Heading west out of Cheyenne, a porter on the Central Pacific handed Susan Anthony a small envelope. Inside was an invitation to join “Mrs. Lealand Stanford” in her private car. Anthony was delighted for she needed Jane Stanford’s support for the upcoming California campaign. Quickly she made her way to the back of the train. Many things had changed since the last time she had traveled this stretch of track in 1871. Then, she had stood with Elizabeth Cady Stanton on the back platform for a better view; now, as the train crossed the Wyoming border into Utah in 1895, she was traveling without Stanton and sitting in Stanford’s “luxurious conveyance.”1 Although woman suffrage was hardly accepted, it was no longer considered the “province of eccentrics and crackpots.”2
In the half-century since the Seneca Falls meeting of women’s rights advocates, the movement had shed the stamp of the Quakers as well as the image of radicalism; suffragists were perceived as respectable, despite their lack of success. Such changes in the movement were driven by the changing circumstances of women’s lives and external factors that increased women’s opportunities [481] outside the home and made way for the entrance of the New Woman.
At two in the morning, the train pulled into the Salt Lake City station. Anthony and her co-worker, Anna Howard Shaw, remained in their sleeper until seven.3 Stepping outside, they were greeted by scores of woman suffragists, Mormon and non-Mormon, adorned in their symbolic yellow and waving white handkerchiefs. Utah’s suffragists were in a festive mood: only days before they had succeeded in adding woman suffrage to their proposed state constitution. Anthony’s arrival on May 12, 1895, was a “red-letter day in the history of the Territory,” and marked the beginning of a three-day celebration.4
Only the mountains surrounding the Salt Lake valley seemed unchanged since Anthony’s trip to the territory in 1871. Then, Anthony and Stanton had listened while the New Movement reformers outlined their strategies for the future. Although much of what they championed had come to pass, ultimately the “Godbeites” proved to be only part of a process of change, rather than an agent. In 1871 the New Movement’s women had seemed evidence of the curative power of the vote; now, they were noticeably absent from the festivities.5 Even Charlotte Godbe Kirby was missing. She had supported a separate woman suffrage referendum in the belief that its inclusion in the constitution would [482] mean “suicide” for statehood.6 That was a position Anthony had warned against, and one opposed by most territorial suffragists, including many non-Mormon women.7
The appearance of both Mormon and non-Mormon women at the train depot, and as speakers on the same platform in the days that followed, indicated the changing relations among Utah’s politically active women. In fact, by 1895 such cooperation was no longer new. The first real evidence of joint efforts between Mormon and non-Mormon women may have been the day nursery and orphan home that Clara Colby and Elizabeth Saxon visited in 1888.8 But other interests, such as Utah’s kindergarten and sericulture movements, also drew Mormon and non-Mormon women together. Consequently, many of the same non-Mormon women—Emma J. McVicker, Lillie R. Pardee, Corinne Allen and Isabella E. Bennett—also worked with Mormon suffragists to reclaim the vote.9
That some non-Mormon women worked willingly with Mormons prior to the Woodruff Manifesto demonstrates the existence of non-Mormon women who were not predominantly concerned with getting rid of polygamy. This is not to underplay the significance of the Manifesto: unquestionably, the year it was published proved a turning point in the history of the relationship between [483] Mormon and non-Mormon women. However, the absence of Jennie Froiseth, Cornelia Paddock and Isabel C. Brown from the 1895 woman suffrage celebrations reflects not only their advocacy of a separate woman suffrage referendum, but also the staying power of earlier antagonisms.
One of the significant changed circumstances for Utah’s woman suffragists in 1895 was that the possibility of statehood no longer divided Mormons and non-Mormons. The Saints traditionally had viewed statehood as their hope for maintaining control of the territory, but after 1890 it was considered critical to the survival of the church. The compromises the L.D.S. leadership made in order to lessen congressional opposition also worked to increase support for statehood among non-Mormons inside the territory.10 Having made the difficult concession on polygamy, in 1891 church leaders next disbanded the People’s party and encouraged the Mormon rank and file to align themselves with the newly established national political parties.11 As the likelihood of statehood increased, many of Utah’s non-Mormon men and women began seeing it as an opportunity instead of a threat.
Although the Woodruff Manifesto did not erase problems among Utah’s activist women, it did result in a new twist: conflicts surfaced among Mormon women. It is [484] not surprising, given their history, that Utah’s suffragists differed over strategies for their own re-enfranchisement. The first problem concerned the old issue of representation among national suffragists.12 Because statehood meant political power, Mormon suffragists understood that their representation in the capital had significant political implications. Who was best qualified to represent them became a source of internal contention.
Dissatisfaction over the way Mormon representatives had been selected to attend national suffrage association meetings surfaced in the fall of 1890. Some women stated that they were “greatly annoyed” over the question and believed “something ought to be done.”13 The central issue seems to have been the monogamist-only policy that barred polygamists, like Emmeline Wells, from representing the territory. As the 1891 meeting of the National Council of Women, sponsored by the National American Woman Suffrage Association (N.A.W.S.A.), and the association’s own annual convention drew near, Mormon suffragists debated the topic endlessly.14
The conflict remained unresolved for so long that the sisters finally sought an “expression” on the matter from President Wilford Woodruff and other leading brethren.15 Finally, the sisters decided that Wells would attend the [485] meetings as a “delegate-at-large,” rather than as a representative of any specific organization.16 Wells found this solution acceptable, but the process bared differences both in style and substance among Mormon women.17 It also confirmed the ongoing role that the hierarchy played in issues affecting Mormon women.
Although Wells’ presence among Utah’s delegation to the East may have eased some internal frictions, the fact of her plural marriage also renewed anxieties about acceptance among national suffragists. Several Mormon delegates met with May Wright Sewall, who outlined the requirements necessary for participation in the Council. That night, the delegation labored to put their case in writing and, the next day waited “in suspense” for the results. “Miss Anthony,” Emmeline Wells recounted, “was the first to bring me the good news that we were admitted without a dissenting vote.”18 Sarah Kimball claimed that what “paved the way for their cordial reception” were the 1,500 names from Utah their delegation presented.19
Whatever the reason, Emmeline Wells’ reentry into the ranks of woman’s rights advocates could not have been more complete, as she was eager to report: she was personally welcomed by Anthony and spoke at the National Council; she was praised by Frances Willard; and Clara Colby described her as “one of the most interesting women [486] at the Council.” Wells also noted the pleasure of seeing in the National Council’s reception line the “intelligent and smiling face” of the woman whose “help and kindness” would “never be forgotten,” Sara Spencer.20 Wells made other appearances before woman suffragists, but never again as a polygamist, for shortly after she returned home, her husband Daniel died.
The conflict over the way representatives to the meetings of national suffragists were chosen exposed fundamental questions over leadership, policy-making and the role of the church in the territorial woman suffrage movement.21 These issues became increasingly critical as the likelihood of statehood grew and when the resolve of Mormon women intensified after a Federal Amnesty Act in 1893 restored the vote to polygamist men, but not women.22 By that fall, the need for more effective woman suffrage leadership was clear.
