S02 E18 Utah: Early Voters & the Hawaiian Connection

In this episode, we talk about the suffrage movement in Utah.  

Some of the activists and events in the UT voting rights campaign:

• Hannah Kaaepa, a native Hawaiian living in a Latter-day Saints community in Utah, spoke powerfully for women’s suffrage alongside national leaders of the movement.
• Elizabeth Taylor was a suffragist, journalist, and equal rights leader, and in 1904, she established The Western Federation of Colored Women. 
• Emma McVicker was a bridge builder in the suffrage movement and actively worked to put women forward as candidates for public office.
• Lucy Rice Clark was chosen as the first female delegate to attend and vote at the Republican National Convention in 1908 and declared, “It means so much for the cause of woman suffrage!”
• In 1911, a slate of women candidates was entered into a town council election as a joke by some men. The five women won in a surprising result and proceeded to improve the town in multiple ways over their two-year term.

About our Guest:

Katherine Kitterman is the Executive Director of Better Days, a nonprofit centered on Utah women’s history, and manages the Women's History Initiative at the Utah Historical Society. She is a public historian with a specialty in Utah women's history of suffrage and advocacy. She co-authored two books about Utah women’s work for suffrage: Champions of Change: 25 Women Who Made History, and Thinking Women: A Timeline of Suffrage in Utah.

Links to People, Places, Publications:

Utah & the 19th Amendment (here)

The Story of Utah Women’s Suffrage (here)

Visit the “A Path Forward” memorial (here)

Emma McVicker Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Emma McVicker marker (here)

Elizabeth Taylor Biographical Sketch (here)

See the Trinity AME historic church  (here)

Lucy Rice Clark Biographical Sketch (here)

Visit the Lucy Rice Clark historical marker (here)

Hannah Kaaepa Biographical Sketch (here) 

Visit the Hannah Kaaepa marker (here)

The 1911 Kanab Town Council story (here)

Visit the Kanab Town Council marker (here)

CM Marihugh is a public history consultant and currently conducting independent research for a book on commemoration of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement. She has an M.A. in Public History from State University of New York, and an M.B.A. from Dartmouth College.

Learn more about:

• National Votes for Women Trail (here)
• National Votes for Women Trail - William G. Pomeroy historical markers (here)
• National Collaborative for Women’s History Sites (here)

Do you have a question, comment, or suggestion? Get in touch! Send an e-mail to NVWTpodcast@ncwhs.org

Transcript

CM Marihugh  00:01

Welcome to Her March to Democracy, where we're telling stories along The National Votes for Women Trail. I'm CM Marihugh, and this podcast chronicles the fight for voting rights for women. The suffragists were the revolutionaries of their day, and they battled the powers that be. These foot soldiers cut across the lines of geography, race, ethnicity, class and gender and numbered in the many 1000s over 70 plus years. 

Earth Mama  00:31

We are standing on the shoulders 

Of the ones who came before us. 

They are saints and they are humans. 

They are angels they are friends. 

We can see beyond the struggles 

And the troubles and the challenge 

When we know that by our efforts

Things will be better in the end.

CM Marihugh  01:02

Each episode is a tour along the trail to the places of struggle, the states, the cities, the towns where wins and defeats happened over and over again. Our theme music is Standing on The Shoulders by Joyce Johnson Rouse recorded by Earth Mama. Join us on our travels to hear about these incredible activists in the stories along The National Votes for Women Trail. 

CM Marihugh  01:28

In today's episode, we are going to Utah to hear about suffrage stories along The National Votes for Women Trail. Utah has 24 sites in the trail database and at least 12 historical markers at sites related to suffrage across the state. The state also has a public art memorial to honor the suffrage movement, and we'll talk about that today. I'd like to welcome Katherine Kitterman, executive director of the Utah Women's History nonprofit called Better Days, and manager of the Women's History Initiative at the Utah Historical Society. She is going to be sharing some really interesting suffrage stories with us. Welcome, Katherine. 

Katherine Kitterman  02:17

Thanks for having me. 

CM Marihugh  02:18

Could you start by giving us an overview of the movement in Utah?

Katherine Kitterman  02:23

Yes, Utah's suffrage story is really unique, and there are three reasons for that. I'll explain that and then go into a little bit of the chronology. But first off, it happened very early here in Utah, like in many other western territories, Utah, women gained voting rights early, but that actually happened twice before 1900 and so there's a great story of the back and forth there. And that's really the second reason why the story is so unique is that it was complicated by the practice of polygamy among members of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints, also known as Mormons. And this led to Utah women's disenfranchisement in 1887 so they at first gained the right to vote in 1870 were disenfranchised by Congress in 1887 then regained that with statehood, regained suffrage rights in the state constitution in 1896. 

