February 2020 was a very huge celebration for the history of women and voting in the state of Utah. For our Famous Utahn’s we decided to highlight the first woman to vote in Utah, Seraph Young, and the incredible first female Senator, Martha Hughes Cannon.
Utah has a new website resource for research on the incredible women in Utah that shaped 150 years ago and it is called Better Days 2020. They have set up a beautiful website full of information, “the year 2020 is the perfect time to commemorate our history because it marks the 150th anniversary of Utah being the first place where women voted in the modern nation. It also marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted all U.S. women the right to vote.”
Seraph Young was, by most likely happenstance, the very first woman to vote in the state of Utah. She was a pioneer who traveled to Utah with her family from Nebraska in 1847. Seraph was the oldest of 9 kids and was considered a very cultured young woman. She taught at the University of Deseret. Seraph was eventually married to a veteran of the civil war and their marriage would be plagued by death and illness. They eventually moved to Baltimore where her husband met his demise. Seraph was never able to come back to Utah and Better Days writes, “ Like many women, Seraph’s financial struggles worsened after her husband passed away in 1910. She had previously sold off land to make ends meet, so she lived in a rented house with her daughter at the end of her life. After her death on June 22, 1938, Seraph was buried next to her husband in Arlington National Cemetery. Perhaps someday women will place their “I Voted” stickers on Seraph’s gravestone to honor this woman who lived an ordinary life and still made history. “
Martha Hughes Cannon surprised us even more than we thought she would! We knew she was incredible by beating out her husband and becoming Utah’s first Senator, but her brilliance is up there with Philo T Farnsworth! Martha was born in 1857 in Wales and immigrated to Utah to join the Latter Day Saints. (1861) Martha wanted deeply to become a doctor, which was very uncommon for women to accomplish at that time. According to Better Days, “she enrolled in the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah) at age sixteen to fulfill the pre-med requirements. While earning her chemistry degree, she saved money for medical school by working as a typesetter for the Deseret News and then the Woman’s Exponent, where she became immersed in the women’s rights movement.”
Martha earned four degrees by the time she was 25. She set up a private medical practice but then 1884 happened. She married into a polygamous family when Anti-polygamy sentiment was occurring. By 1886 she decided to move herself and her daughter to England in order to protect her husband, prominent Latter-day Saint church leader Angus M. Cannon. Martha would spend years going back and forth in exile to protect her husband. However, when she did return to Utah in 1887 she got involved in the suffragette movement. Better Days writes, “Upon her return, she quickly became a leader in Utah’s burgeoning suffrage movement. Shortly after the formation of the Utah Woman Suffrage Association in 1889, Martha delivered a “well written address” at a large territorial suffrage meeting held in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, where she argued: “No privileged class either of sex, wealth, or descent should be allowed to arise or exist; all persons should have the same legal right to be the equal of every other, if they can.”
It was all uphill for her from then on! Seraph was the first to actually vote but Martha was the first to register. Utah was the first state to allow women to vote. In 1896 she was endorsed by the Salt Lake Herald for a Democratic seat on the Senate. She made national news because not only was she the first woman elected as a Senator, she also beat out her husband! Martha continued her medical practice while serving. Some of the notable things she created during her 4 year term was the Utah’s first state board of health and a law regulating working conditions for women and girls. Martha’s husband was eventually charged for polygamy because their daughters birth was record of the relationship. In 1904 she moved to California where she became the vice-president of the American Congress for Tuberculosis. Martha passed in 1932 in Los Angeles.
In 2020 we will see a statue of her presented to the capitol building in Washington DC. As Utahn’s, we are super fortunate to have such incredible women build our history!
For more incredible woman that shaped Utah’s history, visit Better Days 2020.
Music By: Folk Hogan; Bootleggers Dance
