Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 46, Number 2, 1978

WM

UTAH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY EDITORIAL STAFF MELVIN T. SMITH,

Editor

STANFORD J. L A Y T O N , Managing M I R I A M B. M U R P H Y , Associate J A N E T G. B U T L E R , Assistant

Editor Editor

Editor

ADVISORY BOARD OF EDITORS T H O M A S G. ALEXANDER, Provo,

1980

M R S . I N E Z S. C O O P E R , Cedar City, 1978 S. GEORGE E L L S W O R T H , Logan, G L E N M . L E O N A R D , Bountiful,

1978 1979

DAVID E. M I L L E R , Salt Lake City, 1979 L A M A R P E T E R S E N , Salt Lake City, R I C H A R D W. SADLER, Ogden,

1980

1979

HAROLD SCHINDLER, Salt Lake City, 1978 G E N E A. S E S S I O N S , Bountiful,

1980

Utah Historical Quarterly was established in 1928 to publish articles, documents, and reviews contributing to knowledge of Utah's history. T h e Quarterly is published by the U t a h State Historical Society, 307 West Second South, Salt Lake City, U t a h 84101. Phone (801) 533-5755 (membership), 533-6024 (publications).

Members of the Society receive the Quarterly, Beehive History, and the bimonthly Newsletter upon payment of the annual dues; for details see inside back cover.

Single copies, $2.00.

Materials for publication should be submitted in duplicate accompanied by return postage a n d should be typed double-space with footnotes at the end.

Additional information on requirements is available from the managing editor. T h e Society assumes no responsibility for statements of fact or opinion by contributors.

T h e Quarteily is indexed in Book Reviezv Index to Social Science Periodicals, America: History and Life, and Abstracts of Popular Culture.

Second class postage is paid at Salt Lake City, U t a h .

ISSN 0042-143X

H I S T O R I C A L

QUARTERLY

Contents SPRING 1 9 7 8 / V O L U M E 4 6 / N U M B E R 2

IN T H I S ISSUE

99

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN T E R R I T O R I A L UTAH

BEVERLY

BEETON

100

B.

MURPHY

121

LAURENCE P. JAMES and SANDRA C. TAYLOR

136

JUANITA BROOKS and JANET G. BUTLER

151

THE WORKING WOMEN OF SALT LAKE CITY: A REVIEW OF THE UTAH GAZETTEER, 1892-93 . . . .

"STRONG MINDED WOMEN": DESDEMONA S T O T T BEESON AND O T H E R HARD ROCK MINING ENTREPRENEURS

MIRIAM

UTAH'S PEACE ADVOCATE, T H E "MORMONA": ELISE FURER MUSSER T H E JOSEPHINE DIARIES: GLIMPSES OF T H E LIFE OF JOSEPHINE STREEPER CHASE, 1881-94

.

.

DOUBLE JEOPARDY: VISUAL IMAGES OF M O R M O N WOMEN T O 1914

.

FAE DECKER DIX

167

DAVIS BITTON and GARY L. BUNKER

184

BOOK REVIEWS

203

BOOK NOTICES

212

T H E C O V E R The divers roles of women in Utah society are suggested by these photographs from the Utah State Historical Society collections: chorus line from T h e Wrong Bird, an operetta by Margaret Whitney, Pantages Theatre, Salt Lake City, 1914; office workers at the Road Commission, State Capitol, ca. 1915; tennis players at the mining town of Newhouse, Beaver County, ca 1905; schoolteacher at Bingham; worker in a Moroni turkey processing plant, late 1940s; Park City storekeeper, 1915; Navajo weaver, 1941, in Monument Valley.

© Copyright 1978 Utah State Historical Society

T H O M A S G. ALEXANDER, ed. Essays

of the American

West, 1974-75

. D E L L O G. DAYTON

203

F R E D R. G O W A N S a n d E U G E N E

E. CAMPBELL. Fort Supply: Brigham Young's Green River Experiment

TODD

I.

BERENS

205

W A Y N E L. W A H L Q U I S T

206

G E O R G E S. T A N N E R a n d J. M O R R I S

R I C H A R D S . Colonization

the Little Colorado:

on

The Joseph

City Region

Books reviewed R I C H A R D H . P E T E R S O N . The

Bonanza

Kings: The Social Origins and Business Behavior of Western Mining Entrepreneurs, 1870-1900

DUANE

A. S M I T H

208

Autobiography Wetherill . D O N D. FOWLER

209

M A U R I N E S. F L E T C H E R , ed. The

of the Mesa Verde: of Benjamin Alfred J A M E S E. D A V I S . Frontier

Wetherills

America,

1800-1840: A Comparative Demographic Analysis of the Settlement

Process

.

.

.

EDWARD J . DAVIES I I

210

V I O L E T BOYCE a n d M A B E L H A R M E R .

Upstairs to a Mine

I N E Z S. C O O P E R

211

• * *

• * «

In this issue T h e winter 1970 issue of Utah Llistorical Quarterly, developed around the theme of women in Utah, was one of the most popular issues ever published and quickly went out of print. In the years that have followed, the Society has received numerous requests for additional articles on women in Utah history. This demand has been met in part with the publication of an occasional article in subsequent issues—studies portraying women in agriculture, the professions, literary creativity, politics, and various other facets of the Utah experience—but this is the first time since 1970 that sufficient material has been available to again devote an entire Quarterly to women.

Most of the articles that follow originated from a contest sponsored bv the Utah State Historical Society and the Women in Utah History Task Force of the International Women's Year. The competition proved remarkably successful; other articles generated by it will undoubtedly appear in future issues of the Quarterly.

The first selection represents a new look at the enduring matter of woman suffrage and offers a rare glimpse at a few of the extraordinary personalities involved in that drama. Working women command the focus of the next two articles, revealing a history of versatility, ingenuity, and capability that has not been well described heretofore. The following two selections are reminiscences that demonstrate the enormous range of achievement among Utah women and share the common feature of personal conviction beautifully expressed. The final article, well illustrated and analytical, discusses images of the nineteenth-century Mormon woman. It is a timely piece, given the radical change in the image of women going on today, and it combines well with the other articles to provide a frame of reference within which this change can be properly gauged and appreciated.

Woman Suffrage in Territorial

BY BEVERLY BEETON

Charlotte Cobb Godbe, a leader in the woman suffrage movement and a rival of Emmeline B. Wells.

Susa Young Gates Collection, Utah State Historical Society.

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Suffrage

101

U t a h is the land of marvels. She give us, first, polygamy, which seems to be an outrage against 'woman's right,' and then offers to the nation a 'Female Suffrage Bill'. . . . Was there ever a greater anomaly known in the history of a society?

The Phrenological Journal November 1871

J- H E POLITICAL F R A N C H I S E WAS EXTENDED to women in the United States in 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, but in some areas of the American West women had been voting for a halfcentury. Although organized efforts to achieve woman suffrage in the late nineteenth century were concentrated in New England and New York, women were first allowed to vote in the Rocky Mountain West. 1 Desiring to publicize the newly created Wyoming Territory and attract investors and settlers, the Territorial Assembly of Wyoming passed

Dr. Beeton is a historian and assistant to the vice-president for academic affairs at the University of Utah. This article is based on her larger study of woman suffrage in the nineteenthcentury American West soon to be published as a book.