Katherine Kitterman  03:10

But so this back and forth and the practice of polygamy, and the complications about whether or not women should be voting at all, and then especially whether or not Mormon women should be voting, really complicated Mormon suffragists place in the national movement as well. And so while they found allies in some places, they also weren't welcome in some circles. And so we can talk about a little more, but that back and forth is really what makes the story in Utah so unique. 

Katherine Kitterman  03:32

The third reason, which is related to that, is that suffragists in Utah largely had the support of most men in the territory, of course, not universal, but it was more of an external battle, again, that conflict with Congress and the Federal versus territorial power, than an internal battle of trying to convince men in, say, a state legislature to change laws. So that was a really fascinating piece of the story that got me in, that drew me into this effort story in the first place here. And so, as I mentioned, Utah, women first gained the right to vote in 1870 and there were a confluence of factors in reconstruction America that led to that, partly anti polygamy, increasing efforts in Congress to introduce anti polygamy legislation, especially after the end of the Civil War, growing connections with the rest of the country, as Utah is connected then through the Transcontinental Railroad completion in 1869. The suffrage movement nationally started tying in with that. So you see national leaders such as Susan B Anothny and others testifying to Congress and urging Congress to enfranchise Utah women as a way that they might be able to then also get rid of polygamy. 

Katherine Kitterman  04:38

The idea being, I suppose, that Utah women would somehow upend the political power structure. You know, polygamy is not on the ballot, but that if women were voting, things would change. And then, really, Mormon women stepped onto the political stage themselves in Utah. They started holding women only indignation meetings in early 1870 and this, on the surface, had nothing to do with suffrage. They were protesting proposed anti polygamy legislation that would have stripped the right to vote, the right to hold public office from polygamous men. But as they were protesting that proposed legislation, which did not eventually pass through Congress, they were also showing that they could be powerful political actors in their own right. So we see from the minutes of the organizing meetings in the LDS women's Relief Society that as they're talking about holding these mass meetings, that they're also saying we're going to demand the right to vote. 

Katherine Kitterman  05:28

We don't see any public calls at those meetings for the right to vote for women. But the next month, Utah's territorial legislature then unanimously passed a law to extend the ballot to women citizens. And those pieces are really connected there. I think women were speaking both to a national audience, again, trying to represent themselves in their own experiences, living their religion and their faith, as well as again, showing the local territorial political leaders like we can be trusted political partners if you let us be right. So after women then gained that right to vote in early 1870 Utah held municipal elections right after that. So Utah's first election with women's suffrage was actually in February 14, 1870, that was Salt Lake city's municipal election. Though about 25 women voted then, then we know, hundreds voted in other elections and other towns across that spring, and then a few 1000 voted in the general election in August of 1870. 

Katherine Kitterman  06:22

So while Wyoming had enfranchised women citizens earlier than Utah, Wyoming's first vote, or first elections didn't come until September of 1870 so Utah women gained that distinction of being the first to vote under an equal suffrage law. And that really made it interesting. Then everybody was paying attention as that national conflict played out again between Mormon leaders in Utah and the federal government, because it became pretty clear quickly that women's votes weren't upending the current political structure and that things weren't changing, that polygamy wasn't suddenly going away just because women were enfranchised. And so then women's suffrage rights in Utah became a political football, and in that larger national conflict. 

Katherine Kitterman  07:05

As national leaders paid attention to what was going on in Utah, we see increasing efforts from Congress in connection with anti polygamy legislation, then to also disenfranchise Utah women. So as early as 1873 proposed anti polygamy legislation almost always included a clause that would revoke or disenfranchise Utah women's suffrage rights, which was very early. It didn't pass quite that early, but you see that movement getting underway. But you also saw Mormon suffragists really consciously trying to build ties with the National Women's Rights Movement, specifically Susan B Anthony and the National Women's Suffrage Association, those folks were willing to play ball with polygamous suffragists, always disavowing polygamy, always talking about the dangers that that posed to women's rights and their views, but also always reaffirming their commitment to defending women's voting rights wherever that existed. And so you see the editor of The Women's Exponent, which was a semi monthly newspaper printed in Salt Lake City starting in 1872, Emmeline wells, the editor is putting out calls for petition signatures for again, what would have been the 16th Amendment at the time, working in concert with those national organizations trying to promote a federal suffrage amendment. As well as we see Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, inviting Mormon suffragists to come back east and speak at those national conventions that they're holding in Washington, DC and other places. Being featured on the stand, as you know, real live voting women, which isn't a curious thing, right? 

