that labels the clubs as cliques and devices for class consolidation as well as vehicles for upward mobility.33 This criticism is valid to some extent but does not negate the value of the clubs to the feminist movement. In fact, women may have joined for the very reasons that critics decry and, in joining, participated in the move toward civic activity.
The Woman's Exponent was the main news medium for the Reapers' Club. Although some events were reported in Salt Lake City newspapers, the Woman's Exponent printed detailed summaries of club reports as well as the names of members who participated on the programs. Reapers' socials, often held in conjunction with the Utah Women's Press Club, were reported in great detail, including invited guests and eminent women and men who attended.34 Special musical numbers and poetry readings were noted and admired. Mention of the beautiful yard or home of the hostess was usually included along with a description of the flower arrangements and table settings.
Blair asserts that although club programs were often described by participants as "universities for middle-aged women" who had lacked the opportunities for education that had later become available to women, there was no real wish for intense study. The clubs often moved rapidly from one subject to the next, allowing little time for more than superficial knowledge of their potpourri of topics.35
The Reapers' Club fits this description When its formation was announced in the Woman's Exponent it was heralded as a literary club of women who are past school or university life, but who wish to keep pace with the progress being made nowadays, and whose interest in the intellectual and moral development of the world is such as stimulates them to make every effort possible for general enlightenment, moral, spiritual and physical growth.36
In a report to the third annual convention of the Utah Federation of Women's Clubs held in May 1896, Dr Romania B Pratt reported that the Reapers' Club was in its fourth year of "useful instruction." She noted that
While the Reapers' advertised its intellectual benefits, in reality, along with other literary clubs of the era, it offered a diverse but undemanding program that did not diverge far from the middle-class womanly concern with home, family, and morality. Despite this traditional focus, Reapers' Club members appear to have had better than average training. Often their biographies and obituaries emphasize education, mentioning college and university attendance Four medical doctors, graduates of eastern medical schools, were active members of the club: Ellis R. Shipp, Maggie Shipp, Romania B. Pratt, and Mattie H. Cannon.38
Most clubs, according to Blair, had a fairly rigid structure that included following parliamentary procedure, keeping minutes, and selecting an annual topic for study. Generally the programs consisted of one or two papers, about ten or twenty minutes each, with a short group discussion In addition, current events were discussed, but controversial subjects such as politics, Freud, or Darwin were avoided. Shakespeare's plays, Dante's Inferno, and Browning's poetry were favorite subjects for papers that, while not literary masterpieces, were painstakingly researched, written, and read by club women who conscientiously tried to improve their minds. Every meeting usually contained musical or dramatic performances for variety, and refreshments were considered an important part of the meeting because women who might be too shy to give their views in a formal discussion might be persuaded to express themselves in the more relaxed atmosphere that refreshments produced.39
In the same diary entry that records the organization of the Reapers' Club, Wells outlines club programs Each topic, she notes, will be presented for twenty minutes, followed by a forty-minute discussion of the topic and thirty minutes to discuss current events. Conscious of the celebration of Columbus's arrival in America, Wells assigned the first topic, Queen Isabella, to Phebe Young, and Columbus and Ferdinand were targeted as the next two topics.40 In 1900 the Exponent reported that the Reapers' were studying American history, and earlier subjects had included a study of the American mound builders and noted American writers In addition, the lives of eminent women, Martha Washington, Eliza R. Snow, and Clara Barton, were related. The educational methods of Pestalozzi and Froebel regarding kindergarten work were studied as were "scientific subjects"—electricity and Thomas A. Edison. An "instructive lecture on the construction of the eye" was given by Dr. Romania B. Pratt.41 Reapers' Club papers were carefully prepared by members with the goal eloquently stated by Pratt:
Besides learning skills such as speaking, researching, and writing, American club women gained new confidence and developed a strong sense of sisterhood between members. This feeling of sisterhood was valued by nineteenth-century women and provided them a support network against the isolation of their homes.43 In addition a new awareness of their own worth allowed some of them to branch out into the civic domain. Besides learning to sustain each other, club women learned to support all women They found that women did not have to be silent in public, that they had something worthwhile to say This newly learned articulation and acceptance of women was a boost to the female status. In 1892 when Emmeline B. Wells recorded the following statement in her journal she might have been expressing the feelings of a large number of women in Utah and America.
Scott points out that some club women moved from self-improvement to community involvement to national or state political action, while others never left the comfort zone of literary club activity.45 This inconsistency was typical of early women's activities and allowed women to reach a level of comfort consistent with their beliefs. When women were involved beyond the home, they were mostly concerned with civic housekeeping—women and children, education, health, libraries, beautification, and moral issues. These were projects that the women's sphere could be stretched to encompass.