1 T h e single most comprehensive, basic source of original material on the woman suffrage movement in the United States is the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda J. Gage, and Ida H. H a r p e r and originally published during 1881-1922 (reprint ed.. New York: Arno, 1969). Chapter 66 of volume 4 is devoted to activities in U t a h , based on information provided by Emmeline B. Wells and Emily S. Richards. An analysis entitled Woman Suffrage and Politics: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement by Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler was published in 1923; recently it was reprinted with an introduction by T. A. Larson (Seattle: University of Washington, 1969). Pauline W. Davis's small volume, A History of the National Woman's Rights Movement (New York, 1871), reprinted by Source Book Press in 1970, is a good source of details on woman suffrage for the years 1870-71. William L. O'Neill, Everyone Was Brave: The Rise and Fall of Feminism in America (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1969), presents an interesting analysis of suffrage. The two best interpretive studies of woman suffrage are Eleanor Flexner's Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1958) which is an institutional study and Aileen Kraditor's ideological study, The Ideas of the Woman's Suffrage Movement, 1890-1920 (New York: Columbia University, 1965).

Susa Young Gates brought together most of the information on woman suffrage in U t a h that found its way into official histories of the suffrage movement in the United States. Additional information can be found in the Susa Young Gates Collection at the Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City. Kate B. Carter compiled selections from newspapers, histories, and summary accounts, especially those of Gates, on woman suffrage in the West for volume 5 of Heart Throbs of the West (Salt Lake City: Daughters of U t a h Pioneers, 1944). Ralph Lorenzo Jack's "Woman Suffrage in U t a h as an Issue in the Mormon and Non-Mormon Press of the Territory, 1870-1887" (M.S. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1954) does not attempt to analyze the woman suffrage activities in detail, but it does demonstrate how the two sides used the idea of woman suffrage to promote their cause. In her February 14, 1974, Charles Redd Lecture at Brigham Young University, Jean B. White detailed the events surrounding the inclusion of woman suffrage in the U t a h constitution. See "Woman's Place Is in the Constitution- T h e Struggle for Equal Rights in U t a h in 1895," Utah Historical Quarterly 42 (1974) : 344^69 In The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage (New York: Oxford, 1967), which deals primarily with woman suffrage in the West, Alan P. Grimes, employing status anxiety techniques similar to those developed by Richard Hofstader, argues that "the constituency granting woman suffrage was composed of those who also supported prohibition and immigration restriction and felt woman suffrage would further their enactment." In his article "An Experiment in Progressive Legislation: T h e Granting of Woman Suffrage in U t a h in 1870," Utah Historical Quarterly 38 (1970) : 20-30, Thomas G. Alexander argues that the Mormons were progressive, ahead ot their time in supporting woman suffrage.

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legislation giving women the right to vote in December 1869.2 Two months later the women of U t a h Territory were enfranchised. But the experiment with woman suffrage in U t a h received much more attention because it admitted nearly forty times as many, about 43,000, women to the polling place as h a d the action in Wyoming; moreover, most of those U t a h women followed a religious faith that practiced plural marriage.

Reformers as well as critics intently watched the development of the female franchise among the Mormons. T h e principal preoccupation was: how could what appeared to be the most liberal view of women's rights— suffrage—and the most enslaving marital arrangement—polygamy— develop and coexist in the same environment.

Assuming that woman suffrage and polygamy were inherently antithetical, earlier reformers had suggested that woman suffrage be employed to destroy polygamy. For at least three years prior to the legislation vesting the women of U t a h with the political franchise, this idea had been discussed in the East. T h e United States Congress had gone so far as to consider enfranchising U t a h women on the assumption that the women would immediately vote down polygamy. When discussed by easterners, the right of U t a h women to vote was almost always seen as a means to eliminate polygamy. T h e assumption, as illustrated by Reconstruction legislation, was that the ballot would be used to free those in slavery from their oppressors. T h e argument held that plural marriage existed only where women were degraded; therefore, it would disappear if women were elevated. And political power was seen as the means of elevation. In their zeal to eradicate "the second twin relic of barbarism," many Reconstruction reformers seized the idea of having Mormon women vote.

I n 1867-68 when New York suffragist Hamilton Willcox proposed experimenting with woman suffrage in the territories, he gave particular emphasis to the value of testing the idea in Utah. Not only could the system be observed in a territory where there was a large female population ; but, as a fringe benefit, the Mormon system of plural wives would be eliminated.' 5 T h e New York Times popularized this proposal, suggesting 2 T. A. Larson has made the most detailed study of suffrage in Wyoming. T h e most thoroughly documented version of his analysis is "Emancipating the West's Dolls, Vassals, and Hapless Drudges: T h e Origins of Woman Suffrage in the West," in Roger Daniels, ed.. Essays in Western History in Honor of T. A. Larson (Laramie: University of Wyoming, 1971), pp. 1-16. :: In an 1871 article in Revolution (New Y o r k ) , Willcox gave the Universal Franchise Association, of which he was a leading member, credit for woman suffrage in Utah. Three years later in an address before the House Committee on Territories he publicly took credit for originating the idea of enfranchising U t a h w o m a n : George O. Cannon admitted that^Willcox's statement was substantially correct. See Sacramento Union, January 14, 1874; Woman's Journal (Boston), January 24, 1874.

Woman

Suffrage

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that perhaps the enfranchisement of U t a h women would result in the casting out of polygamy as well as Mormonism. At the very least, U t a h would be a good place to experiment with woman suffrage.

I n the spring of 1869, when his legislation designed to enfranchise the women of the western territories stalled in Congress, Indiana Republican George Washington Julian followed Willcox's lead and limited his woman suffrage bill to U t a h with the justification that women there would use the ballot to stop the practice of taking multiple wives. T h e U t a h delegate to Congress, William Henry Hooper, spoke in favor of the bill, but it never came to a vote.

Generally, this national concern with women in Utah amused the Mormons. Assuring his readers that U t a h women could be enfranchised "without running wild or becoming unsexed," George Q. Cannon, editor of the Mormon Deseret News, voiced approval of woman suffrage, calling it an opportunity for the Mormons to be an example to the world. T h e newspaper also noted that both Mormon men and women voted in the semiannual church conferences on all matters brought before the membership.

In 1869, when the subject of the women of U t a h was before the national Congress, many easterners traveled to Salt Lake City on the newly completed transcontinental railroad and returned home with tales of the Mormon mecca. As one Christian worker summarized the situation for the Chicago Advance: Nearly all the Mormons believed in polygamy but less than one-fourth practiced it. Moreover, if the women were left to themselves nine-tenths of them "would vote it so thoroughly out of existence that it would never be heard of again.'"

T h e headliners of the period who made political names for themselves, and considerable sums of money, touring the country lecturing on the Mormons were Anna Dickenson, K a t e Field, and Vice-president Schuyler Colfax. Colfax, who in 1872 was himself the subject of an expose when the New York Sun charged him with accepting stock of the Credit Mobilier in return for political influence, delivered his lecture "Across the Continent" to numerous audiences, including members of Congress. Famous for his public piety, the Indiana politician enhanced his nickname, "the Christian Statesman," by his revelations about Mormonism.

Anna Dickenson, an advocate of woman suffrage, toured the East after her visit to Salt Lake City in 1869 in the company of the United 4 "Journal History of the Church," July 5, 1869, Archives Division, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City.

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States House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee. Her specialty at those appearances was a message of the "Whited Sepulchres" in which she depicted the condition of Mormon women as deplorable.

She told of their haggard countenances, their dejected looks, and their slavish obedience. A Mormon missionary in Connecticut reported that Anna Dickenson was paid $150 for an hour and a half lecture in which she called for the nation to put down polygamy as it had Black slavery.

