Women

Like statehood, the history of women’s suffrage in Utah is one of struggle. In 1870, women in Utah were the first in the United States to exercise the right to vote. However, federal legislation of 1888 disenfranchised Utah’s women. While Utah’s 1895 state constitution included suffrage, women could not ratify the document as President Grover Cleveland’s Enabling Act defined voters as “all male citizens of the United States.” However, Congress recognized women’s suffrage when it accepted Utah’s constitution and granted statehood in 1896.

Although women were not eligible to run for the first legislative session, many representatives and senators supported women’s rights.

• Senate president George M. Cannon advocated for and ensured that female clerks were hired, including Emma L. Maddison, Lillie R. Pardee, and Henrietta Clark.
• Senator George Sutherland fully supported suffrage, having served on the committee that drafted the constitution’s article on the matter. Later, as a United States’ congressman, senator, and supreme court justice, Sutherland became a leading figure in the national suffrage movement.
• Representative Joseph E. Robinson, who also served on the constitutional committee that drafted the article on suffrage, was “an ardent supporter of that principle” (Drumm 1896, 79).

The elections of 1896 were the first in which women could both vote and run for political office. Numerous women across the state took office that year at both the county and state levels. The second legislative assembly included three female legislators, Representative Sarah E. Andersen, Representative Eurithe K. LaBarthe, and Senator Martha Hughes Cannon. In unique Utah style, physician and polygamist wife, Martha Hughes Cannon, was not only the country’s first female senator, but she also earned her seat over her husband, Angus M. Cannon.

References

Drumm, Mark. "The Bee Hive State." Drumm's Manual of Utah, and Souvenir of the First State Legislature, 1896. Hathi Trust Digital Library. Salt Lake City, Utah: M.Drumm, 1896. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hx4jb7.