While the study of American history, Martha Washington, and the eye do not seem like steps to feminism, the clubs were indeed taking their first steps in that direction. These club women were determined to improve their condition, and according to Blair, this was a bold concept They had the "audacity to strive for self-improvement in an era that defined ladies as selfless agents devoted to the well-being of others."46 Even social climbing was useful in helping women evolve from captives of the "cult of true womanhood" to the public sphere.
Literary clubs taught and educated women, not only in the ways intended but in other important ways They offered a support network of like-minded women to encourage new skills and helped the less courageous of nineteenth-century women to reach out without letting go of the familiar. Literary clubs allowed women to safely stand with one foot in the home while testing the waters of activity outside their domestic world.47
The Reapers' Club of Salt Lake City was a typical nineteenth-century woman's literary club As this study demonstrates, despite polygamy, Mormonism, and a high birthrate, it was very much a part of the American women's club movement and offered Salt Lake City Mormon women an alternative and an addition to suffrage work and home and child care.
NOTES
Ms Carver is a doctoral candidate in U.S history at Brigham Young University.
1 Emmeline B Wells,Journals, vol 15 (Monday, October 3, 1892): 90, typescript, Archives, Harold B Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
2 These women were identified by Wells as "Drs. Shipp Ellis & Maggie [medical doctors Ellis Reynolds Shipp and her sister wife Maggie C Shipp later Maggie Roberts] Mary & Lillie Freeze [sister wives Mary Ann Burnham Freeze and Lelia Tuckett Freeze] Ruth [May] Fox, Sister Phebe [Clark] Young, Margaret [Ann Mitchell] Caine and Sister [May Booth] Talmage ".
3 Karen Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist: True Womanhood Redefined, 1868-1914 (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1980); Anne Firor Scott, Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American History (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1991).
4 Scott, Natural Allies, p 117.
5 William O'Neill, Every One Was Brave: A History of Feminism in America (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1969), p 149.
6 For the tripling of female college enrollment between 1890 and 1910 see Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History ofAmerican Family Life (New York: The Free Press, 1988), p 111.
7 Carl N Degler, At Odds: Women and the Family in Americafrom Revolution to the Present (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p 324.
8 Suffragists demanded, as Ellen DuBois explains in "The Radicalism of the Woman Suffrage Movement: Notes Toward the Reconstruction of Nineteenth Century Feminism," in Mary Beth Norton, ed., Major Problems in American Women's History (Lexington, Mass.: D C Heath and Co., 1979), pp 209-14, admission to the social order on an individual basis not connected with woman's place in the home This radical stand, bypassing the woman's sphere, is what many women found difficult to support Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist, p 3.
9 Scott, Natural Allies, p. 2. Feminist and suffragist are used interchangeably in this paper. They refer to the later movement that expanded woman's sphere to include reform in the public sector.
10 Anne Firor Scott, "Mormon Women, Other Women: Paradoxes and Challenges," fournal of Mormon History 13 (1987): 14 Published speeches of church leaders in the DeseretNews and the Woman's Exponent also show this support.
11 See Carol Cornwall Madsen, "Decade of Detente: The Mormon-Gentile Female Relationship in Nineteenth-century Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly 63 (1995): pp 298-319; and Barbara Hayward, "Utah's Anti-Polygamy Society, 1878-1884" (master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1980) Until 1891 Utah's political parties were organized on religious lines. Clubs and organizations were divided in the same way.
12 Madsen, "Decade of Detente."
13 Jennie Cunningham Croly, The History of the Woman's Club Movement in America (New York: Henry C Allen & Co., 1898), pp 1112-13.
14 See Madsen, "Decade of Detente," for a study of cooperation between Mormons and nonMormons in the last decade of the nineteenth century One area of cooperation was the kindergarten movement The Salt Lake Association, later the Free Kindergarten Association, was organized in 1892 by Mrs E H Parsons, a Baptist The Utah Kindergarten Association was organized by Sarah Kimball, Isabella Home, Elmina Taylor, Zina D. H. Young, Bathsheba W. Smith, and Ellis Shipp, all members of the Reapers' Club In 1896 the groups united and were successful in obtaining funding for a free kindergarten Public schooling for all Utah schoolchildren, the Utah Council of Women, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and Utah's participation in the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago were all areas that saw women disregard religious difference.
15 Croly, History, pp 1112-13.
16 Romania B Pratt, "Reaper's Club," Woman's Exponent 25 (June 1896): 1-2.
17 See Croly, History, pp 1108-17; and Alyson Rich Jackson, "Development of the Woman's Club Movement in Utah during the Nineteenth Century" (honors paper, Brigham Young University, 1992). In 1891 the Woman's Press Club and the Nineteenth Century Club were organized in Utah; in 1892 the Woman's Club, the Cleofan, the Reapers' Club; and in 1893 the Authors' Club, the Aglaia Woman's Club of Springville, and the Utah State Federation of Women's Clubs Other clubs may have been organized that were not members of the federation. In addition, the LDS Relief Society, official church women's organization, was incorporated October 10, 1892 Jill Mulvay Derr,Janath Russell Cannon, and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1992), p 145.