Katherine Kitterman  08:36

And so we see Utah women lobbying and petitioning and sending really great missives to Congress, saying things like, we're just as much citizens as anybody else. The sky has not fallen because we are voting. We have an elevating presence at the polls. You know, all of those arguments that we start to see later on about why women's influence in politics is going to be good for the country. More men and women are really employing those in the 1870s and 80s to try to keep their vote. But eventually it didn't work. And so the Edmonds act in 1882 disenfranchised polygamists in Utah, both men and women. And then the Edmonds Tucker Act of 1887 had a clause that specifically disenfranchised Utah women or revoked Utah women's suffrage law, so no matter marital status or religion. And so women's suffrage associations in Utah, again, as branches of that National Women's Suffrage Association were holding meetings, talking about voter education and discussing policy, hosting balls and fundraisers, driving carriages with suffrage banners and Fourth of July parades and even pioneer Day parades, which was a unique celebration here in Utah, really working again to shore up that support once delegates would have a chance to write a new constitution for Utah. 

Katherine Kitterman  09:46

And in preparation for our constitutional convention in 1895 we see petitions and lobbying to ensure that both political parties had flanks supporting equal suffrage in the Constitution, and there wasn't really a strong anti suffrage presence initially. To fight against here, but again, largely the folks they were working to convince were generally the non Mormon business interests, folks who owned mines and railroads. Those were the less enthusiastic supporters of suffrage in Utah, as we see later on across the country as well. But once the constitutional convention took place, there was a big debate about whether or not Utah should hold off in including suffrage in its Constitution because, and this was our seventh attempt at statehood, and there was a question of whether or not that would give Congress a reason to keep us out. Once again, delegates argued about that a bit. Women sent petitions from every corner of the territory at the time, and we know that there were suffrage associations organized in at least 21 counties, and we have at least 50 town or city organizations that were working on this effort, so it was a really massively widespread movement. 

Katherine Kitterman  10:49

Largely organized on the backbone of the Mormon Relief Society, which was the women's organization and best part of the church there. But these women who had experience in public speaking, experience as voters previously, and a lot of experience in working together and directing that collective action. And so it wasn't a huge fight to convince the constitutional convention delegates to include the suffrage clause in our constitution. We actually had the same exact wording as Wyoming, which had entered the Union as a suffrage state in 1890 so that was a connection there, and then we became the third suffrage state when we joined the Union in January of 1896 so there's a long history of back and forth. And Utah, I think, as we look at that suffrage story, really exemplifies the push and pull of democracy, right, and the steps forward and back and the fragility.

CM Marihugh  11:38

Utah brings such unique elements. And as I was thinking about this when we decided to do an episode on Utah, it's reiterated with your introduction, the intersection of votes for Women campaign and religion, which we have not really discussed that much in this podcast, because in other states, religion was more in the background. I mean, you may have church leaders or pastors or priests that were either advocating for or they were stating that it was against biblical principles, but they did not necessarily have a leading role, at least not nationally. And so in Utah, religion is front and center to the whole discussion. And then with the statehood, it highly complex situation, so I appreciate you giving us a succinct overview so many elements there. But it is amazing how religion was such a big aspect of that.

Katherine Kitterman  12:46

And Latter Day Saint suffragists were almost always drawing on their understanding of LDS theology to make the arguments why women and men should be working together, making decisions about public policy, saying men and women are created equal, and look at Mother Eve. You know, they do a lot of drawing on that unique theological tradition to justify why they're acting in this way.

CM Marihugh  13:09

So where are we going to start on our journey through Utah? 

Katherine Kitterman  13:14

Well, we're going to start in Salt Lake City, right at the heart of state government at the moment, at least. And we're going to 300 North State Street in Salt Lake City, where there's a monument to women's suffrage. It's called A Path Forward, and it was installed in August of 2020 view mark that centennial of the national suffrage amendment, the Federal suffrage amendment. The sculpture was created by Kelsey Harrison and Jason Manley two Utah sculptors, and it was a gift to the city of Utah from the organization Better Days. The monument is so unique because it's not a statue to a single person or representative, but there's an homage there to the beginnings of Utah suffrage movement, the steps that it took going forward, and to legislation that was necessary, both before and after the 19th Amendment to expand the access to the ballot to different groups of Americans. And then it points towards the current Utah State Capitol, again, trying to, I think, orient visitors to the places where decisions are made and to the places where we can raise our voices to influence public policy. 

Katherine Kitterman  14:18

One of the things that I love about the monument is that it is in front of Council Hall, which is the building where Utah women's first votes under that equal suffrage law took place in 1870 so it's really meaningful. The building was actually moved when other construction was happening in Salt Lake in the 1960s so it's been moved up to the State Capitol complex. But that monument being there in front of that building, I think is really significant. It starts with the footstep of Seraph Young, our first documented voter in 1870 on Valentine's Day, 1870 and then moves forward, we see a table on which is inscribed the article that enfranchised Utah women, again in this state constitution. And that table is modeled after the tea table in which the Declaration of Sentiments was drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and after that tea table in the Washington state constitution, then we see a door frame that is surrounded by quotations from both national and local suffrage leaders about women's suffrage, and that represents the 19th Amendment. 