Despite their successful efforts to stimulate organization at a grass-roots level, the Utah Woman Suffrage Association had failed to develop strong leadership. Its first president, Margaret N. Caine, a monogamist and wife of the territorial representative to Congress, was chosen for reasons of expediency rather than for her leadership skills. She was followed by Sarah Kimball, one of the acknowledged foremothers of woman [487] suffrage in the territory. But at seventy-five, the once powerful woman was “no longer to able to exert aggressive leadership.”23 When Kimball resigned in October 1893, Mormon suffragists seem to have lost the stabilizing power represented by her authority.
At first the change of leadership seemed to proceed in an orderly fashion. Wells was nominated and sustained as the new president of the U.W.S.A., although Emily Richards had served as Kimball’s first vice president.24 However, in the fall of 1894, when Wells was reelected, Ellen Ferguson challenged the legality of the proceeding; her written protest was signed by other women including Richards, who was also Wells’ first vice president. Ferguson’s action was apparently in retaliation for Wells’ unsuccessful attempt to block her nomination for presidency of the Salt Lake County Woman Suffrage Association.25
The conflict over the leadership of Utah’s woman suffragists exposed old wounds and created new ones. The first appearance of hard feelings between Wells and Ferguson followed their joint efforts to prevent passage of the Edmunds-Tucker bill in 1886. Six months after their return, Ferguson claimed Wells was not speaking to her after discovering that Ferguson’s report to the “presidency” had gone in “ahead of hers.”26 Competitive [488] feelings in the sisterhood were not new, and most likely Wells’ monopoly of Mormon women’s information network, so irksome to Charlotte Godbe Kirby, bothered other women as well.27 Like many other woman suffrage leaders, neither Ferguson or Wells were exactly models of humility; the rivalry that surfaced was “predictable,” according to some.28 In addition, as the stakes began to rise for Utah’s woman suffragists—statehood began to seem possible—the emergence of competing strategies is not surprising.
The depth of the internal conflicts among Mormon suffragists became apparent shortly before the territorial constitutional convention convened in the spring of 1895. Several members of the territorial woman suffrage association proposed forming a new woman suffrage “league.” Wells wrote the president of the Beaver County Woman Suffrage Association that these “unwise women” would “push the Association to the extreme and antagonize all the men.” She warned that they “must not get control” for if they did, “we shall not accomplish what we wish.” If the leaders of the proposed league began soliciting the participation of county associations, Wells cautioned, “you must be on your guard because they are very able women and members in the church.”29 Who these “unwise” sisters were is not clear, [489] but their movement demonstrates that the conflict among Mormon suffragists was more substantial than simply personal differences between Wells and Emily Richards or Ellen Ferguson.
In the midst of the wrangling among Mormon suffragists, Congress passed Utah’s Enabling Act in July 1894. That event was the signal that expectations of statehood were realistic at last. National suffragists had anticipated the event eagerly. Anthony immediately wrote Wells urging her to secure woman suffrage as part of the new state constitution as women had done in Wyoming, and she warned Wells not to accept any other tactic, such as a separate woman suffrage referendum, which would be far easier for opponents to attack.30
Despite their internal problems, Utah’s woman suffragists needed no prodding to work on their re-enfranchisement. A month before the constitutional convention convened, territorial suffragists had established effective woman suffrage organizations in nineteen out of twenty-seven counties. Many of these organizations were not only busy with grass-roots educational and political activities, but were also lobbying their own convention delegates.31 Emmeline Wells also optimistically asserted that by securing the platform support of both Republicans and Democrats, their [490] delegates were “practically pledging themselves (in a way) to work for woman suffrage in the State Convention.”32
On the eve of the territorial convention, Utah suffragists thus had every reason to feel confident. They had the support of the leading men in the church, they had effective local organizations, they had continued to work well with non-Mormon suffragists, and they had bipartisan support for woman suffrage. Although some individual delegates were known to oppose woman suffrage, most suffragists fully expected their measure to sail through the convention.33 Their assessment does not appear to have been unrealistic: even the Salt Lake Tribune reported that delegates to the constitutional convention “manifested” a “strong sentiment” in favor of woman suffrage. The new state, the Tribune feared, would soon be no different from the other “freak” states whose women voted.34
Instead, woman suffrage became the most hotly debated issue of the constitutional convention. To the distress of Mormon suffragists, the opposition was led by one of their own, B.H. Roberts, one of the territory’s greatest orators, newspapermen and politicians.35 Roberts’s objections to woman suffrage were not unknown, but no one had anticipated that he would throw his considerable [491] talent so vigorously against the measure.36 Roberts did not discuss his philosophic objections, presented to the convention in the minority report, including the notion that women could be easily manipulated (thus raising the old specter of the church-state ties), although he did emphasize his belief that women should not lower themselves into the political arena. Instead, Roberts’s argument was grounded in expediency. Underscoring Utah’s history of failed statehood attempts, he urged woman suffragists to abandon their own cause in the interests of all.37
Roberts’s strong opposition not only shocked the sister-suffragists, but also took his brethren by surprise. L.D.S. leaders discussed the issue in detail, evoking a full range of opinions on the principle of woman suffrage and on the questions that the expediency argument had raised. George Q. Cannon expressed his concurrence with Roberts’s fears that woman suffrage might injure the chance for statehood, and he argued so convincingly in favor of a separate woman suffrage submission that, ultimately, President Wilford Woodruff changed his mind on the issue. Still, other leading brethren, including Joseph F. Smith, continued to support woman suffrage. Smith told the brethren that he would “rather see Utah remain a territory than to see it become [492] a State without Woman’s Suffrage being part of the Constitution.” Finally, because there was a “lack of union on the subject,” each of the brethren was left “to do as they desired.”38
But Roberts’s arguments breathed new life into the moribund anti-woman suffrage camp. The Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce called a meeting after his speech and adopted a resolution asking for a separate woman suffrage referendum, based on their opposition to the principle of woman suffrage. Roberts’s speech also helped those woman suffragists who supported a separate woman suffrage submission. After the Chamber’s meeting, these suffragists, primarily non-Mormons, called a meeting of those “who do not hold suffrage above statehood.” Roberts was the featured speaker to a standing-room-only audience.39 They too passed a separate submission resolution, but included a clause that guaranteed women the chance to vote on the measure. This resolution was signed by Jennie Froiseth, Cornelia Paddock, Isabel C. Brown and others.40
Overnight each faction of women launched a petition drive to convince the convention of the popular support behind its position. The final tally reported by the Salt Lake Tribune was 24,801 signatures for inclusion of woman suffrage in the constitution and 15,366 in favor of a [493] separate submission.41 The totals show both the degree of interest in the issue and considerable effort that women on both sides of the issue exerted.
