Utah Women of the 19th Amendment Series Part 1: Martha Hughes Cannon

As early as the 1770s, women are fighting for the right to vote in the United States. By 1777, the issue is put to a vote in New York, and it is defeated as are state bills in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in the 1780s. In New Jersey women are briefly given the right to vote until 1807 when it is revoked. In 1838, Kentucky passes a law that allows women to vote, but only if they are heads of households and live in rural areas. Even then, they are restricted to certain types of elections. After struggling with this national enfranchisement issue for nearly 80 years, in 1848, women form the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, setting off several years of more conventions. The work is brought to a halt by the Civil War but resumes with new focus in 1866 with the creation of the American Equal Rights Association, working for suffrage for both women and African Americans.

On December 10, 1869, the Wyoming Territory extends voting rights to women. But, the next year, Congress passes the 15^th amendment granting voting rights to all men regardless of color, and leaves the issue of gender up to the states. Some women’s rights advocates such as Susan B. Anthony are outraged. She states, “It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens...who formed the Union.”

In 1870, Utah becomes the next territory to grant voting rights to women but this right is taken away in 1887 as an attempt by the federal government to eradicate the practice of polygamy.

Into this political environment comes Martha Hughes Cannon. She is an extraordinary woman for her day. Born in Wales in 1857, her parents join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and immigrate to the Utah Territory with her as a 4 year-old child. At age 16 she enrolls in the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah) receiving a BS in Chemistry, followed by an MD from the University of Michigan. Martha goes on to the University of Pennsylvania for her post-graduate studies where she is the only woman out of 75 students. After returning to Utah, and while working as a resident at Deseret Hospital, she meets the hospital superintendent, Angus Cannon, and agrees to become his fourth wife at age 25. Polygamy has been outlawed by the federal government by this time, so they choose to keep their marriage secret. For such an independent woman to agree to this marriage, one who had broken many female barriers, seems counter to her character. However, she believes that the arrangement gives her a lot of freedom, only having to spend time with her husband one week out of every month. A proponent of women’s rights, she states, “Somehow I know that women who stay home all the time have the most unpleasant homes there are. You give me a woman who thinks about something besides cook stoves and wash tubs and baby flannels and I'll show you, nine times out of ten, a successful mother."

After her husband is arrested on polygamy charges, Martha travels abroad with her baby daughter. In 1888 after she is no longer in danger of being arrested herself, she returns to Utah and works as a doctor, establishes Utah’s first nursing school, and fights for women's rights. Through these efforts, she becomes a prominent figure and is asked to speak at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago on the subject of women’s suffrage in Utah. The Chicago Record calls her "one of the brightest exponents of women's causes in the US."

In 1896 she is convinced to run for the State Senate and wins, becoming the Nation's first

woman state senator. 

The Utah Senate in 1897. Martha is the woman on the left.

Over the course of her two-terms she introduces legislation to provide education

for disabled children, protect the health of women and young girl employees, improve Utah’s sanitation laws, and finally, she founds the State Board of Health. However, possibly Martha’s most important contribution is helping put women enfranchisement into Utah's constitution when it is granted statehood in 1896. Even after this victory for Utah women, Martha, along with other Utah suffragettes, continues the fight, which eventually results in the passage of the 19^th Amendment. 

(Researched and written by Kathryn Latour, member of the JRCLS WIL and Media Committees)