Katherine Kitterman  14:18

So we have Susan B Anthony rejoicing about Utah's entering the union as the third suffrage state. We've got Sojourner Truth. And there are lots of notable Utah leaders, including Sarah Kimball, who helped to organize these mass meetings that started the suffrage movement in 1870 in Utah. She says "Education and agitation are our best weapons of warfare", which I would like to think is coming from the Masthead of The Revolution, Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton's newspaper. And we have a quote from Dr Martha Hughes cannon, who was then later elected the first woman in the United States to serve in a state senate in 1896. She's talking again about men and women being equal, and that's the reason why women should vote. We also have a quotation from a male delegate to the Constitutional Convention saying that "Equal suffrage would prove the glorious ray of Utah's shining star." So there's really a great mix there of both, again, national and local leaders and sentiments about why supporting suffrage was important to them personally. 

Katherine Kitterman  14:18

The piece that I love the most about the monument, the path continues after the 19th Amendment and pays omage to what was necessary, especially for women and men of color, to gain access to the ballot. And so you see the past getting a little bit wider, as through a series of three more door frames. First represents the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 which extends American citizenship to Native Americans across the country. And then it also includes a note there that Utah still restricted voting on reservations until 1957 so there's that piece of our history there as well. The next doorframe represents the Walter-McCarran act of 1952 and that allowed, for the first time, many immigrants from many Asian countries to apply for citizenship and or gain access to the ballot for the first time, of course, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 so that's the last door frame there.

Katherine Kitterman  14:18

 And then the path continues forward a little bit again, pointing towards the state capital. I think the sculptors wanted to leave it a little bit unfinished. Leave room for another door frame, if there might be one to add in the future. But also, again, to point to that unfinished work, to point to the momentum and movement. But again, with that support from history and from all of the weight of really, 1000s of Utah women and men and millions across the country who had worked for expansions of suffrage rights, expansions of access to the ballot, and again, who continue working on that every day at this point.

CM Marihugh  17:49

I am always so heartened to hear about another suffrage monument, because there are just too few, as I often say, of the monuments or statues that I've seen and researched, there are very few that are symbolic. Many of them are representations of women's suffragists, which is also great, but the use of door frames as showing how voting rights were expanded is really incredible. The 19th Amendment did not mean that all women could instantly vote, as you said, Native Americans, Asian Americans, not yet citizens, even though Black women were included under the 19th Amendment, anyone that was a citizen, largely in the south, the same barriers were put up as had been built for black men. And Hispanic women also face challenges, often language challenges. So it's really an incredible sculpture that shows that it was a movement, even not just those first 70 years it continued well into the 20th century.

Katherine Kitterman  19:05

Yeah, it's beautiful. And the way the artists put it together that you can walk through, I think, really adds to the experience. So I enjoy going there and seeing who's taking a look. 

CM Marihugh  19:14

Where are we headed to next?

Katherine Kitterman  19:16

So we're going to stay in Salt Lake City for this next one, in our capital city. We're going to 1050 West and 500 South. There's a historical marker in front of the current site of Neighborhood House, which is a nonprofit organization founded by Emma McVicker, who the marker honors. And Emma was a suffragist and an advocate for early childhood education in Utah. So she'd been born in New York in 1846 and then came to Utah to teach at what is now Westminster University, a private university in Salt Lake City. And what really got Emma McVicker into the suffrage movement was her conviction that we needed to be doing more to support early childhood education. 

Katherine Kitterman  19:57

So she founded The Free Kindergarten Association in 1894 that was Utah's first free public kindergarten, and which, you know, provided education, but also provided classes for mothers as well as teacher training. It was really- she had a lot of foresight in trying to build an organization that would move forward, right? And again, the idea of creating a public kindergarten for the movement throughout the whole state was new there, but the association also added other services later on, including clean milk stations and a playground, public bathrooms for behalf, an employment agency for women. They had classes in English for immigrants. And then, you know, public lectures, music performances. They were really trying to build a community space that would support families as well as the needs of those younger children. 

Katherine Kitterman  20:40

And as again, in connection with the suffrage movement, as Utah suffragists are focusing on regaining the vote, they are also working on issues of policy and culture and arts and other issues that are really important to them. Emma McVicker was one of the non-Latter Day Saint women who was very prominent in Utah's movement, so she hosted Susan B Anthony at her home when she came for this rocky mountain suffrage convention in 1895 and she was really a bridge builder in the movement as a Republican and an ardent Republican at that, she worked with other women to form Republican clubs across the state in those early statehood days to try to again, put forward women as candidates for political office. 

Katherine Kitterman  21:21

And then she also had a run herself in 1895 before, again, before our Constitution had restored women's voting rights, there was a question of whether or not women could run for office. And so she was actually on the ballot for state superintendent of schools in the fall of 1895 and then had to be taken off after a territorial Supreme Court ruling that said, "Not quite yet." Women can't quite yet actually hold office, so we'll have to wait. It's not listed on her marker, but the quote that we have used when we were talking about her at Better Days, that she said in her reports as a superintendent, was that "We need to teach children the noble and true." And you just see that advocacy and that passion through her support for suffrage and other, other movements in Utah.