Still, many delegates remained defenders of woman suffrage. Emily Richards’s husband, Franklin S., and historian Orson F. Whitney each attacked Roberts’s expediency argument, and they defended the principle of woman suffrage as well. Richards stated that he would rather remain in “territorial vassalage” until the time came “when all can stand side by side on the broad platform of human equality, of equal rights, and of equal capacity.”42
On April 18, 1895, woman suffrage passed its final test in the constitutional convention, receiving a wide majority. Despite their joy, Wells claimed, the women attending the session retained their composure and “made no demonstration,” which seems to have been an attempt to counter the claims of woman suffrage critics. But the moment the convention adjourned, Wells hurried to the telegraph office and wired the good news to Susan Anthony.43 “Hurrah for Utah,” Anthony replied, the “No. 3, State—that establishes a genuine ‘Republican form of Government.’”44 A few days after sending her congratulations to Utah’s suffragists, Anthony boarded a train for her second trip to the far West. [494]
* * *
Susan Anthony’s visit to Utah in 1895 proceeded without a hitch.45 On Sunday May 12, an interdenominational church service was held.46 The following days were devoted to an Inter-Mountain Woman Suffrage conference, a meeting with the W.C.T.U. and a series of social gatherings.47 At the woman suffrage conference, Mormons and non-Mormons, polygamists and monogamists, men and women shared their hopes for the equality of women in the new state and reminisced over the history of woman suffrage in the territory.48 The tone of the convention was predictably upbeat—its noteworthy aspect attributable more to the diversity of its participants than anything that was said. Also noteworthy was Sarah Kimball’s conference address, which despite its rambling moments, revealed interesting glimpses into woman suffrage in Mormondom, including evidence of woman suffrage sentiment in the territory prior to their enfranchisement in 1870.49
The lofty sentiments expressed during the victory celebration did not prevent further discord among Mormon women, however. New conflicts surfaced quickly once Utah’s woman suffragists began engaging in party politics. When national political parties were first [495] being established in 1891, Utah’s woman suffragists had remained aloof. They were thus taking a position which Susan Anthony had urged, one made all the easier because, in Utah woman suffrage did not become a partisan issue.50 Still, confrontations among Mormon suffragists in the early 1890s set the stage for the coming political battles in 1895. These partisan conflicts have been aptly described as a “schism in the sisterhood.”51
A central issue feeding the bitterness of the conflict was related to the ambiguous wording of the Enabling Act, which stated that all “qualified voters” could vote on the constitution; qualified, of course, excluded women. Still, whether or not women could vote for state officers was unclear. At the close of the constitutional convention, Franklin S. Richards attempted to clarify the issue by securing women’s right to vote in the ratification election, but his measure was defeated. As the question worked its way through the territorial courts, the issue became a matter of partisan debate.52
Unfortunately, from the standpoint of unity, the Democrats and Republicans initially took different stances on the issue. The Mormons, in fact, had long been perceived as having Democratic, state’s-rights sympathies, a perception which was reinforced by the Republican’s leadership in the anti-Mormon legislative [496] drive.53 Among the most prominent territorial Democrats were some of the most outspoken advocates of woman suffrage, including Franklin S. Richards and Orson F. Whitney.54 Like Richards, many Democrats believed that woman could and should vote in the November election. They were quick to recognize that if women could vote, they would become a significant factor in the election.
By June, the Democrats had initiated a serious effort to bring women into the party, welcoming their full participation in all aspects of the campaign on an equal basis with men, including the nominating convention. Over the next few weeks, such well-known Mormon women as Emily Richards, Ellen Ferguson, Romania Pratt, Zina D.H. Young and Bathsheba Smith all joined the Democrats. In fact, by July, so many suffragists had joined their ranks that women supposedly comprised one-third of the audience at the Democrat’s annual convention.55
Once the Democrats began seeking women’s participation, the Republicans did not lag behind. In early July, Emmeline Wells declared herself a convert to Republicanism—a decision apparently made after long discussions with many of her non-Mormon suffragist friends who had worked on the re-enfranchisement campaign.56 Sarah Kimball and other Mormon women also joined the Republicans, but initially, non-Mormon [497] suffragists appear to have outnumbered their Mormon sisters as Republicans.57
Republican women, unlike their Democratic sisters, began organizing separate Republican women’s clubs throughout the territory. Soon, Emmeline Wells and Jennie Froiseth were working together as Republican organizers. Because Republican women had less support from their male colleagues, its women drew together for mutual support, which helped soothe old wounds. The efforts of Republican women to organize separately was ridiculed by the now Democratic Salt Lake Herald and praised by the Republican Salt Lake Tribune. Soon, Utah’s press fueled the partisan conflicts between former woman suffrage allies.
As partisan feelings gained strength in Utah, the L.D.S. leadership expressed its concern with this turn of events and feared the consequences of party conflicts among both the men and women.58 Wilford Woodruff regretted the partisan path the sisters had taken; other brethren wanted the sisters to abandon their political activities and cautioned women against their efforts to lay claim to the political preferences of departed Mormon leaders. Still other brethren were pleased with the sisters’ participation in political affairs.59
In August, a district court ruled that women could vote in the November ratification election and for state [498] officers, vindicating the Democrats. Although the case was immediately appealed to the territorial Supreme Court, the Republicans were convinced the Supreme Court would affirm the lower court, so they changed their position. The change was fortunate for Republican women because it came just as the party was meeting to nominate state officers. As a result, women were nominated for state offices: Emmeline Wells for the House, Lillie Pardee for the Senate and Emma McVicker for a territorial education post.60
Although the Republicans were first to nominate women, the Democrats were also fully expected to nominate women. Then the Supreme Court threw them all a curve—it overturned the district court’s ruling. Women were not to vote either for ratification of the constitution or state officers. Given this finding, the Democratic chairman determined that women were ineligible for office. That left women candidates only on the Republican slate.
The twists and turns of partisan policies toward women further fueled antagonisms among them. Caught up in the ever-changing stances of both parties, women suffragists launched attacks and counterattacks, each side trying to portray its party as the true champion of women. Emily Richards and Emmeline Wells soon went head to head on the printed page. In August Wells published [499] “The Republican Catechism Criticized and Amended for the Benefit of the Women of Utah.” Hearing that Wells was distributing her “catechism” from the office of the Woman’s Exponent, Richards responded with her own four-part series published by the Salt Lake Herald between August 30 and October 7, 1895.61
While Richards’s series was appearing in the press, support within the Republican Party for its women candidates began to deteriorate. Before long both Pardee and McVicker had withdrawn their names. A very defensive Emmeline Wells remained the lone woman on the ticket. Unfortunately, at the time the other women withdrew, Richards’s series was articulating the heart of her rebuttal, and her criticism turned personal.62 In trying to refute Wells’ claim that the Democratic governor did not support equality for women, Richards argued that his reluctance to appoint women to specific jobs had been a result of his desire to act within the limits of the law. She cited the resignation of “Mrs. Pardee and Mrs. McVicker” as being a “timely answer” to the “insinuation” of Wells’ criticisms.63 The “implication” was that Emmeline Wells, too, should resign.64 Ultimately, Wells did so, but she was unhappy about it.
In November, the new constitution was ratified by a five-to-one margin. Neither the presence of the woman [500] suffrage clause nor the bitterness of the partisan political battles ever seriously endangered its passage. The Republicans swept the state offices, the election proving, according to some historians, that Mormons found it easier to vote for non-Mormons when they represented national parties.65
How much the “schism in the sisterhood” dulled the sense of victory among woman suffragists remains unclear, but partisan politics continued to divide Mormon women. Moreover, these antagonisms did not remain within the confines of the political arena, but soon spilled over into other social and religious activities.66
Given the wide margin of the statehood referendum, few doubted that President Grover Cleveland would sign the statehood proclamation, even with the woman suffrage clause. Anticipating that joyous event as 1895 came to a close, Utah’s woman suffragists met to elect their delegates to the 1896 N.A.W.S.A. convention, which would occur shortly after Utah joined the Union. Never had the opportunity to unite with their sister suffragists been viewed with more anticipation. Yet only four delegates attended the convention: Emily Richards, Sarah Boyer, Mary E. Gillmer and Corinne Allen. Gone were the days when the church or the Relief Society could foot the bill for Mormon women to travel to the East. The day the [501] delegation left for Washington, Wells confessed she could “scarcely believe” that she was not going. Apparently, she was unable to pay her own way.67
The N.A.W.S.A. convention set aside an evening to honor the new state and add a “Third Star” to the woman suffrage flag.68 Adding Utah’s achievement to that of Wyoming and Colorado, Anthony claimed, completed “a trinity of true republics at the summit of the Rockies.”69 Utah’s new representative to the Congress, Frank J. Cannon, son of George Q., addressed the convention, as did Corinne Allen, Sarah A. Boyer and Emily Richards, and a special tribute was paid to the absent Emmeline Wells.
