Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “suffrage”
The story of Ellis Reynolds started in 1847 in Iowa. Her family converted to the LDS church and moved to Utah when she was five years old. In a speech about her early life, Ellis relates one of her strongest memories of the trip. One of her fellow travelers, Sister Winters, contracted cholera and died. Ellis’s grandmother was the nurse …
First Female Lawyers in Utah The Utah Bar admitted Phoebe Couzins and Georgia Snow on the same day in 1872. Couzins studied law at Washington University Law School in Missouri, and had been admitted to the bar in Missouri and in Arkansas. The Utah bar accepted her automatically, as she had credentials and experience practicing in other states. Judge McKean, …
Early Life Martha Hughes was born in Wales in 1857. Her parents were recent converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, immigrating to Utah when Martha was four years old in 1861. Martha’s father, Peter Hughes, died of consumption just days after they arrived. Her mother remarried about a year later and the family settled in Salt …
The Utah State Archives and Records Service is the repository for government records. Historically, these records have not provided a voice for underrepresented groups in Utah. As we work to amplify all voices in Utah, we are shining the spotlight on the LGBTQIA+ community. History Although homosexuality was not always widely accepted, there were still communities in which those of …
You may have heard of the Sprague branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library System, but do you know the woman behind the name? Within a year of becoming a state, Utah voted to provide funds for free public libraries. The first library opened on Valentine’s Day 1898 on the top floor of the city-county building in Salt Lake …
Utah women volunteered in droves to help the war effort in the 1940’s. There were several different ways to volunteer and serve. If women were trained medically they could be a nurse in the American Red Cross or any military division. The United States Coast Guard (USCG) Women’s Reserve, known as the SPARS, was the World War II women’s branch …
The newly ratified Utah State Constitution finally provided women the right to vote and to hold office in 1896. Sarah E. Anderson and Eurithe K. Barthe were elected for the very next term in the State House of Representatives. Eurithe K. LaBarthe Eurithe K. LaBarthe was born in Illinois in 1845, moved to Colorado where she was a teacher and …
AnnaBelle Shaw was born in Mississippi in 1922. She moved to Ogden during World War II when her fiancé was stationed at Hill Field, now known as Hill Air Force Base. They married at the end of 1942. After the war they divorced and AnnaBelle met and married her second husband, Billie Weakley in 1947. AnnaBelle Weakley and her husband …
Jane Manning has been immortalized in the lore of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She was born African American in Connecticut in the early 1820’s. Her mother was enslaved, but was emancipated by the time Jane was born. Her father died when she was very young. She gave birth to her first son in 1839 but the …
On February 14, 1870 Seraph Young marked her ballot for the Salt Lake City municipal election and dropped it in the box. She was the first woman in the United States to vote. Seraph arrived in Utah in 1847, when she was less than a year old. The Pioneer Jubilee book lists Seraph Young (Ford) as one of the first …