CM Marihugh  22:00

She was really ahead of her time talking about early childhood education, and this was a time when kindergartens were not necessarily mandatory part of education. It was a big deal that she worked so hard to get it started and to have it free. And you know that had such impact, particularly for working class women, or any women that worked outside the home. So she had that all in her sights, I'm sure. 

Katherine Kitterman  22:33

Yes. 

CM Marihugh  22:34

Where are we heading to next?

Katherine Kitterman  22:36

We're gonna stay in Salt Lake City here, head to 239, Martin Luther King, Jr Boulevard in Salt Lake City. This is the site of the Trinity AME Church. And so there's a historical marker there for the church and we're talking about Elizabeth Taylor and Alice Nesbitt here, who are black women who are very involved in both Utah's suffrage movement as well as other campaigns coming out of that. And so Elizabeth Taylor lived in Salt Lake City for nearly 20 years, between 1891 and about 1910 and again, as we had a regiment of Buffalo soldiers stationed at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City in the early 1890s that's when Utah's black population started to grow very significantly. And as a black woman, her leadership, Lizzie's, as she went by, and really helped to support African American women and their families in the area. She was a suffragist as well as a journalist and an equal rights leader. 

Katherine Kitterman  23:31

And so first off, she was working with her husband William to edit the Utah Plain Dealer, to run and publish it, not just editing it. This was one of five newspapers serving Salt Lake city's black community in the 1890s and she was really involved in politics. That was an interest of hers, so she became the secretary during the territorial era of what was called, at the time, The Colored Women's Republican Club. And that tells us something about the state of politics in Utah at the time that there was Colored Women's Republican Club, again, as they called it at the time, and as Utah's Constitution had been approved, including Utah women's voting rights, there was a large emphasis among suffragists about registering to vote. You get an even ahead of statehood, but just getting women's voter names on those voter rolls to be included as statehood became official. And Elizabeth was at meetings, for example, that were emphasizing a necessity of registering to vote, but also saying that black women should be watching out for statements that some registrars were telling people that black women or working girls were not entitled to register. And so you see those maybe again, informal but very real barriers that might have been in the way of black women and men who are working to register to vote in Utah. 

Katherine Kitterman  24:43

But despite that discrimination, Elizabeth and Alice Nesbitt, who was the head of that club, really supported black women and men's efforts to register and vote. We see reports of them being reimbursed by the Utah Republican Party for expenses that they had undertaken, right to rent. Meeting. Calls for rallies, canvassing door to door. So we see that they're again involved in that party machinery in many ways, but we also see reports of then going out on election day, kind of as maybe informal poll watchers to ensure that folks are actually able to cast their ballots. And I think that's an interesting piece of the story as well. 

Katherine Kitterman  25:19

Elizabeth had a lot of causes that were dear to her, but she really wanted to support women. And in 1904 again, about nine or so years after statehood here, she established a Western Federation of Colored Women, again, her tongue at the time. And she was working to bring women together from across the West. She hosted this convention in Salt Lake City that is addressed by the Salt Lake city's mayor and the Utah governor. So she's really working to build those bridges. But you see her speeches are all about intersectionality, about the double burdens that black women face, about the need to uplift our communities and work together. And again, you can just see her thinking about, how can we do this together? How can we build networks and communities of support? 

Katherine Kitterman  25:59

So that was happening in 1905 that convention, and then we saw you're a few years later, in Salt Lake City petitioning the City Council in to pass an ordinance that would assure equal rights to all American citizens, regardless of color, in hotels, restaurants and other businesses. Though schools were not officially segregated, and there was Not a law on the books in the city segregating businesses, but many businesses were were practicing that right, and the social politics of the time were really, in her view, right, hindering black women and men's access to economic security. So she was working on that issue as well. So Elizabeth, Alice Nesbitt and so many others like them were really, again, pushing those boundaries and working to make sure that voices could be heard and would be at the table when decisions were being made.

CM Marihugh  26:47

They sound like two incredible women, and I saw that that church still stands. It's the original church. It's beautiful. I haven't been there, but at least from Google Maps, it looks like a beautiful historic church. Where are we headed to next?

Katherine Kitterman  27:04

Now we're headed north of Salt Lake City to Farmington, and in the city of Farmington in Davis County, there's a marker at 208 West State Street in front of the former home of Lucy Rice Clark. So she's the person memorialized there. She's an interesting character. So she was one of the early Anglo American Utahan's born here in the territory in 1850 and so her parents were Mormon pioneers, with all that that entailed. Her mother had actually run a private school, and that education thread was really important to her. So she assisted at her mom's school and then taught school before her own marriage, and then raised her family and really emphasized the need for education and encouraged all of her children to attend college. 