During her address, Emily Richards issued an interesting caveat. Because in the final hours of the constitutional convention, the “opposition crumbled away,” she stated, it would be “difficult for the future historian to show from the record how deeply the woman’s cause was imperiled.”70 Is Richards’s statement an accurate description of the case? She cited the “liquor interests” as forming the nucleus of opposition, around which other “diversified forms of antagonism” gathered; certainly, the sheer number of signatures gathered in opposition to woman suffrage suggests an organized effort. In addition, as the journal entries of A.H. [502] Cannon clearly demonstrate, the L.D.S. hierarchy held various opinions on the question; most likely, Richards knew the leading brethren were not united in their defense.71
Establishing the existence of such opposition would undoubtedly enhance perceptions of the magnitude of the achievement of Utah’s suffragists and reinforce their own self-worth. Because exaggeration was not a quality associated with Emily Richards, her convention statement appears to legitimize and validate woman suffragists’ victory by suggesting that the inclusion of woman suffrage in the state constitution was the result of a democratic political process, rather than the dictate of a single interest, party or, in this case the L.D.S. Church.72 In fact, it has been argued that the church’s anxiety to demonstrate its compliance with calls for the separation of church and state made church leaders extremely sensitive to anything that suggested a continuation of past practices. According to historian Leo Lyman, the leadership’s protestations had unintended consequences: the membership took the words of the leaders seriously and insisted upon acting independently, a fact that some church leaders later lamented.73
For Utah’s suffragists, the addition of the “Third Star” to the woman suffrage flag in 1896 was not [503] the final achievement of the year. In the November election, Martha Hughes Cannon, a doctor, became the first woman state senator in the United States.74 To win, Cannon placed fifth in a field of ten, garnering more votes not only than Emmeline Wells, but also than her husband Angus M., who a year earlier had advised Mormon women with church offices to withdraw from political activity. Cannon and Wells were not the only women to seek state office. Women entered a variety of races, and although they generally ran behind men, three other women were elected to the state House of Representatives and eleven won offices of county recorders.75
After 1896 Utah’s politically active women continued to engage in partisan politics, and a small number continued to win elective office. But the extraordinary era of woman suffragism in Utah was the zenith of political activism among women. Once it became clear to Utah’s political parties that despite woman suffragists’ successes in 1896, prejudices against women had not evaporated, Utah’s male politicians became increasingly disinterested in soliciting women as candidates or tapping their skills for party leadership roles. Although they were enfranchised, Utah’s women, no less than the men, were not ready to vote as a body for women. As Utah entered mainstream American politics, its men— [504] unsurprisingly—grew less and less willing to veer from the norm.
Mormon women’s political aspirations were of increasingly less interest to their brethren. Following statehood Mormon women no longer had either the advantages or the disadvantages of the intervention of the church into their political affairs. Moreover, the nineteenth-century brethren who had been visible and vocal supporters of women’s political activism appear not to have reproduced themselves; that left Mormon women in the same disadvantaged position as other female political activists. The lack of unanimity among the L.D.S. hierarchy on the question of including woman suffrage in the constitution reflected a growing lack of concern with the political consequences of women’s activism, and which also offers clues to why Mormon women became increasingly invisible in the new state’s political life.
At the close of the 1896 national woman suffrage convention, George Catt, “the husband of our national organizer, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt,” presented a paper in which he attempted to explain the success of Utah’s suffragists. In a word, his answer was “organization.” Utah’s woman suffragists had succeeded, he argued, because they “organized public opinion. . . . Behind every [505] delegate at the Utah constitutional convention there was an organized constituency demanding suffrage.”76
In reality, Catt’s presentation is more useful for what it reveals about the national movement than as a perceptive analysis of the factors that secured woman suffrage for Utah. Catt’s emphasis on “organization” illustrates the trend toward systemization that also marked other institutions in the late nineteenth century—woman suffragists were “modernizing,” and it articulates the strategic thinking so critical to securing woman suffrage in the twentieth century.77 A year earlier, Carrie Chapman had established an organization committee of the Association to aid woman suffrage fieldwork. Success in Utah supported her conviction that effective organization was the key to success.78
Besides adding the “Third Star” to the woman suffrage flag and providing a glimpse of a key to the future success of the woman suffrage movement, the 1896 national woman suffrage convention marked the end of another era. The N.A.W.S.A. suffragists passed a resolution “disavowing any responsibility” for Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Woman’s Bible, despite “impassioned pleas” by Anthony and “other liberal thinkers” urging tolerance for Stanton’s views.79 Conflict over the resolution stirred considerable feelings on all sides. Although Anthony was [506] privately angry with Stanton for continuing the debate over religion, she was also angry that her word did not deter her younger, less tolerant officers from censuring Stanton.80 Still, the conflict showed that by then, the younger leaders were willing to oppose both Stanton and Anthony.
Stanton, in fact, was not present at the convention. By 1896 she was no longer the president, having resigned in 1892. Increasingly immobile, she was, however, as facile as she was “intellectually irrepressible,” to use Eleanor Flexner’s apt phrase. Many have called Stanton’s last speech before woman suffragists in 1892 her “masterpiece.” “The Solitude of Self” was a call for women’s “absolute self-reliance.”81 Stanton continued writing after her retirement and never strayed from her concern for emancipating women’s minds, including confronting the constraints imposed by religion. Stanton died in 1902 in her eighty-sixth year.82 Her daughter, Harriot Stanton Blatch, helped ignite the smoldering coals of the woman suffrage movement after the turn of the century.
The absence of other suffragists at the 1896 convention underlined the passage of time. Lucy Stone attended her last suffrage convention in 1892, although since the union of the National and the American [507] associations she had not been a central player. After 1880 poor health hampered her woman suffrage activities. She died in 1893, at seventy-five, shortly after appearing in Chicago at the 1893 Columbia Exposition. When the figures of Anthony and Stanton were carved in marble for the Woman’s Pavilion, the figure of Lucretia Mott, not Stone, was chosen to complete the trio—a decision that permanently enshrined the conflict in the movement.83 Henry Blackwell continued his interest in the movement, but he was no longer an important player.84 Alice Stone Blackwell carried the family banner energetically into the twentieth century.