In the years after the Civil War, Dickenson had been one of the most popular lecturers on the lyceum circuit, averaging 150 lectures a season and earning as much as $20,000 annually. Although it was just one of her regular lectures, the "Sepulchres" speech popularized the image of the degraded Utah women. Reporting the lecture success of the "incorrigible spinster," as Mormon elder John Jaques referred to Dickenson, the Millennial Star writer visualized a confrontation between the suffragist lecturer and her "fellow-labourer in the cause of human progress," George Francis Train. Jaques decided they "would make a magnificent team, especially when pulling in opposite directions."'

And opposing Anna Dickenson was exactly what George Francis Train did. Avid Democrat and friend of unconventional people and radical movements, Train had been a friend of the suffragist leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton during the 1867 Kansas suffrage campaign; later he sponsored the suffrage newspaper Revolution. In numerous speeches and newspaper articles he countered the critics of the Mormon marriage system. After his visit to Salt Lake City in 1869, while campaigning for the United States presidency, "Citizen Train," as he liked to be called, lectured before two thousand people in New York's Tammany Hall. As an obvious challenge to Anna Dickenson, his oration was entitled "Old Fogies of the Bible and Blackened Sepulchres." That "conglomeration of oddities and eccentricities," as the Mormon press affectionately referred to Train, was a lifelong supporter of Mormon virtues and Utah's right to statehood. In fact, he was such an avid defender of the Saints that he was once asked if he was a Mormon. He answered by declaring he had only one wife and was not a Mormon, but he was not sure that he would not become one. In 1870, while lecturing in the Salt Lake Theatre as Brigham Young's guest, Train jokingly conceded that he never committed adultery and was therefore almost a Mormon, adding, "No wonder they call me a crazy man." 0 5 6

Millennial Star (Liverpool, E n g l a n d ) , October 1869, p. 683.

Deseret News, July 23, 1870.

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Train's continuing praise of Brigham Young, whom he called the "Napoleon of colonists," won Train a place in the hearts of the Mormons.

Brigham returned Train's compliment by describing the eccentric entrepreneur as a gentleman and scholar who had brains and decency even though he would occasionally play the buffoon when it appeared profitable. When Brigham Young died in 1877, Train published a long poem in the Buffalo, New York, Agitator commemorating his friend and reaffirming his affection for the Mormons, ending with the following play on words: A n d t h o u g h too Young to miss the Train W e never shall shake hands again!

Tell my U t a h friends to Hold the Fort A n d I will g u a r a n t e e support.

Through the years the Mormons were reluctant to be too closely identified with Train because of his wild campaigns in support of W^oodhull and Claflin, Fenians, Paris Communards, Anarchists, and Young America, and because of his public displays such as protest fasting a n d his eightyday whirl around the world that inspired Jules Verne's famous story.

Nevertheless, Train continually lauded the Utah experiment with woman suffrage, campaigned for Utah statehood, and generally defended the Mormons against their defamers. But, because of Train's reputation, his defense of the Mormons did not always do them service. As an observer in the Salt Lake Tribune saw it, T r a i n was inclined "to rush in with his m a d force . . . and make Deseret his hobby." 7 I n this period the Mormons attracted supporters who were considered at least radical if not the lunatic fringe of eastern society. Even P. T . Barnum, master promoter of oddities, freaks, a n d fakes, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Tribune after his trip to Salt Lake Valley in the spring of 1870, defending the Mormons against Anna Dickenson's accusations about their treatment of their women.

While "the Mormon Question," as the polygamy problem was referred to, was being aired in the press and on the lecture circuit, the idea of experimenting with woman suffrage in U t a h became more popular. However the stock argument that the vote would cause women to migrate to the territory was not used in the case of Utah, both because the Mormons promoted their marital system as a means to deal with surplus women 8 and because easterners did not want to encourage more ' Salt Lake Tribune, November 23, 1871.

8 I n both England and the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century considerable discussion centered on what was called the "surplus women problem." While society

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women to move to U t a h because they feared they might become plural wives. O n the contrary, the principal ends easterners hoped to serve by enfranchising women in the Mormon region were, first, to eliminate polygamy and, second, to experiment with the idea of woman suffrage.

Even the National Woman Suffrage Association at its 1870 convention resolved that the enfranchisement of Utah women was the one safe, sure, and swift means to abolish polygamy in that territory.

Responding to the proposed experiment with the female franchise, the Mormon press cynically noted, "It is only the 'Mormons' who will suffer; they will have all the trouble, and the people of the East can look calmly on until the question is settled." 9 Because the proposal to enfranchise Utah women wras tied to the desire of many people to eliminate polygamy, the fortunes of the female franchise in U t a h would rise and fall for the next twenty years with the battle over plural marriage. Additionally, women's right to vote would be argued on the local and national scene each time the question of statehood for U t a h was considered.

This concern of people outside the territory for women's right to vote in U t a h was the most influential force in bringing about the enfranchisement of U t a h women. Nonetheless, there were woman suffrage advocates in the territory. T h e first talk of woman suffrage within U t a h was heard from a group of liberal Mormon intellectuals who published their ideas in the Utah Magazine, which developed into the Mormon Tribune that in turn became the Salt Lake Tribune. These Mormon reformers—the principals being William S. Godbe, Edward W. Tullidge, E. L. T. Harrison, Amasa M. Lyman, Henry W. Lawrence, William H. Shearman, and Eli B. Kelsey—created a scheme to end the economic and social insularity of the Mormon community in the Great Basin. At the time of the completion of the transcontinental railroad, these liberals suggested that the Mormons should cooperate with Gentiles 10 to develop

was resisting efforts by some to allow women greater independence and fuller participation, it was also concerned about the excess number of females over males. In a culture that prescribed that woman's role was to serve as mother and wife in a monogamous family, the fact that there were more women of marriageable age than men was a real problem. Immigration to the United States was seen by some as one alternative.

I n their proselyting efforts in England, the Mormons capitalized on this problem by actively seeking female converts and advertising the opportunities for prosperity and social mobility in America. However, they never officially proposed polygamous marriage as a solution to the "surplus women problem." Instead, they consistently defended plural marriage in terms of religious conscience. T h e Deseret News, nevertheless, printed countless articles on the subject of surplus women and reprinted stories from all over the world on the problem.

9

Deseret News, March 18, 1869.

"Gentile" was used by Mormons to describe anyone outside their faith.

10

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manufacturing and mining. Mormon church officials, however, defended their policy of remaining an agricultural, self-sufficient kingdom. In addition to being estranged from Brigham Young's concept of Zion, the reformers wanted to infuse spiritualism into Mormonism. Conflict ensued, the end result of which was that Godbe and most of his followers were excommunicated or voluntarily left the church.11 One of the issues championed by the Godbeites was the equality of women.12 In the next twenty-five years, the Deseret News often credited them with initiating the push for the enfranchisement of women. Why were these liberal Mormon men advocates of woman suffrage? All the principal leaders—except Godbe and Lawrence who were first and foremost merchants—had served as missionaries in England during the liberal era. Since most of them were directly involved in the editing of the Millennial Star, the Mormon newspaper there, they must have heard the arguments in favor of equality from reformers of the day such as John Stuart Mill. Godbe, on the other hand, frequently traveled to the East Coast to purchase goods for his mercantile enterprises and thus was exposed to the frequently discussed ideas of the day.

Early women's rights activities in Utah centered around the Godbe family. William S. Godbe and three of his four polygamous wives—Annie Thompson Godbe, Mary Hampton Godbe, and Charlotte Ives Cobb Godbe—were active in the women's rights movement. They made the initial contacts with eastern suffrage leaders and convened the first meeting in Utah Territory dealing with woman suffrage. Of all the people identified with the Godbeite movement, Charlotte Godbe was the most important figure in woman suffrage.