Katherine Kitterman  27:49

And again, some of those early, as we might call them, typical pioneer stories in the western frontier, right? So she's, you know, raising flax, she's shearing sheep, she's making soap and candles, she- you know, participating in all of those necessary activities to take care of her family, to provide for her family economically, right, as well. And then at one point, the roles in some ways reversed. So in the 1890s we see her husband unable to bring in cash for the family. And so we see him staying home while she is going out as a saleswoman for a machine that was drafting, I think it was patterns for clothes. And you see her going across some western states. So she's a really independent minded woman. 

Katherine Kitterman  28:27

And she also was involved in the Davis County Suffrage Association and the local Farmington Utah Woman Suffrage Association branch there in that lead up to Utah statehood. So she was a real supporter of women's right to vote. And then in that first election in Utah where women could run for public office, in 1896 so the first one after statehood, she was one of three candidates, women candidates for the Utah State Senate. And although she lost that again, kind of catapulted her to some prominence in Utah's Republican Party. And so she was appointed a post mistress in Farmington, and we again a federal appointment shortly afterward. And then she served in the Utah State Council of Women, which in some ways predated the League of Women Voters here, in working towards legislative advocacy on issues important to women. 

Katherine Kitterman  29:15

And so in 1900 while she was the vice president there, she became a delegate to the national suffrage convention in DC to testify to a Senate committee in favor of suffrage as they held those and then she later also was actually elected a delegate to the 1908 Republican National Convention. She was an alternate delegate there, but the other person wasn't able to attend, and so she was potentially the first Republican Woman to cast a vote at the national convention there. One of the things that I love about Lucy is she was very outspoken. She was really not a person to hold back on talking about what she felt. But she has a longer quote here that I love. She said that “Women’s sphere is as varied as the hues of water and that always depends on the vessel which holds it; sometimes it is like a little stream bubbling up from some fountain, sometimes like a little brook and again as a mighty river bearing upon its bosom the destinies of nations, and when the last barrier to woman is removed and the ballot is placed in her hands then will she surely be a helpmate to man.”. And you can see in there many themes, again, of Latter Day Saint suffrage activism. There this idea that women working together with men is what will really make our communities better when we have both perspectives represented and again, as someone who really took action in her own life, both personally and professionally, as well as in the suffrage movement.

CM Marihugh  30:36

It's really wonderful to hear the actual words that these women said, we don't have videos, maybe sometimes not even photographs, but to read the words that they actually wrote, that they actually said, it gives just an insight into their characters. So I'm glad you you shared that with us. Where are we heading to next?

Katherine Kitterman  31:00

Now we're going to go southwest a little bit. So we're going out to the Iosepa Cemetery, which is in a ghost- what is now a ghost town. It's in Skull Valley Tooele County County, about 75 miles southwest of Salt Lake, and it's Salt Lake City, and it is on the south end of the Great Salt Lake. But this Iosepa Cemetery is the location of Hannah Kaaepa's marker that's on The National Votes for Women Trail. And Hannah is a fascinating story, again, bringing in that global element of Latter Day Saint missionary work and converts in immigration and migration here to Utah, as well as that connection with the National sufrrage movement. So I just love that there's this marker to her on the trail, honoring that piece of her life. 

Katherine Kitterman  31:45

Hannah was born in Hawaii in 1873 and she immigrated to Utah to join with other members of the Church of Latter- Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints, where there was a settlement in Iosepa, again, in Tooele County, Utah, and this had been established in 1889 as a community of Hawaiian Polynesian Mormons. And so in 1898 she comes over with her mother, and this is the same year that the United States formally annexes Hawaii. So there's a lot going on politically there. And I met Hannah's mother, Makanoe, had been really close to Queen Liliʻuokalani, who was then, at that time, dethroned after attempting to try to restate Hawaiian monarchy and restoring voting rights for Native Hawaiians. 

Katherine Kitterman  32:26

And so Hannah and her family's loyalty to the crown and to Hawaiian self rule really reinforced her support for women's suffrage, and she gained opportunities then to speak about that on a national stage, which is really cool. And so in February of 1899 we see her as part of a Utah delegation that traveled to DC to participate in the National Council of Women. And she addressed the national council there in Washington DC, urging support of women's voting rights in the new Territory of Hawaii. And she spoke in both Hawaiian and English, she presented lays to May Wright Sewall and Susan B Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw, who were there. And then she was a guest of honor at a dinner hosted by Queen Liliʻuokalani, who was living in DC at the time. 