After 1890 many anti-unionists slipped from their previous prominence in the movement. Matilda Gage continued as president of the Woman’s National Liberal Union until her death in 1898. In 1893 she published Woman, Church, and State, which clearly enunciated her views, including her argument that Christianity had contributed to woman’s degraded status by teaching her inferiority. Her lifelong motto was carved on her gravestone—“There is a word sweeter than Mother, Home or Heaven: that word is Liberty.”85
Olympia Brown, who had supported Gage’s anti-union campaign, helped form the Federal Suffrage Association, in which she worked closely with Clara Colby. The Federal [508] Association focused its efforts entirely on passage of a federal woman suffrage amendment. Their new association, however, never became an important force in the suffrage struggle; some of its members appear to have eventually become aligned with the Congressional Union and later the Women’s Party. Colby continued to attend woman suffrage conventions, but she was greatly marginalized after the Woman’s Tribune lost its status to the Woman’s Journal.86
After a second presidential campaign in 1888, Belva Lockwood focused her energies on the international peace movement and was one of the earliest members of the Universal Peace Union. She continued to represent women and minorities well into the twentieth century.87 She died in 1917 in her eighty-seventh year, still a friend to the Mormons.
Sara Spencer became head of the Spencerian Business College in 1892 after her husband died, instructing its graduates that year “not to see how much they could get out of the world, but how much they could put into it.” She continued to be an active member of the National Council of Women through which she maintained her relationship with Emmeline Wells and other Mormon women. By the turn of the century, she had “declared” for peace, though she was still criticizing marriage relations, citing a business education and economic independence as [509] a means for preventing early marriages and establishing greater equality in the home. After 1900 there is no further information on Spencer’s life or death.88
The last important event in Susan Anthony’s relationship with Mormon suffragists coincided with that of Sara Spencer. For both the event surrounded a controversy raised when B.H. Roberts, the nemesis of woman suffrage in Utah, ran and won a seat in the House of Representatives in 1898.89 Roberts was the first “avowed polygamist” to test the assumption that polygamists were considered law abiding if they had not entered into polygamy after the Manifesto. A coalition of evangelical anti-polygamists resurfaced with a vengeance. They ultimately obtained seven million signatures in opposition to seating Roberts. After six weeks of trying to defend his House seat, Roberts was defeated 268 to 50.
Woman suffragists were swept into the maelstrom surrounding Roberts. At the 1899 triennial session of the National Council of Women, support for a resolution opposing Roberts was suggested to show their “sincerity as anti-polygamists.” Mormon women attending the Council were jeopardized on both fronts until Emmeline Wells drafted a compromise resolution calling for all congressmen to be law-abiding. Although Sara Spencer, Clara Colby and Belva Lockwood spoke in defense of the [510] resolution, and despite opposition from Anna Shaw, it was Anthony who “turned the tide.”90 She stated that she had always condemned what she considered the double standard of the Congress.91
Because Anthony was soundly criticized for her stance, her biography attempted to set the record straight. In a chapter titled “Plural Marriage,” Ida Husted Harper and Anthony included excerpts from Anthony’s letters with statements such as: “I am among those who hate polygamy and all the subjection of women in the Mormon faith.”92 Still, in 1900 when Mormon women sent a dress to Anthony on her eightieth birthday, made by them from silk they produced, she said her “Utah dress” gave all the more pleasure “because it was made by women politically equal with men.”93 No matter how fine a line Anthony tried to draw, the fact that the great majority of Utah’s “politically equal” women were nonetheless Mormons continued to cause problems.
When Susan Anthony died in 1906, all of Utah’s women mourned her passing. To her burial gown was pinned a small jeweled woman suffrage flag with four stars; Idaho added the fourth before the end of 1896. The successes of Utah’s and Idaho’s suffragists proved to be a less accurate forecast of the immediate future for woman suffragists than the defeat the same year of the [511] California referendum. Following that event, Carrie Chapman Catt declared “the year 1896 was not yet ‘the woman’s hour.’”94 Woman suffragists from Idaho and Utah might have put it differently.
* * *
Strikingly, many of the same social and political dynamics that followed passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 were presaged by the events following the re-enfranchisement of Utah’s women in 1896. In fact, the outcome of women’s enfranchisement in the nation can be seen as illuminating what happened in Utah. For example, just as women’s contributions to World War I are viewed as important elements in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, women’s defense of Mormondom may be viewed as having a similar result.
Like women who were active in the campaign for woman suffrage in the twentieth century, Utah’s politically active women did not disappear. They went in many directions. After 1896 many of the leaders in Utah’s woman suffrage movement refocused their energies and skills, taking up other social concerns and church responsibilities. Sarah Kimball, who was born before Anthony and after Stanton, had lived to see the ballot restored in Utah, but like them she died before seeing [512] women in the nation enfranchised. Always an organizer and activist, Kimball rarely put her ideas in writing, but in 1891 as president of the U.W.S.A., her written rebuttal to an opponent of woman suffrage shows that neither age nor stature in the Mormon community had dulled her singularly militant demands for women’s equality. Kimball died in 1898 shortly before her eightieth birthday.
Emily Richards lived to see passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. As one of Mormondom’s younger generation when Utah’s women were re-enfranchised, Richards was forty-six. After that time, she organized the Utah State Council of Women, through which she maintained her ties to the national woman suffrage movement and continued to work in “devotion to the suffrage cause.” Richards accompanied Carrie Chapman Catt as one of the “One Hundred Selected Women” who journeyed to the White House to offer President Woodrow Wilson the “service of two million organized women in the event of war.” Throughout her life, she corresponded with a wide variety of woman’s rights advocates, maintained her “fealty” to the Democrats, and continued to actively participate in both the International and National Council of Women. Richards died unexpectedly in 1929.95 [513]
Like Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul and other dynamos of the twentieth-century woman suffrage movement, Emmeline Wells never won a public office. That may have been more of a disappointment to her than others because at one point, it had seemed a real possibility. But like them, Wells spent the rest of her life working for women, and she sustained her friendships with national activists for her entire life. In 1910 she became president of the L.D.S. Relief Society, and continued editing and publishing the Woman’s Exponent until 1914. Wells seems to have willed herself to stay alive to see the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment: she died six months afterward in her ninety-third year.96
Some of the fractures that occurred during the heat of the woman suffrage campaign in Utah, like those that occurred in the nation, never healed. This is especially noticeable in the case of Ellen Ferguson. After 1896 Ferguson continued to be an active member of the Democratic Party and organized the Woman’s Democratic Club of Utah. Her bishop-biographer, Orson W. Whitney, states that no woman was more “zealous” or responsible for the success of woman suffrage and the Democratic Party in the nineteenth century than Ferguson. But he also notes that around 1896, her “religious views underwent a change;” like many women in the national [514] movement her interests turned to theosophy.97 Whitney does not mention the unhappy fact that he had to excommunicate her. Shortly afterward, she moved to New York, and no further records of her activities exist.98 That Ferguson died in 1920 is known.
Of the New Movement women, only Charlotte Godbe Kirby’s name has been restored to the history of woman suffrage in the territory. Her sister-wives, Annie and Mary, have never been given the recognition they deserve for facilitating the Mormon women’s relationship with national suffragists. Like the men of the New Movement, who only recently have been cited for their contribution to the history of Utah, the women of the New Movement deserve recognition for having positively affected woman suffrage in Utah.
Mormon rank-and-file woman suffragists also confronted some of the same challenges that national suffragists faced in the decades after their victory. The dislocations caused by abandoning the practice of polygamy continued to create problems for Mormon men and women well into the twentieth century. Like most American women, Utah’s women responded to hard times by looking inward to the security offered by church, family and home. Whereas prosperous times and middle-class values [515] led to the glorification of motherhood in the nation, in Utah it was deified.