After William Godbe's excommunication all his wives left the Mormon church except Charlotte, who did not abandon the religion because of her mother. Charlotte's mother was Augusta Adams Cobb Young, Brigham Young's fifth wife. Charlotte had been raised as one of Young's daughters, even living for a time in the Lion House. Thirty years earlier, Charlotte's mother, a member of the prominent Adams family, had fled Boston to become one of Brigham Young's wives and in so doing had 11 Leonard J. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 243-44. T h e July 1871 Phrenological Journal ran a detailed biographical article on the "Leaders of the Mormon Reform Movement—with Portraits." A more recent analysis of the Godbeites is Ronald W. Walker, " T h e Commencement of the Godbeite Protest: Another View," Utah Historical Quarterly 42 (1974) : 216-44.

12 "Manifesto from W. S. Godbe and E. L. T. Harrison," Utah Magazine, November 27.

1869, pp. 4 7 0 - 7 3 . T h e 1869 issues of the magazine carried a number of articles in support of women's rights.

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abandoned her husband and five of her children, taking with her sixyear-old Charlotte and an infant who later died.1" M a n y years later Charlotte wrote to Wilford Woodruff, who was then president of the Mormon church, explaining that when her mother had lived in Boston she had been an acquaintance of suffragist Lucy Stone and had maintained contact with her over the years. Charlotte attributed the commencement of woman suffrage activities in U t a h to her mother and reported that it had been her mother's deathbed wish that Charlotte continue the work she had begun. 1 ' Charlotte did make woman suffrage her life's work.

In April 1869, seven months before he excommunicated William Godbe, Brigham Young had sealed Charlotte to Godbe as his fourth wife.

This marriage, which Charlotte later referred to as her "painful domestic experience in polygamy," ended ten years later with a divorce after a number of years of separation. Though she did not leave the church, Charlotte was never listed among the Mormon women speaking out for woman suffrage or protesting antipolygamy legislation. T h e Mormons' refusal to accept her as one of their own may have been as much a result of her spiritualistic activities as the fact that she was married to Godbe.

Nevertheless, for many years Charlotte continued her women's rights work independently, through letters to the editor and feminist speeches.

I n those early years she also had considerable contact with eastern suffragists.

Nearly twenty years later Charlotte recounted how she had "assumed a prominence among" the women of the national suffrage movement and been elected by them "to speak before the House Committee on this subject, and claim for all women the right [to vote]." 1 ' In 1871 in Boston's Tremont Temple she did speak before a large audience on woman suffrage and on "the fine and noble women" of Utah. In doing so, she became the first American woman with voting rights to address eastern suffragists. Although the ten minutes of her discourse devoted to a defense of Mormon women earned her the praise of Boston newspapers, they called down the damnation of Emmeline B. Wells, prominent leader of the polygamous women of Salt Lake City and editor of the Woman's Exponent, a U t a h journal established in 1872 as the explicit vehicle 1:1

Mary Cable, "She Who Shall Be Nameless," American

Heritage,

February 1965, pp.

50-55.

11

Kirby to Woodruff, February 16, 1869, Incoming Letters, Wilford Woodruff Papers, LDS Archives.

15 Kirby to Woodruff, February 5, 1889.

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whereby Mormon women could explain themselves to the world and report the labors of their Relief Society. In an article in the Exponent, Emmeline discussed Charlotte's unsuccessful polygamous marriage to Godbe and concluded that Charlotte "was not now an advocate for this principle of the Church, hence could not be a representative for the women here [in U t a h ] . " As Charlotte later reported, "the motive for this I saw a year after when E.B.W. tried to be—what I was—a representative woman in political circles." 16 T h e contest between Charlotte Emmeline B. Wells and Emmeline would continue through their long careers. Charlotte was a feminist, while Emmeline stood as the symbol of the polygamous wife. Both remained members of the Mormon church, and both worked for woman suffrage from their own point of view. Charlotte persisted because, as she often said, it was morally right for women to participate in their government. Emmeline worked for woman suffrage as a means to promote Mormon women, their Relief Society, and the church's goals such as statehood for Utah.

T h e conflict between these two proud, effective women was constantly being renewed; when Charlotte made a feminist statement or observation about Mormon women in the national or suffrage press Emmeline usually countered in the Exponent.

Like Charlotte, Annie Thompson Godbe was an active suffragist in touch with national movement leaders. She was probably the " M r s .

Godby [sic], wife of the leading reform advocates of U t a h , " who with Margaret Lucas, sister of English woman suffrage advocate Jacob Bright, was among the distinguished guests at the twentieth anniversary celebration of the inauguration of the women's rights movement held in New York City in 1870. T h e organizer of the meeting, Pauline W. Davis, concluded, " I n U t a h it [woman suffrage] is of less account [than the

Ibid.

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Wyoming example] because the women are more under a hierarchy than elsewhere, and as yet vote only as directed."17 Within the ranks of the Mormon faithful there were people who favored woman suffrage at this early date. In 1868 the editor of the Deseret News noted some justice in women's claim to the right to vote; referring to the recent enfranchisement of Black men, he noted women's intelligence and said he saw no reason why they should not be admitted to the polls also. In addition, the editor speculated, "before long, probably in Massachusetts at any rate, they will have the privilege granted to them." 18 Over the years the Deseret News was supportive of woman suffrage. Editors George Q. Cannon and Charles W. Penrose not only used the paper to promote woman suffrage but often pursued the cause on the lecture platform. Likewise, Franklin D. Richards, who edited the Ogden Junction in Utah's second city, supported woman suffrage in both arenas.

Franklin D. Richards, his wife Jane S. Richards, their son Franklin S. Richards, and the latter's wife Emily S. Tanner Richards were among the most forceful voices in favor of women's rights within the Mormon church. The Richards family frequently hosted eastern suffragists during their stopovers in Utah; and since Franklin S. was often in the national capital in his role as attorney for the church, he and Emily had occasion to make the acquaintance of prominent suffragists. As a worker for women's rights, Emily would serve on the Board of Lady Managers of the 1892 World's Fair in Chicago and as a delegate to the International Council of Women. Ultimately she would be the initiator of the organization of the first woman suffrage association in Utah in 1888.

When the question of extending the vote to women was considered by the Utah Territorial Legislature in 1870 national attention was focused on the Mormons. Vice-president Colfax was carrying out a vigorous antiMormon newspaper and lecture campaign. At the same time, Congress was inundated with legislation relating to the Mormons. As George A. Smith noted in a letter to his cousin Hannah P. Butler, "I understand about a dozen bills have been presented to the Congress in relation to Utah." These bills varied from schemes to partition Utah, giving segments to the surrounding territories and states, to proposals disfranchising the Mormons, disqualifying them from holding public office and sitting on juries, depriving them of the right to homestead or preempt public lands, or disinheriting their children.19 17

Davis, A History of the National Woman's Rights Movement, Deseret News, December 2, 1868.

39 Smith to Butler, February 1, 1870, in "Journal History."

18

p. 2 5 ; see also pp. 4 - 5 .

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But the legislation that sparked the greatest response in Mormondom was that introduced by the chairman of the House Committee on Territories, Shelby M. Cullom. He sponsored a bill designed to enforce the antipolygamy law of 1862. In a letter to William H. Hooper, Utah's delegate to Congress, Brigham Young assessed reaction to the Cullom bill, saying: "Our sisters here are in high dudgeon over it."2" During the first week of January 1870 the women of the Fifteenth Ward in Salt Lake City met to express their opposition to Cullom's legislation. With Sarah M. Kimball presiding, the women unanimously protested the bill and resolved to bring their moral influence to bear against it. A Sister Smith even demanded of the governor that women be allowed to vote.