Katherine Kitterman  33:11

And so again, the newspaper reports, unfortunately don't give us her specific words that she gave in that speech, but they talk about the impression that she made, again, speaking in both languages, and I can just imagine the courage and strength that she's standing up there speaking to a group of women who, again, are advocating for suffrage, but who have largely failed to address the issues, that doubled the barriers faced by women of color, and especially women in territory and Hawaiian women, you know, specifically in Men. So I love that she was using that opportunity to say, don't forget about these people. We also deserve the same, you know, rights of self government and the same rights of citizens. 

Katherine Kitterman  33:51

So Hannah married a few years after that, and she and her husband returned to Hawaii a few years later. The building of an LDS temple in Oahu meant that the Iosepa settlement essentially became a ghost town by 1917 as many of the folks who lived there moved back to Hawaii to be close to that LDS temple. But the Iosepa Historical Society still works to preserve the history of Iosepa today and conducting archeological excavations and other things, and they have an annual gathering on Memorial Day weekend every year at the cemetery. And so a few years ago, they placed Hannah's marker there, and even though she's not buried there, but as the focal point of the community and in celebrations now to remember her advocacy.

CM Marihugh  34:31

That's another aspect of Utah's distinct history. There was a community of Hawaiian and Polynesian peoples that settled there for at least a couple of decades. Of course, they had the LDS connection, but that is not something we have seen in other states, as far as a whole new community. Apparently, women had some voting rights in Hawaii before the monarchy was overthrown?

Katherine Kitterman  35:03

It is what it sounds like. And the idea, again, of that self rule and home rule was really the big thing too. Like, if you're going to extend US government control here, then that should come, you know, if we'd rather be citizens than subjects, I think, is the idea here, right?

CM Marihugh  35:18

Yes, another very complex situation. Do we have one more site?

Katherine Kitterman  35:24

Yes, we do. We're going now a lot further Southwest in Utah to Kanab. The town of Kanab is in King County. It's the southwest area of Utah and near the Arizona border and east of Zion National Park, which might be a landmark many folks would recognize, but they're in the small town and 100 east and first south, next to the Kanab Museum, there's a historical marker on The National Votes for Women Trail to the Kanab town council that was elected in 1911. This was one of the first all woman town councils in the United States. They were elected in 1911 started their term in 1912 and the story in the records show that Mayor Mary Woolley Chamberlain and the other women, so four other women on the council with her were put on the ballot as a joke, but they accepted the results of the election and they served in earnest. They really got to work. 

Katherine Kitterman  36:15

Mary Chamberlain had experience in public office, so she had been the first woman in King County elected to public office after statehood again, which was the first time that women could run here in Utah. So she was serving as the county clerk, and from 1897 for that for that one term. The others didn't yet have experience in government, but they dove in. So during their two years in office, again, this is a small town, but the women are doing so many things, and this isn't the full time paid position, right? But they were raising a collective 36 children among the five women and including two who were born during that time. And they focused on making the town better in a lot of different ways that, you know, some of them seem silly to us now, but really important to them at the time. 

Katherine Kitterman  36:55

So they did a few things, like increasing the fees for traveling sales people, trying to protect local merchants and businesses. They did a lot focusing on beautification and planning of the town, so they outlawed slingshots, they built bridges over canals, irrigation canals and a dike, and they made Kanab a dry community in keeping with that theme of temperance sweeping the nation at the time, they outlawed noisy games and foot races on the Sabbath and gambling. And they also, this is one of our favorites, they made a "Stink Weed Day" and gave prizes for the best weed pulling cleanup jobs. So again, focusing on making our town a place that we feel proud to live in. 

Katherine Kitterman  37:35

This wasn't without opposition. Again, there is that- the joke on the ballot. And you know, women have been voting in Utah for a long time at this point, but there's still opposition when women step forward in positions of government and upend expected gender norms. Right? So there's some opposition within their own homes and within the town. And one of the things that really showed that is that the women had instituted a fine for stray livestock. If you let your cows wander through town, we're going to find you. And they had to hire a city Marshal to collect those fines. But they actually went through seven marshals during their two year term in office because men kept resigning. You know, they'd be teased about working under the petticoats, and they they'd resign. And so the women wrote that they had to divert a large portion of their budget towards paying a really high salary to try to find a man who'd be willing to do this job. You know, and kind of stand up there. 

Katherine Kitterman  38:31

But despite that opposition to their ordinances and themes, then Chamberlain and the other women at the end of the term really helped that other women would be elected to fill the vacancies in government. Mary said that they were "perfectly able to carry on the work, or even better able than the men who had to look after their sheep and cattle, thus leaving the town without any supervision." But she hoped others would follow in that next election. One of the council members was re-elected, but then resigned shortly after the term had started, and Kanab hasn't had an all woman town council or a female mayor or or majority woman Council since. But their their story lives large in their history.

CM Marihugh  39:10

I had to look into this story more when I saw it, you were going to talk about this marker. I read that apparently, the quote joke was some male residents that were a little tired of women's political activities, perhaps, and so they decided they'd show an absurd slate of women candidates. And everyone was shocked that they actually got elected. So that's amazing, but also even they were shocked.