Because the anti-polygamy campaign had such repressive implications and anti-polygamy legislation caused Mormon families so much pain, evaluating the role of anti-polygamy women has generally led to condemnations by historians.99 To date, the internal conflict in the anti-polygamy movement over the issue of woman suffrage has been overlooked; anti-polygamy activists have been generally described as supporting disfranchisement when, in reality they did not have a uniform point of view. Studies of the conservative aspects of women’s activism in the late nineteenth century have already offered fresh ways of exploring the anti-polygamy campaign. Like anti-suffragism, the anti-polygamy movement illustrated the concerns and values of a broad spectrum of American women in the late nineteenth century.100
After re-enfranchisement, non-Mormon women in Utah continued to participate in their own civil and religious associations, and today they remain important elements in the social and political life of the state.101 Yet, Utah’s community of women continues to confront the religious fault line. Too often the differences among them overwhelm the similarities. The distrust sown in the nineteenth century has had deep roots. [516]
Both in Utah and the nation, religion has continued to prove to be neither the monster Elizabeth Cady Stanton feared nor the savior Emmeline Wells worshiped. At various times, it has been a source of empowerment for some women and repression for others. The same is true today: religion was and continues to be a challenge that both Mormon and other religious feminists engage vigorously. For the twentieth-century generation of Mormon feminists, the course set by their elder sisters continues to validate their beliefs and provide both inspiration and a model for courage.
Whereas the current era of feminism emerged in the aftermath of the civil-rights movement, Mormon feminists take comfort from the fact that their own church had long struggled with the issue. The civil-rights movement helped inspire the second most significant manifesto from the L.D.S. Church, which removed the previous barriers to full participation by black men in 1978, and also produced the new era of feminism in the nation. Once pressure from inside and outside the church became sufficiently strong, the leadership could no longer sustain its racist policy.102 With that model in mind, Mormon feminists, male and female, believe that their church will eventually recognize the benefits of including the full participation of the sisterhood in the [517] ranks of the priesthood, and the last great manifesto will follow. Although the nineteenth-century Saints proved remarkably willing to suffer the wrath of the nation to defend polygamy, ultimately, the church conceded the issue because it was in its own best interest. Like the benefits the church received from the efforts of the sisterhood in the nineteenth century, the interests of the twentieth-century church would also be served by full utilization of its female members. Perhaps, some Mormon feminist active today will, like Emmeline Wells, live long enough to see that day.
The vote for women did not prove to have the curative power that nineteenth-century suffragists claimed, nor did its victory establish equality in Utah or the nation. Still, nineteenth-century woman suffragists left a legacy of activism, commitment and achievement that one struggles not to glorify. [518]
1. Harper, Anthony, 2: 824.
2. Flexner, Century, 224.
3. That on this trip to the Far West, Anthony was traveling with Shaw not only shows the changes wrought by the passage of time, but the nature of those changes. Shaw became vice president of the National-American when Anthony assumed the presidency after Elizabeth Cady Stanton resigned in 1892. Nothing could more neatly contrast the differences between the woman suffrage movement when Anthony and Stanton visited Utah in 1871, and the one in which Anna Howard Shaw had become a prominent figure. For Shaw, religion proved a step for personal empowerment out of a difficult childhood, and in 1871 the twenty-four-year-old woman became a licensed Methodist preacher. Continuing her divinity education at Boston University, she graduated the only woman in her class in 1878. After the Methodists refused to ordain her, she turned to the Protestant Methodist Church and was ordained in 1880. Then three years later she enrolled in medical school and graduated in 1886. By that time Shaw had come to believe that both the ministry and medicine failed to deal with the real problems and turned to woman suffrage activism. Her preaching turned to lecturing, and after the International Council of Women, she became an increasingly well-known woman’s activist. See Eleanor Flexner, “Anna Howard Shaw,” Notable, 3: 274.
4. “The National Conference,” Woman’s Exponent, 15 May 1895.
5. Anthony, “Diary,” 12, 13, 14 May 1895, ASPapers; also see accounts of the visit: Salt Lake Tribune, 13 May, Woman’s Exponent, 15 May; Woman’s Tribune, 25 May 1895. Of the New Movement, only Kirby and Jennette Lawrence were visible during the debate over woman suffrage in the state constitution; both had supported a separate woman suffrage submission.
6. Kirby voiced her opposition to the Salt Lake Tribune at a mass meeting, along with Cornelia Paddock, Jennie Froiseth and Isabel C. Brown; see Salt Lake Tribune, “People to be Heard From,” and “A Woman’s Answer: Mrs. Kirby Favors Postponement Until After Statehood,” 4 April 1895; “The Ladies’ Meeting this Afternoon,” 5 April 1895; “Vox Populi.: Separate Submission Demanded by the People,” 6 April 1895.
7. See Jean Bickmore White, “Woman’s Place Is in the Constitution: The Struggle for Equal Rights in Utah 1895,” Utah Historical Quarterly 42 (Salt Lake City: Utah Historical Society, 1974), 345; and Woman’s Exponent, 1 (15 August 1894).
8. See Nuttall, “Diary,” 26 September 1888. While in Utah the national suffragists visited the nursery Colby subsequently described as the only cooperative effort between Mormon and non-Mormon women. Woman’s Tribune, 20 October 1888. Richards also mentioned the day nursery at a woman suffrage meeting, Woman’s Exponent, 1 March 1891.
9. In 1893 women from Utah worked together on a silk exhibit for the Woman’s Building at the Chicago World’s Fair. That same year they also organized the State Federation of Woman’s Clubs, though it was primarily a non-Mormon movement. And in 1894 Ladies Literary Club, which had been predominately non-Mormon had opened its doors to Mormon women. On a further discussion of these “bridge-building” efforts see Madsen, A Mormon Woman, 250–254.
10. The process of accommodation to national norms has been described by some historians as the Americanization of Utah. See, for example, Larson, The “Americanization” of Utah for Statehood.
11. For a full discussion of this process, see Lyman, “National Parties in Utah,” Political Deliverance. Lyman argues that party choice at this point was fundamentally artificial, and one that was predicated on visions of which party had been or would be the most friendly to the Mormons, or the most helpful in obtaining statehood.
12. Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Schism” (217), has argued that these early differences were reflected “basic political differences” as well as “individual ambitions.” However, in 1890 when this question first erupted, it appears that political differences were still in the future, after partisan politics enters the scene. In the 1890s, neither political party was yet established, and the discussions over partisan questions had yet to really begin.
13. Wells, “Diary,” 6 November 1890.
14. Financial assistance also became a critical issue because the church was attempting to show its distance from politics; financial support would suggest a continuation of the church’s involvement in the politics of the territory. The burden of financing their trip then rested solely with the suffragists. See Wells, “Diary,” 3, 7 February 1891.
15. Wells, “Diary,” 19 January 1891.
16. Wells, “Diary,” 23 January 1891.
17. Wells, “Diary,” says the meeting with Woodruff took place apparently on January 20, after a testy meeting among the women: Wells notes “there were some remarks made that were very insulting in my opinion . . . some of these younger women are very self-confident and almost defiant in their manner. It is anything but pleasant to be in their company.” On January 22, according to Wells, the sisters were still debating the question of representation. On the conflict and discussions over representation, also see Wells, “Diary,” 14, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 30 January, 3, 4, 7, 13, 16 February 1891.