At the close of the meeting Eliza R. Snow, who had successively been married to Joseph Smith, Jr., and Brigham Young and was recognized as the voice of the Mormon leadership on subjects relating to women, suggested that the example of the women of the Fifteenth Ward be followed by the sisterhood throughout the territory.21 On January 13 "a great indignation meeting" was held at the Old Tabernacle on Temple Square. Despite the inclement weather over 5,000 women of all ages rallied to hear their sisters decry Cullom's "mean, foul legislation." For the next six weeks women throughout the territory responded to the call to voice their objection to Congressman Cullom's proposal. From Providence in the north to Manti in the south, mass meetings of women were convened to sustain resolutions protesting the proposed legislation. These gatherings demonstrated how effectively the church organizational structure could be utilized to gather and to display support for a cause. In subsequent years this tactic would be used frequently.

Referring to "the great indignation meeting" as one of the grandest female assemblages in all history, the New York Herald editorialized: It will not be denied that the Mormon women have both brains and tongues. Some of the speeches give evidence that in general knowledge, in logic, and in rhetoric the so-called degraded ladies of Mormondom are quite equal to the women's rights women of the East.22

Most eastern newspapers of the day had some positive comments to make about Mormon women as a result of these mass meetings. The New York 30

Young to Hooper, January 11, 1870, Young Letterbooks, Brigham Young Papers, L D S Archives.

21 Riverside Stake, Fifteenth Ward Relief Society Minutes, January 6, 1870, L D S Archives.

This ward was in the Salt Lake Stake until 1940. See also Deseret News, January 11, 1870.

"New

York Herald, January 23, 1870.

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112 Journal of Commerce confessed that the arguments presented by the women in Utah were fully up to the mark of the best efforts of Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, or any of the female suffrage women who were trying to stir up public sentiment east of the Rocky Mountains.23 Against this background, the Utah Legislative Assembly considered the advisability of extending the ballot to women. Though the council aired some reservations, after two weeks of discussion members of both houses, by unanimous vote, passed a bill enfranchising women.24 The motives behind the approval of this bill were explained to Congress

by Delegate William H. Hooper:

Quarterly

Susan B. Anthony

To convince the country how utterly without foundation the popular assertions were concerning the women of the Territory, some members of the Legislative Assembly were in favor of passing the law; . . . others favored it, convinced of its propriety by the arguments of the friends of that great political reform.25

On February 12, 1870, Territorial Secretary S. A. Mann, serving as acting governor, signed into law the act conferring the elective franchise upon women twrenty-one years of age or older who had resided in the territory six months, were born or naturalized in the United States, or were the wives, widows, or daughters of native-born or naturalized citizens.

Though he expressed his personal doubts as to the wisdom of this legislation, Mann justified his signing of the bill by the unanimous legislative vote.

Mann was not a Mormon, yet he was popular with the Saints.26 His prompt signing of this legislation endeared him to the women, who quickly convened a meeting and drew up a resolution expressing their "'''New York Evening Express, January 26, 1870.

24 For details of the legislature's considerations and the actions of Deseret's "ghost government," see Alexander, "An Experiment in Progressive Legislation," pp. 25-26.

25 Hooper's speech before the House on January 29, 1873, was reported in the Deseret News, February 14, 1873.

M George A. Smith to J. S. Harris, May 27, 1870, in "Journal History."

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appreciation. The resolution was delivered to Mann by a delegation of women headed by poet Eliza R. Snow. In response he penned a letter philosophizing about the intelligent use of the ballot, cautioning that the application of woman suffrage in Utah would "be watched with profound interest, for upon its consistent and harmonious working depends in a great measure its universal adoption in the Republic."27 Mormon faithful William Clayton was less philosophical when he noted, "the poor, enslaved downtrodden!!! women of Utah can now act for themselves and take revenge on the men of Israel." But as Clayton gleefully observed, those who expected the Mormon women to use the vote against polygamy would "gnash their teeth with rage" and "foam worse than ever," for "there are not many women here but will sustain all the measures of the authorities better than some of the men do."28 Once the news was out, messages came in commending the Mormons for their action. "Congratulations. Woman Suffrage, Greenbacks, Protection, Morality, Temperance, Statesmanship, Presidential Platform." So read the telegram sent by that perennial friend of the Mormons, George Francis Train, upon the passage of the bill. Brigham Young's reply to Train was a cautious, "Family and friends all well.

Return congratulations. Truth, liberty, happiness, and mountain air are lovely and desirable."29 The British press reacted differently. The London Daily Telegraph rhetorically addressed its comments to philosopher John Stuart Mill and asked how the women of Utah could vote yet sustain plural marriage, as "the great indignation meeting" appeared to do.

Two days after the act was signed into law, municipal elections were held in Salt Lake City, and, according to Brigham Young, twenty-five women exercised their newly gained right to vote. Reportedly, Seraph Young, Brigham's niece, was the first woman to cast her ballot."0 The New York Globe summarized the historic occasion: A m o r n i n g dispatch informs us that the women of U t a h vote to-day, since female suffrage has become a law in that territory. We expect they will go to the polls in a quiet orderly, lady-like m a n n e r , and deposit their votes without any jeers or opposition from the gentlemen. If this thing can be done in the "wicked and i m m o r a l " city of Salt Lake, where women 27 M a n n to Eliza R. Snow, Bathsheba W. Smith, M a r i n d a M. Hyde, Phoebe W. Woodruff, Amelia H. Young, et al., February 19, 1870, M a n n Papers, LDS Archives.

2S Clayton to Brother Jesse and Clayton to Brother East, February 13, 1870, Clayton Letterbooks, microfilm, LDS Archives.

29 "Journal History," May 14, 1870.

30 Deseret News, February 15, 1870.

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are supposed to be held in less estimation than they are in the high-toned and healthy cities of New York and Boston, why may it not be accomplished in every town and hamlet in the U n i o n ? T h a t the women of U t a h will to-day vote to abolish polygamy, we do not expect. T h e y are as m u c h in favor of that system as the men. It is wrong to expect this of women of U t a h , and it will be unfair to call female suffrage a failure if they do refuse to abolish polygamy. T h e question, however, is not u p for decision. 31

Woman suffrage was a reality in Utah Territory. Mormon women had registered their dismay with the Cullom bill and in so doing had, to a degree, sustained the patriarchal family system of multiple wives practiced by the Saints. Now the Mormons were able to say to the world that women were not held in bondage but were free, thinking beings willingly participating in plural marriage. Nevertheless, Senator Cullom continued to push for legislation to abolish polygamy. When the House approved his bill, many newspapers talked of imminent war if it became law. Back in Zion, Mormon military regiments drilled while committees throughout the territory held mass meetings of men and women to draw up remonstrances protesting the pending legislation as tyrannical.32 These mass meetings were well planned and aimed for long-range results. Acting under Brigham Young's direction, Daniel H. Wells corresponded with Delegate Hooper, advising him that John T. Caine would be arriving in Washington, D . C , to deliver proceedings of the mass meetings and to assist Hooper with some "efficient aid, by forming public opinion through the press and otherwise, not only paving the way towards the defeat of the Cullom bill in the Senate, but also in the matter of our admission as a State into the Union."33 As agitation against the "second twin relic of barbarism" reached a high pitch in the national capital, even the Godbeites, who had been excommunicated from the Mormon church or had left voluntarily, met with non-Mormon friends at the Masonic Hall in Salt Lake City to draft a memorial to the Senate asking for a modification of the most obnoxious portions of the Cullom bill as passed by the House. Most attending the meeting voiced their objection to polygamy but noted that the proposed legislation against it appeared unjust and overly severe.