18 The Woman's Exponent was a bimonthly paper independently published in Salt Lake City between 1872 and 1914 It was outspoken in its support of feminism and suffrage, regularly editorializing and reporting on the movements. It also reported on the activities of LDS women's organizations, including Relief Society and Young Ladies Association It received encouragement from church leaders but was financed by subscription See Claudia L Bushman, Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah (Cambridge, Mass.: Emmeline Press Ltd., 1976), pp 178-80.
19 Wells,Journals, vol 15 (October 17, 1892): 91.
20 Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist, p 63.
21 See Marie Cornwall, Camela Courtright, and Laga Van Beek, "How Common the Principle?: Women as Plural Wives in 1860," Dialogue, afournal of Mormon Thought 26 (1993) This study gives polygamous marriage involvement of Salt Lake women as 56 percent in 1860 This corresponds with LarryML Logue, A Sermon in the Desert: Belief and Behavior in Early St. George, Utah (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988).
22 According to the 1900 census, May Booth Talmage, 31, was the wife of James Talmage, a 37-yearold schoolteacher She had been married 12 years, and one of her six children was alive in 1900 Also living in the household were five children ages 6 months to 11 (identified as sons and daughters of her husband) and a Norwegian servant In 1900 Mary Isabella Hales Home was an 81-year-old widow living with her son-in-law and daughter, Henry C and Clara James Also in the household were Clara's three sons and two daughters ages 4 to 14 Clara was also a club member The James family, including Home, and the Talmage family lived in the same LDS ward, Farmers Ward.
23 If a woman or her husband or father had national, state, or churchwide renown she was considered of highest status City, business, or local church prominence was considered of secondary status which included 24 percent of the members.
24 Nancy Woloch, Women and the American Experience (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), p. 271; and Degler, At Odds, p 325.
25 Relative was determined as a mother, daughter, sister, or sister wife (married to same husband). Other relationships were too involved to take into consideration for this study Unfortunately only obvious relations were identified, and the actual percentage could be much higher.
26 Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist, p 62; Croly, History, pp 1108-17.
27 Woman's Exponent, 25 (June 1896): 2.
28 Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist, pp 64-65.
29 Reapers' Club Papers, 1892-1912, MSS, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City.
30 Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist, pp 64-65.
31 Ibid, and Croly, History. Newspaper accounts indicate that colors, badges, and a symbol were important to women club members.
32 Woman's Exponent 25 (June 1896): 1; Reapers' Club Papers.
33 Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist, pp. 66, 71.
34 The Utah Women's Press Club was organized in 1892 by Emmeline B Wells Women who had published in a journal or newspaper were eligible for membership Utah Women's Press Club Papers, LDS Church Archives. See also Linda Thatcher and John R. Sillito, "'Sisterhood and Sociability': The Utah Women's Press Club, 1891-1928," Utah Historical Quarterly 53(1985): 144-56.
35 Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist, pp. 57-59.
36 Woman's Exponent 21 (December 1892): 92.
37 Ibid., 25 (June 1896): 1-2 Romania B Pratt and Parley P Pratt, Jr., were divorced in 1881, and on March 11, 1886, she became the plural wife of Charles W Penrose Christine Croft Waters, "Romania P Penrose," in Vicky Burgess-Olsen, Sister Saints (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1978), pp 351, 353 The records of the Reapers' Club and the Exponent article give her name as Piatt.
38 Mattie H Cannon was more formally known as Martha Hughes Cannon.
39 Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist, pp. 58, 66-67.
40 Wells,Journal, vol 15 (October 17, 1892): 91.
41 Woman's Exponent 21 (December 15, 1892): 92.
42 Ibid., 25 (June 1896): 2.
43 For more on female relationships see Nancy F Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), and Caroll Smith-Rosenberg, 'The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-century America,'' Signs 1 (1975): 1-29.
44 Wells,Journal, vol 15 (January 19, 1892): 7.
45 Scott, Natural Allies, p 140.
46 Blair, The Clubwoman as Feminist, p.58.
47 Some Reapers' Club members were very involved with civic and church programs See notes 14 and 17 and Madsen, "Detente." The Relief Society and the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association were both headed by members of the Reapers' Club See individual biographies in Andrew Jenson, Latter-Day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols (Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1971), and Derr et al., Women of Covenant. Papers of the Salt Lake County Woman Suffrage Association of Utah show that 34 members of the association were also members of the Reapers' Club between 1890 and 1896 On November 15, 1892,just two days before the organization of the Reapers' Club, the Suffrage Association was reorganized with seven new officers Four of these officers—Nellie C Taylor, Adelia W Eardly, Lelia Freeze, and Phebe C. Young—were members of the Reapers' Club.