18. Wells, “Diary,” 21 February 1891.
19. Woman’s Exponent, 15 April 1891.
20. “A Glimpse of Washington,” “Women of the Nation,” 1 March 1891; “Representative Women of the Convention,” “The Woman’s International Press Federation,” 15 March 1891, Woman’s Exponent. Wells also attended an organizing meeting of the Woman International Press Federation, which became a major interest of hers.
21. Emmeline Wells cautioned the leader of one local woman suffrage association not to “make public” the fact that Wells had been the “Presidency for advise” even to members of the “Association.” Stating that she found some members of the various woman suffrage associations call that a “union of Church and State—and make a point of division on it.” Wells to Mary A. White, 14 January 1895, Beaver County Woman Suffrage Association Papers,” B.Y.U. Library.
22. Moves to provide amnesty to polygamist surfaces after the Manifesto, but for a variety of political reasons President Harrison did not act on the issue until after the election of 1892. Madsen, “Schism” (217), discusses the effect on Emmeline Wells of being bypassed by the Amnesty act.
23. Madsen, “A Mormon Woman,” 255.
24. Like the national suffragists the Utah Association placed names in nomination that were then voted upon. Wells herself made a distinction between this method and “voting by ballot” of the Salt Lake County Woman Suffrage Association. See “S.L.C. Convention,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 December 1894.
25. Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Schism in the Sisterhood: Mormon Woman and Partisan Politics, 1890–1900,” New Views of Mormon History: Essays in Honor of Leonard J. Arrington, ed. Davis Bitton and Maureen Ursenbach Beecher (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987), 217–218.
26. Nuttall, “Diary,” 30 November 1886.
27. Charlotte expressed her anger at the fact that Wells never mentioned her efforts in the Women’s Exponent to President Wilford Woodruff after she was elected as corresponding secretary to the U.W.S.A. See Charlotte Godbe Kirby to Wilford Woodruff, 5 and 16 February 1889, First Presidency Files, Wilford Woodruff general correspondence, L.D.S. Archives.
28. Madsen, “Schism,” 217.
29. Wells to Mary A. White, 14 January 1895, Beaver County Woman Suffrage Association Papers, B.Y.U. Library.
30. Wells, “Diary,” 25 July 1894.
31. White, “Woman’s Place,” 346–348; Emmeline Wells to Mary A. White, 14 January 1895, Beaver County Woman Suffrage Association Papers, urged women suffragists to attend any meetings that touched on “political and educational affairs,” but she warned them “not to antagonize the Whisky element so that they will array themselves against us, that was how Washington Territory lost the ballot when the state was admitted.” It is unclear however if this was ever an actual issue in the territory.
32. Woman’s Exponent, 1, 15 February 1895.
33. Madsen, “A Mormon Woman,” 261.
34. White, “Woman’s Place,” 348.
35. Today Roberts is remembered as an historian and church leader; among the many works he authored is the multi-volume Comprehensive History of the Church.
36. Madsen, “A Mormon Woman,” 257.
37. White, “Woman’s Place,” 356.
38. Abraham Hoagland Cannon, “Journal” (typescript), 4, 12 April 1895, BYU Library.
39. Madsen, “A Mormon Woman,” 267.
40. “People to be Heard From,” Salt Lake Tribune, 4 April 1985.
41. Madsen, “A Mormon Woman,” 270; White, “Woman’s Place,” 363.
42. White, “Woman’s Place,” 369.
43. Wells, “Diary,” 18 April 1895.
44. “Equal Suffrage in the Constitution,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 May 1895.
45. Anthony was a guest in the home of suffragist Phoebe Beatie, daughter of “Aunt Zina” and Brigham Young; while her co-worker Rev. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw stayed with Emma McVicker, a non-Mormon suffragist.
46. Anthony noted in her diary, that of Bishop Orson F. Whitney, who had defended woman suffrage at the Constitutional Convention stated that Mormons believed they had a heavenly “Mother as well as a Father,” and that through “progression” human beings can become “like our Father and our Mother in heaven.” Anthony, “Diary,” May 1895. These ideas he added, “are well-known Mormon doctrines and they ought to be well known Christian doctrines.” Then he added, woman suffrage was “one of the levers by which the Almighty is lifting up this fallen world.” Bishop O. F. Whitney, Woman’s Exponent, 15 June 1895.
47. The conference has been variously referred to by different names: Harper, Anthony, 2, calls it the Inter-Mountain Woman Suffrage Association of Utah, Montana and Idaho. The Woman’s Exponent simply refers to it as one of the National-American Association conferences.
48. The full stenographic account is in the Woman’s Exponent, “Conference N. A. W. S. A.,” 15 August 1895, and runs through the next two editions.
49. Kimball cited the connection between her own woman’s rights convictions and those expressed by Anthony and Stanton in the Revolution. In particular she noted the inspiration she had drawn from their conviction that if women would “educate” and “agitate” they could “produce a reformation.” The speech illustrates that Kimball’s sharp mind is not what it once was; nevertheless, that does not make her comments both interesting if somewhat curious. See “Conference N. A. W. S. A,” Woman’s Exponent, beginning 15 August 1895.
50. Madsen, “A Mormon Woman,” 254.
51. Madsen, “Schism,” 212–241.
52. See Madsen, “Schism,” 221–234.
53. See Lyman, Political Deliverance, which traces the development of pro-Republican sentiment among the Mormons.
54. In fact, their anger at B.H. Robert’s stance was in part related to their view that he had violated a platform pledge of their party.
55. Madsen, “Schism,” 225–226.
56. Madsen, “A Mormon Woman,” 275.
57. See Salt Lake Tribune, 14 July 1895.
58. Partisanship presented a difficult problem for the Mormon leadership. They had to show that Mormons were both Republicans and Democrats as evidence in support of the claims of the separation of church and state, but that went against the Mormon traditional commitment to unity. Confusion over the relationship between Mormon leaders, men and women, and office-seeking was another source of conflict.
59. A. H. Cannon, “Journal,” 30 July 1895; Beeton, Women Vote, 98; Madsen, “Schism,” 226. On the issue of divisions in the Mormon ranks see Lyman, “A Tumultuous Interim to Statehood,” Political Deliverance.
60. Madsen, “A Mormon Woman” (289), notes that Emmeline Wells had hoped for the senate nomination but a “miscue” gave the honor to Pardee.
61. See Emily Richards, “The Republican Catechism,” and the response by Emmeline Wells in Madsen, “Schism,” 229.
62. Madsen, “Schism,” 227–228.
63. “Republican Catechism” series in Salt Lake Herald, 30 August, 1, 6, 21 September, 7 October; reprint, some variation with original: “The Republican Catechism Criticized and Amended For the Benefit of The Women of Utah,” Utah State Historical Society.
64. Madsen, “A Mormon Woman,” 292.
65. Poll, et al., Gustive O. Larson and Richard D. Poll, “The Forty-fifth State,” Utah’s History, 387.
66. See Madsen, “A Mormon Woman,” 292, 295; and Madsen, “Schism” (240) also notes that Wells succeeded in keeping Richards from becoming president of the newly established Federation of Women’s Clubs.
67. Madsen, “Schism,” 231; see also “Editorial Notes,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 February 1896; and “Proceedings of the Twenty-Eight annual Convention the National-American Woman Suffrage Association,” 23, 28 January 1896, ASPapers.