The House of Representatives had approved the bill after amending it to remove the sections empowering the president to send troops to Utah. And although Utah women had been enfranchised less than three New York Globe, February 14, 1870.

"Journal History," March 26, 29, 1870.

Wells to Hooper, April 2, 1870, Young Letterbooks.

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months, a clause had been added to Cullom's bill withdrawing that privilege. This section of the legislation would have deprived the women of suffrage and the right to serve on juries. Senator Cullom was pushing hard; he had tried to make it the official mission of the Republican party to eradicate polygamy along with slavery. However, the Senate adjourned for the summer without acting on the matter.

During the summer of 1870, national concern about the Mormons was amplified by the agitation of Rev. J. P. Newman, Methodist preacher and chaplain of the United States Senate. In reaction to the Cullom bill debates and Delegate Hooper's defense of polygamy, Newman delivered numerous speeches in Washington, D.C, against polygamy. That summer he appeared in Salt Lake City to challenge Brigham Young to debate the question of whether or not the Bible sanctions polygamy. Young refused Newman's challenge, but Orson Pratt did present the Mormon view in a debate staged in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Upon returning to the national capital, Newman's wife organized a Woman's Christian Association for the benefit of Utah women with a Mrs. Hollister, Vice-president Colfax's sister, in charge of the activities of the association in Salt Lake City.34 Six months after the passage of the act permitting Utah women to vote, and amid talk of having the legislation pronounced unconstitutional by the territorial supreme court, the women of Utah went to the polls to cast their ballots in territorial elections. Despite a considerable amount of what men referred to as "good humored chaffing," a large number of women entered the polling places through the separate women's entrances and cast their votes. A few individualists took their feminism seriously and voted for women for public office. "One lady voted for a lady to be a Commissioner to locate University Lands, also for one to be a Representative in the Territorial Legislature, and for one to be County Treasurer." 55 A visiting observer was not impressed. As he saw it, "the Mormon women cared but little for the privilege of voting and cast their ballots just as their Bishops directed."36 No doubt many Mormon women were ambivalent about their newly gained political role; some were even openly opposed to women taking part in political affairs. The minutes of women's meetings in the Salt Lake City Fifteenth Ward reflect the full spectrum of views on voting. Some 34

Deseret Deseret M Wilford of the American a5

News, May 17, 1871; "Journal History," August 8, 12 and October 20, 1870.

News, August 3, 1870.

H . M u n r o , "Among the Mormons in the Days of Brigham Young," Proceedings Antiquarian Society, new series 36, October 1926, p. 229.

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women clearly declared themselves for women's rights; some said they had little interest in politics but would vote "for good men in office not enemies." Others admitted they had always considered politics beneath women and were thus not interested in voting. 37 Brigham Young's analysis of U t a h women's first experience at the polls was that the ladies of Mormondom had gone "forth in force and voted for the only m a n who raised his voice in the Halls of Congress in defense of a pluralities of wives" 38 —William H. Hooper. In short, the women had used their political power to affirm the institution of polygamy by reelecting Hooper. It is doubtful that this was a conscious affirmation on the part of women. Hooper was, after all, an aggressive advocate of woman suffrage during his days as delegate to Congress.

Reportedly it was Hooper, possibly inspired by Charlotte Godbe, who h a d proposed the idea of granting Utah women the franchise in 1869 wdien Congress was considering imposing female suffrage on Utah.

Hooper was also credited with engineering the signing of the bill by Acting Governor M a n n . Hooper, who was in Washington when the territorial legislature passed the enfranchising bill, allegedly persuaded Thomas Fitch, congressman from Nevada, to telegraph M a n n to sign the bill. Gov. J. Wilson Shaffer, who was also in Washington, was about to instruct M a n n to veto the bill when Hooper and Fitch convinced him that the whole woman suffrage thing was a hoax. 39 While the Mormons pointed to the reality of women voting in Utah as a refutation of Anna Dickenson's "Whited Sepulchres" and "W'oman's Cry from U t a h " speeches, Hamilton Willcox, in a Revolution article, insisted that women's enfranchisement had sealed polygamy's doom.

U t a h women held their future in their own hands, he said; therefore, Congress should let U t a h alone. At the same time, the Revolution articles objected to the Cullom bill since it had been altered to take the right of suffrage from U t a h women.

At this juncture the Mormons repeatedly reminded Congress that the idea of enfranchising women in U t a h had been first pursued by Congress and that the territorial legislature had passed its female franchise act at the very time that similar measures were being considered in Washington. " B a h ! " was the Salt Lake Herald's response to the fre37 Fifteenth Ward Relief Society Minutes, July 20, 1871 : see also January 6 and February 19, 1870.

33 Millennial Star, August 30, 1870, p. 550.

39 "William H. Hooper, the U t a h Delegate and Female Advocate," Phrenological Journal, November 1870, pp. 3 3 0 - 3 1 ; see also Kirby to Woodruff, February 5, 1889.

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quently heard accusation that the Mormon-dominated legislature had given the women the vote as a means of strengthening their potential power against non-Mormons in U t a h .

Still, most analysts see the reason for the enfranchisement of U t a h women solely in terms of the dynamics within the territory, and most accept the theory that it resulted from an effort on the part of the Mormons to increase their political power in hopes of keeping political control out of the hands of non-Mormons. As Alan P. Grimes argues in his Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage, "Women voters were not so much pawns in this struggle as reserve troops to be called upon when needed." 40 One contemporary version credits Brigham Young—supposedly afraid of the influx of miners into the territory—with devising the scheme of granting the right to vote to women: Capitalists and prospectors multiplied. The wily deceiver then evolved from his narrow soul the magnanimous scheme of enfranchising the women. The Mormon legislature passed the bill. The Gentile miners were mostly unmarried men, or had left their families in the East. Every Mormon citizen thus had his civil power extended in correspondence with his numerous alliances.41

Certainly, some Mormons may have feared that the territory would be overrun by outsiders once the railroad provided easy access. Nevertheless, at the time the woman suffrage legislation wras passed in 1870, the territory's population was 87,000—less than 4,500 of whom were nonMormons. 42 Although the Deseret News admitted that such an influx was possible, it did "not anticipate such a result." Even when the nonMormon population did increase, the Mormons securely maintained their political superiority. During the final twenty-five territorial years, the Mormon men alone outnumbered the non-Mormon men four to one. If there were already more than four Mormon voters for every non-Mormon voter, it obviously was not necessary to double the Mormon electorate by giving women the vote. "Reserve troops" would never be needed, not even if the men who practiced polygamy (probably around one-fourth of the total Mormon men) were disfranchised. Speculation based solely on events within the territory might, instead, lead to the conclusion that the Mormon leaders, shaken by the liberal schism, were not afraid of growing non-Mormon political power but were questioning their own ability to maintain Mormon political solidarity.

40

Grimes, The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage, p. 4 1 .

U.S., Congress, Senate, 49th Cong.. 1st sess., 1886, Miscellaneous Documents, 122:3.

42 T h e 1880 census data show that there were 120,000 Mormons in U t a h and 24,000 other residents.

41

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Though motives for enfranchising the women of U t a h can be found within the territory and within the Mormon structure, the most compelling reasons were external: the need to counter the image of downtrodden Mormon women, thus stemming the tide of antipolygamy legislation, and the desire to find lobbying power and congressional support in the move to achieve statehood.