Katherine Kitterman  39:42

Yes, they hadn't really campaigned for it. And I don't, I don't know, again, campaigning in 1911 in a small town is probably not much there. But they were again, shocked, but willing to step up and do the job.

CM Marihugh  39:53

So can you tell us what happened in Utah after the 19th Amendment passed the US Congress? 

Katherine Kitterman  40:02

Yes. So again, Utah was a suffrage state, the third state in the union with equal suffrage rights for women. And as I had mentioned earlier, Utah women were very involved in both NAWSA and National Women's Party efforts to secure the 19th Amendment. And so once the amendment was passed by Congress and sent to the states, Utah became the 17th state to ratify. So we did that in September of 1919, by unanimous vote. And there were four female legislators who led the process here, which I think is really unique and cool. Again, a symbol and a representation of the effects of suffrage here in Utah. So we had a state senator, Elizabeth Hayward, who introduced the resolution to ratify. Then representative Anna Piercey, chaired the session as sort of a speaker, pro tem, I guess, of the day for the in the house and two other representatives, Grace Airey, Dr Grace Airey and Delora Blakely also spoke on the House floor in favor of this. 

Katherine Kitterman  40:57

These were all progressive politicians. They were all representing the Salt Lake Valley in the state legislature, and many of them had been delegates to national suffrage conventions and national political conventions. For example, Elizabeth Hayward was at the Democratic National Convention in 1908 and they had really championed laws, you know, minimum wage laws for women, protective laws for women workers, child labor laws, education, again, those progressive policies and the things that most folks expected suffragists to be involved in, right? And so they had this years of experience as legislators, but they also their presence there, you know, points to the fact that there had been dozens of women elected to the state legislature by this point in Utah, and also 120 women at least, had served in county office across the state by 1920 and so there was that deep bench here in Utah. 

Katherine Kitterman  41:47

Utahan's boasted about having five generations of voting women in 1920 again, thinking about all the way back to 1870 and those generations of women coming forward. One of the fun stories I like to share about Utah's ratification of the amendment is that this was a special session called called by Governor Bamberger to ratify the amendment. And the speaker of the house for that special session was John Heppler from Sevier County, which is near Capitol Reef National Park, a rural county in Utah. And he asked representative Piercy, Anna Piercey to chair the day that was focused on ratifying the amendment because of the influence of his mother. It's not quite a - story here, but. 

Katherine Kitterman  42:27

Lucy Heppler, John's mother, had been a suffrage leader in rural Utah, in a local town of Glenwood. She'd been the president of her Woman Suffrage Association for years while raising 18 children, seven of whom were adopted. But, in 1919, she was nearing the end of her life, but she was still active. She was the honorary chairwoman of the Sevier County National Woman's party chapter. And I just love that connection there thinking about a person who had worked for her life to open and expand opportunities for women, and then just thinking about what the influence of her children and and those that she helps to educate in politics and bring into the into the movement was. 

Katherine Kitterman  43:06

So 1920 might not have been the same turning point in Utah that it was elsewhere, but it did stamp that recognition. We saw a lot of commemorations as the 19th Amendment ratification, then was completed with Tennessee's ratification. We saw celebrations here in Utah at our state capitol, and which had just barely been completed. And we see some women who had been alive and voting in 1870 celebrating here on the steps in 1919 and then casting ballots, you know, as they had been doing for 42 years total by this point in the 1920 elections. And that really, you know, just capped that experience here in Utah, that there was that long and deep commitment pioneering women's rights in some ways, maybe using some of the rhetoric that got picked up or got used by the National Movement as it picked up steam, but being some of the first women to vote and to work out what suffrage would look like in practice, and then again, to defend their votes and their right to have a voice in the public sphere.

CM Marihugh  44:04

Utah really was a leader. So I really appreciate you being with us today and talking about all these stories in Utah.

Katherine Kitterman  44:14

Well, it's a pleasure. There's so much to share, and it's just great to be able to be part of this national movement to recognize those suffragists who paved the way for the rest of us.

CM Marihugh  44:24

Thank you for joining us this week. We hope you contact us with comments or questions. The National Votes for Women Trail Project is a work in progress. Please click on the support the project link to contribute to our ongoing work. The trail is a project of The National Collaborative for Women's History Sites, a nonprofit organization dedicated to putting women's history on the map. Our theme is Standing on The Shoulders by Joyce Johnson Rouse and recorded by Earth Mama. Be sure to join us next time. 

Earth Mama  45:01

I am standing on the shoulders 

Of the ones who came before me. 

I am honored by the passion. 

For our liberty. 

I will stand a little taller, 

I will work a little longer, 

And my shoulders will be there to hold 

The ones who follow me. 

My shoulders will be there to hold 

The ones who follow me.