68. Wyoming and Colorado both preceded Utah in enfranchising women.
69. Woman’s Exponent, 15 December 1895.
70. “Woman Suffrage in Utah: Address delivered by Mrs. Emily S. Richards before the national Woman Suffrage Convention, at Washington, D. C. January 27th 1896,” Deseret [News] Weekly, 15 February 1895.
71. A. H. Cannon, “Journal,” 4, 12 April 1895, B.Y.U. library.
72. No one has looked as carefully at the woman suffrage issue during the constitutional convention as political scientist Jean Bickmore White. Her findings are important because although they do not mention Richards’s claims, her evidence supports the reality of the opposition. White, “A Woman’s Place” (367), credits the inclusion of woman suffrage in the proposed constitution to several factors including the fact it had already been tried with no ill effects, and that there were supporters on the floor of the convention who were willing to parry the “oratorical thrusts” of opponents. Although recognizing the helpfulness of the support of prominent men, she persuasively shows the significance of the organizing activities of Utah’s suffragists. “Support from the top,” she concludes, “was not enough.”
73. Lyman, Political Deliverance (291–295), notes that George Q. Cannon came to lament the “situation” he had helped create because when he or other church leaders sought to give “advice” to the members, he complained, too often the response was, “I don’t care how much you know, you may have all the experience in the world; but I don’t want to talk to you, you are an officer in the church and I don’t want any ecclesiastical interference with me.”
74. Jean Bickmore White, “Gentle Persuaders: Utah’s First Woman Legislators,” Utah Historical Quarterly 38 (Winter 1970), 1:32.
75. A stake president has responsibility for the L.D.S. wards within his geographic region. Madsen, “Schism,” 233; White, “Gentle Persuaders,” 33.
76. Evening Star, 23, 24, 27, 29 January 1896, ASPapers; Woman’s Journal, 15 February 1896; Geo. W. Catt, “The Utah Victory: The Result of Organization” Supplement to the National Suffrage Bulletin, Catt Papers, Library of Congress. Whether or not Catt’s argument was sound is difficult to know since there do not appear to be accurate or reliable records of Utah’s dues-paying woman suffragists. But Jean Bickmore White’s assessment supports Catt’s praise of the organizational plan of Utah’s movement.
77. Emmeline Wells had noted the new efficiency of the union organization when she was re-admitted in 1891: She stated that Anna Shaw was in “charge of the bell and was the time-keeper, so much time being allotted to each speaker, and it was her duty to give the signal, even in the middle of a sentence.” After which Anthony would rise and say in her “conciliatory manner” that the rest of the interrupted address would appear in the “official report.” “A Glimpse of Washington,” Woman’s Exponent, 1 March 1891.
78. Eleanor Flexner, “Carrie Clinton Lane Chapman Catt,” Notable, 1: 309. George Catt’s paper was reprinted for distribution among woman suffragists, H.W.S., 4: 262.
79. Flexner, “Catt,” 226.
80. Drish, “Susan B. Anthony,” 112. For full accounts of the convention see: Washington Post, 29 January; Evening Star, 23, 24, 27, 29 January; Woman’s Journal, 15 February 1896. H.W.S., 4: 252, gives helpful accounts of Utah’s participation and of the controversy over the “Bible Resolution.”
81. Griffith, In Her Own Right (202), states the piece combined her “natural rights philosophy, her republican bias, her feminist ferocity and a tragic sense of loneliness.”
82. Alma Lutz, “Elizabeth Cady Stanton,” Notable, 3: 347.
83. Stone had been urged to have a bust carved but Alice Stone Blackwell writes that her mother preferred having the money spent on the woman suffrage cause. Alice Stone Blackwell, Lucy Stone: Pioneer Woman Suffragist (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1930), 273.
84. Henry Blackwell advised Utah’s women the summer of 1895 not to push for voting in the fall election. Beeton, “Women Vote,” 100.
85. Warbasse, “Gage,” Notable, 2:5.
86. See biographies of Olympia Brown and Clara B. Colby, in Notable American Women. The connection between the anti-unionists and the Federal Suffrage Association is only suggestive. Anti-union sentiment has not been well documented, but organizations such as the F.S.A. seem to have been the locus of the “old association” sentiment.
87. Lockwood won five million dollars in a Supreme Court settlement with the Eastern Cherokee Tribe in 1906.
88. Direct quotation from “Mrs. Spencer’s Address, Annual Commencement, 3 May 1893, Twenty-seventh Annual Commencement of Spencerian Business College,” Spencerian Business College Announcements, from 1882 to 1900, Library of Congress.
89. The event has been developed more fully by Joan Iversen, “The Mormon-Suffrage Relationship: Personal and Political Quandaries,” Frontiers, 9 (1990), 8–15.
90. The Salt Lake Tribune stated that the Wells’ measure passed because the Mormon women were so well-liked. Iversen, “Mormon-Suffrage,” 25–26.
91. In his autobiography Roberts notes that Anthony sent him a letter of support. Gary James Bergera, ed. The Autobiography of B. H. Roberts (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), 215.
92. Harper, Anthony, 3:1153, and “Plural Marriage Victoria—Women Commissioners: 1899,” 3:1148. After Susan Anthony’s biography/autobiography was finished Harper helped Anthony with what material would be saved. Drish, Susan B. Anthony (125), states: “As if to lay to rest, finally and forever, any questions concerning the disputes within the movement, she burned almost every letter and document in her possession after the biography/autobiography was finished. The fire, which Anthony constantly replenished, burned for nearly three weeks.” That certainly raises the possibility that among the ashes of the fire were the numerous letters that Emmeline Wells wrote Anthony. Wells refers to her letters to Anthony frequently in her diary, their absence in the remaining Anthony papers, makes that ending seem plausible.
93. As cited in Barry, Susan B. Anthony, 343.
94. Flexner, Century, 231.
95. Annie Wells Cannon, “In Memoriam,” 19.
96. See Madsen, “A Mormon Woman”; Dushku and Eaton-Gadsby, “Emmeline Blanch Woodward Wells,” Sister Saints, Burgess-Olsen ed.
97. The Woman’s Tribune reflecting the interest in the movement, and tracked it closely, frequently covering Annie Besant, its most recognizable woman proponent.
98. Whitney, History of Utah, 4; 604.
99. Dwyer, “The Gentile Ladies,” The Gentile Comes to Utah. The study is by a non-Mormon and highly critical of anti-polygamy activists.
100. See, for example, Joan Jacobs Blumburg, “Zenanas and Girlless Villages: The Ethnology of American Evangelical Women, 1870–1910,” Journal of American History 69 (September 1982), 347–371; and Peggy Pasco, The Search for Moral Authority; the current work of Sarah Barringer Gordon on the legal aspects of the anti-polygamy movement promises to be a helpful contribution.
101. There is a remarkable lack of information on the nineteenth-century non-Mormon community, especially in the 1870s and 1880s. In the 1870s the non-Mormon community was extremely transient and left few leads to follow.
102. In 1990 Helvecio Martin, from Brazil, became the first black General Authority. Currently Brigham Young University is engaged in the L.D.S. Afro-American Oral History Project. Following the new stance church proselytizing grew worldwide with converts in African and other non-white nations. See Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992), 1:125.