Some astute Mormon politicians saw that the enfranchisement of women in U t a h territory would rally the eastern-based woman suffrage organizations and congressmen favorable to women voting and that these lobElizabeth Cady Stanton byists would counter attempts by some members of Congress to pass legislation designed to eradicate polygamy. T h e Mormon leaders also saw the possibility that this same woman suffrage lobby could be recruited to assist with statehood. As George Q. Cannon, the U t a h delegate to Congress following Hooper, summarized it, " T h e extension of suffrage to our women was a most excellent measure.

It brought to our aid the friends of women suffrage." 43 If motives derived from the Mormons' relationship with the larger American society and the federal government are accepted, then Mormon women and eastern suffragists were pawns, not reserve voting troops.

T h e woman suffrage movement gave the Mormons a national stage upon which they could demonstrate that polygamous wives were intelligent beings capable of thinking for themselves and therefore willing participants in plural marriage, not the downtrodden slaves painted by lecturebureau circuit riders.

National suffrage leaders carefully watched the U t a h experiment.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton of the National Woman Suffrage Association were particularly concerned. T h e "maidenly Susan B." and the "motherly Stanton," as the Deseret News referred to them, visited U t a h in the 1870s to see firsthand what impact the ballot in the 43 Cannon made similar comments on a number of occasions, but his most revealing statement is in his letter of February 7, 1880, to John Taylor, Mormon church president, in George Q. Cannon Papers, LDS Archives.

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hands of women was having. Stanton held a five-hour meeting with a large gathering of Mormon women in the Old Tabernacle. Having discussed various possible marital arrangements, Stanton concluded that none was ideal from the female point of view. She talked openly of what would be termed "family planning" today. She advised Mormon women that "quality rather than quantity" should be sought in their offspring and that they should not become mothers oftener than once in five years.

Subsequently, Stanton was barred from Mormon podiums.

From 1870, when women were enfranchised in Utah, until 1887 when Congress took the vote from U t a h women with the EdmundsTucker Act, the National Woman Suffrage Association lobbied Congress in defense of U t a h women's rights. Belva Lockwood, the first woman lawyer to be permitted to practice before the Supreme Court, led the suffragists' defense of Mormon women in Washington. As Lockwood saw it, the fight against the numerous bills designed to "elevate" women of U t a h and "relieve" them from their "bondage" by repealing the territorial act giving them the franchise was "not only a fight for 'Mormon' female votes—it is a contest for women's equal rights on principle." 44 While national suffrage leaders such as Anthony and Lockwood were defending Mormon women's rights, antipolygamy associations that were closely tied to the early Women's Christian Temperance Union were campaigning against women voting in Utah. T h e issue came to full boil in 1887 when Congress disfranchised U t a h women and polygamous men.

In 1895 during the Utah Constitutional Convention the hottest subject of debate was the woman suffrage question. Should the U t a h State Constitution define the electorate to include women? Most Mormons said yes and most non-Mormons said no. One articulate Mormon, the delegate from Davis County, Brigham Henry Roberts (also known for his work as a historian), aggressively opposed women voting. First, he said, it would endanger statehood; but, when pushed, he admitted that he did not believe women should be involved in politics. Roberts's "manly stand" made him a hero in some circles. In recognition of his efforts against woman suffrage, he received bouquets of roses from anonymous admirers and members' privileges for thirty days at the all-male Alta Club in Salt Lake City.

In response, the U t a h Woman Suffrage Association rallied their supporters. Franklin S. Richards and Orson F. Whitney, another his44 See Belva A. Lockwood's speech before the National Woman Suffrage January 24, 1883, as printed in the Ogden Daily Herald of June 9, 1883.

Association,

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torian, debated against Roberts. The final decision was in favor of including woman suffrage in the constitution which became effective when Utah became a state in 1896.45 With statehood, women in Utah gained full voting privileges. Women in the surrounding states of Wyoming, Colorado, and Idaho also were permitted to vote in 1896, but it would be another twenty-four years before the Nineteenth Amendment would be ratified making it illegal to deny access to the polling place on the basis of one's sex in all states of the Union.

The national suffragists' experience with the question of woman suffrage in Utah helped to move them closer to wdiat is referred to as the Victorian Compromise and preoccupation with the franchise. The National Woman Suffrage Association—which had been most critical of the monogamous marital system—had been pressured, as William L. O'Neill has said, not to allow the organization to be used by Victoria Woodhull to promote free love. Likewise, moderate suffragists objected to Belva Lockwood defending Mormon women in words often interpreted as a defense of plural marriage. For two decades the National Woman Suffrage Association championed Utah women's right to vote and in so doing damaged its image. That wing of the suffrage movement was discredited because of its identification with the nontraditional family structure and its critiques of monogamous marriage. Faced with attacks from all sides if they attempted to analyze the traditional family structure, women's rights advocates began at the turn of the century to confine themselves more and more to one subject—the vote. Suffrage became the panacea. Thus, a feminist ideology of woman's role in society, which might have resulted in a much greater change in society than woman suffrage produced, was not forthcoming.

45 For an analysis of the constitutional convention debate see White, "Woman's Place Is in the Constitution," pp. 344-69.

Two

HOME

MAKERS

. . . .My sister Caroline and I have been trying to build a log house for ourselves as we do not feel quite comfortable where we are. We first got possession of an old house which we pulled down and h a d the logs moved to a spot where we wanted it p u t u p again. As we could not get any one to lay it u p for us, we went at it ourselves and laid it u p five or six logs high when some brethren came and laid it u p the rest of the way a n d p u t a dirt roof on it. T h e n I built a fire place and chimney till it was about as high as my head and some brother topped it out for me. We h a d one window of 3 panes of glass. N o w we have a house. . . .

"Life and Journal of Eliza M a r i a Partridge L y m a n , " p . 40 U t a h State Historical Society Library

The Working Women of Salt Lake City: A Review of the Utah Gazetteer, 1892-93

BY M I R I A M B .

MURPHY

Above: ZCMI employed many women in its large merchandising operation as forewomen, salesladies, cashiers, and clerks. About 220 women worked in such positions with retail stores in Salt Lake City. Utah State Historical Society collections.

the home since the earliest days of pioneer settlement. Diaries, newspapers, and other sources show women U T A H W O M E N HAVE WORKED OUTSIDE

Ms. Murphy is associate editor of Utah Historical

Quarterly.

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employed as teachers, milliners, physicians, and storekeepers.1 However, the extent and nature of their role in the work force has been obscure.

History recognizes exceptional professional women like Emmeline B. Wells and Dr. Ellis R. Shipp, but thousands of other working women remain unknown. Early state and city directories tend to ignore women, but Stenhouse's Utah Gazetteer, 1892-93, purports to list all heads of household and adults over sixteen who worked within the Salt Lake City limits.2 Almost 2,000 working women are listed in the Gazetteer as employed in education, manufacturing, retail trade, service occupations, restaurants and lodging houses, medical arts, printing, office jobs, and the creative arts. Many of the self-employed women used space advertisements or business listings in the Gazetteer. Additionally, the directory shows a few women in roles as corporate and union officers. A closer look at these women may create a better understanding of their contribution to the development of the territory and the life of the community.

