Feb 12, 2025 A Hymn for Women’s Rights, Statehood, and Polygamy

A Hymn for Women’s Rights, Statehood, and Polygamy
By Alexander Jolley, Rare Books Assistant

Between the 1850s-60s, the women’s suffrage movement had crossed the Mississippi River and moved into the American West. What had long been a political issue in East Coast metropolitan cities finally saw some headway in rugged western terrain and inhospitable wilderness. Women’s Suffrage went to the vote for the first time in the Territory of Washington in 1854, but would fail by one vote. In 1867, Kansas saw a nationally publicized bill fail, while the Dakota Territory failed their 1869 suffrage bill, again, with only a single vote. Despite these efforts stalling, they indicated a shifting tide in sentiment towards women’s rights. Then, the Territory of Wyoming successfully passed the first full women’s suffrage law in the United States in December of 1869. Two months later, our very own state of Utah, also then a territory, enfranchised women during the Nineteenth legislative session on February 12, 1870 – 155 years ago today.

Acts, and resolutions and memorials…
Salt Lake City, Utah; 1870
KFU30 1870a A194

“That every woman… shall be entitled to vote at any election in this territory.”

This short sentence made history, as the law came just before the Salt Lake City municipal election two days later, which allowed Utah women to be the first in the United States to vote, several months ahead of Wyoming. Seraph Young, the grand-niece of Brigham Young, was the first woman to cast her ballot that day, marking the first time a woman voted under an equal suffrage law (interestingly, New Jersey had a loophole in their voting laws that gave women limited voting rights if they owned property, but the state removed it in 1807). 

Despite this milestone, Seraph Young remains a little talked about figure in Women’s Rights history. Demonstrating this fact, she does not even appear in the 16,000-word Wikipedia article about women’s suffrage in the United States (at the time of writing). This lack of recognition is partially due to her mysterious nature; she never ran for political office or was a leader on any committee. Instead, she was a school teacher and homemaker who spent her life supporting her family and disabled husband, which may seem at odds with modern-day conceptions of feminism. Despite her seeming lack of activism, she was enthusiastic about voting rights, as she was bright-and-early to be the first of twenty-five women to vote that day. Utah women played essential roles in the national women’s suffrage movement with their political activity by participating in women’s rights campaigns, petitions, and conventions. At  42,000 strong (much more prominent than Wyoming’s 1,900 women), they were the largest voting block of women in the country and had prestige and influence in the National Woman Suffrage Association. Notable suffragettes, like Susan B. Anthony, praised Utah for their achievements. It is hard to imagine the suffrage movement without Utah women.

Suffrage came to Utah in a rather exceptional way and paralleled Utah’s Statehood ambitions. Soon after the Mormon Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, they petitioned the government for statehood. They did so seven times, in fact. Attempts in 1849, 1856, 1862, 1872, 1882, and 1887 were all rejected by the federal government, in part, due to the American hatred and mistrust of the Mormons. 

Utah Statehood: Reasons Why it Should Not be Granted.
Salt Lake City, Utah; 1887
JK 8425 1887 U7

“Will the American people surrender the territory to an unscrupulous and polygamous theocracy?”

As indicated by the publication above, polygamy and religion were at the heart of the problem. The American public saw the practice of polygamy as immoral, viewed women in polygamist marriages as helpless victims, and saw the Mormon Church as un-American (which, as a polygamist Mormon, may explain Seraph Young’s lack of recognition). Thus, the Federal Government was keen on denying statehood to Utah, giving them more control over the Church’s affairs. Laws such as the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act (1862), which made marriage illegal for multiple people in all territories, continued to demonstrate the government’s antagonistic relationship with them. Utah leaders and politicians thought that women’s voting rights could help change the Church’s public image by showing women to be supporters of and independent actors in polygamous arrangements.

Deseret News Weekly, March 24, 1869: “Female Suffrage in Utah”
Salt Lake City, Utah
AN 2 U8 D474 Vol.18

“The plan of giving our ladies the right of suffrage is, in our opinion, a most excellent one.”

Some congressmen in Washington also supported this law with the belief that women, newly enfranchised, would vote to end polygamy. Therefore, women’s suffrage in Utah had support from local and federal governments, which cannot be said of movements in any other state. Utah women, over the next decade, continued to defend women’s rights and the religious practice of polygamy. Their enthusiasm brought criticism from other suffrage movements and defied the expectations of the congressmen who initially supported the initiative. Congress would take harsher measures against the Church in the 1870s and 80s.

The Federal Government issued many laws directly targeting the polygamist Mormons, with the intent of cudgeling them into submission and stripping away any political power they may have had. The Poland Act (1874) gave direct judicial authority to US district courts, facilitating the prosecution of polygamists. The Edmunds Act (1882) made polygamy a felony offense and took away polygamists’ right to vote. The Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887) disincorporated the LDS Church, seized their assets, and also disenfranchised Utah women after nearly twenty years of voting rights, marking the only instance of this occurring in United States History.

Constitutional and Governmental Rights of the Mormons
Salt Lake City, 1890
KF 4869 M6 C66

“…Laws passed by Congress which are subversive of the principles of liberty guaranteed by it…
laws that are made specially operative against the “Mormons.” 

Thoroughly defeated, the Church reluctantly disassociated itself from the practice of polygamy to prevent further injustices. In October of 1890, then Mormon president Wilford Woodruff issued a proclamation discouraging the continued practice of polygamy in the Church. This manifesto was a political move designed to allow Utah to become a state and to forestall any further government action against the Church. While the Manifesto did not outright ban polygamy, it would start a chain of events that would culminate in its prohibition a few years later. Regardless, this commitment allowed Utah to finally become a state in 1896 after many years of failed efforts. 

President Woodruff’s Manifesto
Salt Lake City, 1890
BX 8641 C582 1890

“…I now publicly declare that my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.”

After losing it nine years prior, women’s suffrage was once again written into the Utah constitution, never to be taken away again. This restoration also interestingly makes Utah the only state that gave women the right to vote, not once, but twice. During the 1896 state elections, Utahns voted fourteen women into office, including the first-ever Woman state legislator in American history, Martha Hughes Cannon. Her election victory again demonstrates Utah’s unique role in suffrage history and Mormon women’s electoral enthusiasm. Utah women would go onto the national stage to help promote voting rights, making possible the 19th Constitutional Amendment in 1920, which prohibited voting discrimination based on sex. 

Constitution of the State of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah; 1895
KFU 401 1895 A3

Fifty years earlier, Seraph Young was at the forefront of a chain of events that led to women’s enfranchisement. At 74, she finally saw the culmination of women’s efforts manifest on the national stage.

###