Census data provide a basis for fitting Salt Lake City women into the national and local picture. The figures for 1890 indicate that there were 67,480 women ten years of age or older in Utah Territory. Of that number 7,076 or 10.5 percent were gainfully employed, substantially below the national average of 17 percent but higher than the neighboring states and territories of Idaho (8.4 percent), Arizona (9.6 percent), and New Mexico (7.8 percent). The less industrialized West did not provide as many work opportunities for women as the East.3 The census divides occupations into five broad categories. The number of Utah women employed in each in 1890 was: 570, agriculture (8.1 percent of the total employed Utah women) ; 708, professional service (10 percent) ; 3,498, domestic and personal service (49.4 percent) ; 540, trade and transportation (7.6 percent) ; 1,760, manufacturing and mechanical pursuits (24.9 percent). 4 The Gazetteer and other sources 1 See, for example. Juanita Brooks, ed., Not by Bread Alone: The Journal of Martha Spence Heywood, 1850-56 (Salt Lake City: U t a h State Historical Society, 1978), pp. 4 - 5 . In addition to teaching school, M a r t h a was a cap and hat maker. She taught other family members the business However, it was her husband, Joseph L. Heywood, who advertised as a hatmaker. See also Utah Historical Quarterly 10 ( 1 9 4 2 ) : 28-32, 84-144, and the following advertisements in the Deseret News: Mrs. A. Smith, November 16, 1850; Mary Ann Phelps, May 25, 1854; Miss Burbage and Mrs. S. Sutherland, December 14, 1854.

2 Stenhouse & Company, Utah Gazetteer, 1892-93 (Salt Lake City, 1892).

3 U.S., Census Office, Census Reports, Volume 2, Twelfth Census of the United States, Population, Part 2 (Washington, D. C , 1902). This census provides useful comparative data on occupations in 1880, 1890, and 1900. For example, the table on p. cxxi shows that females over age ten employed in U t a h rose from 6.2 percent in 1880 to 10.5 percent in 1890 and to 11.2 percent in 1900. It is interesting to note that employed males age ten or older in U t a h in 1890 totaled 75 percent, the lowest percentage in the 11 states and territories in the western division.

See table on p. cxxx.

4 Ibid pp cxxxix, cxli Note that the percentage of women in agriculture, professional service, a n d ' t r a d e and transportation increased in 1900 while the percentage in domestic and personal service and in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits declined.

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can help to identify some of these women and thus create a partial portrait, at least, of the Salt Lake City working woman.

A H A N D F U L OF A G R I C U L T U R I S T S

As one might expect, few of the 570 agricultural workers listed by the census lived in Salt Lake City. According to the Gazetteer, Mrs. Edith Fisher, farmer, lived in East Mill Creek; Betsie Cornick lived and worked on the J o r d a n Stock F a r m ; and Catharine Steiner, a widow living on East Third South, was a cheese dealer. In the directory's business guide Anna Judson, an east bench resident and a widow, is listed under apiarists and Dorothy McAllister of North Salt Lake under dairies. These five women are the only ones identified by the Gazetteer with agricultural pursuits in the Salt Lake City area. 5 T H E PRESTIGIOUS P R O F E S S I O N A L S

T h e most visible working women in U t a h were the 708 in the professional fields of teaching, medicine, music, art, and literature. U t a h women had led out as teachers, physicians, and writers. Following in that tradition, some of these women professionals are more well known than their male counterparts.

T h e Gazetteer lists more than 180 teachers and superintendents in Salt Lake City. Some of them worked for public, private, and parochial schools; others were self-employed as teachers of music, voice, and art.

O n the administrative level Olive H . Avey was principal of the Twelfth W a r d School and Frances Knight of the Eighth W a r d School.

Zina Bennion was lady superintendent of LDS College. Emily C. Curtiss ran McGurrin's Shorthand College on M a i n Street with the help of her assistant Rosie Evans. Charlotte E. Hayden was principal of Saint Mark's School.

Among the self-employed teachers was Mrs. Fanny Stenhouse Gray who advertised her skill at voice culture. Artist K a t e L. Roberts, whose studio was in the Dooly Building, taught oil, watercolor, pastel, and drawing. Gratia Flanders, whose talents were endorsed by several Chicagoans, taught piano and music theory. In the old Constitution Building, Mrs. J. H . V a n Horn, who boasted "the only set kiln in U t a h , " offered instruction in china painting and firing.

5 T h e Gazetteer's index makes it easy to locate references to the business guide, advertisements, and other d a t a ; therefore, citations for these kinds of references will not be furnished.

Names, of course, are listed in alphabetical order and quite readily found.

124 T h r e e of Salt Lake City's women artists purchased space advertising in the Gazetteer: Ms. Roberts, K a t e Wells, and Lottie L. Willard. T h e special talents of Miss Wells included tinting photographs in pastel, crayon, or watercolor at her studio in the McCornick Building. Miss Willard, at 48 East T h i r d South, painted landscapes in oil. Another woman who should be included among the artists is Mrs. Amelia Fox who, with her partner Charles W. Symons, ran a photographic studio on Main Street.

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Miss Kate Wells,

* COLORIST * In Crayon, Pastel Water Colon of

PHOTOGRAPHS. IIS Mcl'oroirk Blftrt, SILT UKK (IIV. IITIU

MISS L. L. WILLARD,

Landscape •:• in •:• Oil, 48 East Third South St.,

L"

s . u / r M K I : CITY. Actors and actresses were considered professionals by the censustakers. T h r e e women are billed as Two artists who advertised in the Utah Gazetteer. such in the Gazetteer: Edith, Luella, and M a r y E. Lindsay. Luella lived on F Street and the other two at 10 Kendall Avenue.

U t a h women achieved great success in medicine. T h e Gazetteer lists 17 women physicians and dentists. Not all of those who called themselves doctors in 1892 would be recognized as such today, a situation general to both women and men. I n addition to such bona fide doctors as Ellis R. Shipp, Maggie C. Shipp, Ellen B. Ferguson, Elvira S. Barney, and Romania B. Pratt, there were practitioners such as Mrs. M. V. Goodrich, an electro-magnetic healer, and Qng of many women in the Mrs. Esther Yeadon, a herbalist medical arts in Utah. physician. Dental practitioners included K a t e D. Buck and Jennette (Nettie) F. Weaverling.

(Mrs. (E. $eadon,

M u c h has already been written about some of these women doctors.

Elvira Stevens Barney's life, about which less is generally known, will serve as an example of the kind of experience these women had. Elvira

i Room IS, Union M\ Hunk BMg., SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH.

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came to Utah as a young woman in 1848. Facing the stern economic realities of that time, she began to make straw hats for California gold rush travelers. She taught school for four years, and in 1864 left for Wheaton College where she studied for two years. Returning home, she had earned by 1879 more than $9,000 "by her own labors, and built a good commodious house." In October 1879 she again went east to continue her medical training until 1883. Back in Salt Lake City she "fitted up her large house to accommodate lady boarders, thus affording them the convenience of home and college under one roof."G Like Dr. Shipp, Elvira had evidently decided to share her medical knowledge with other women as a teacher and as a practicing physician.

Dentist Kate Buck was associated with her husband, N. M. Buck, in the Happy Hour Dental Parlors on State Street. Assisting the married couple was Miss Weaverling. The two women, who had begun their careers in Kansas in the 1880s, were described as "thorough adepts in the profession . . . [and] among the limited number of lady practitioners understanding the details of the art." 7 Allied with these medical professionals were two female druggists: Louisa Stansfield who, with her partner John V. Long, operated Stansfield & Long First Ward Pharmacy at 702 South Seventh East and Mrs. J. B. Thomson whose pharmacy was on the west side of the city.

Women pursuing literary careers in Salt Lake City in the 1890s included Susa Young Gates, editor of the Young Woman's Journal and an author, and Emmeline B. Wells, editor and publisher of the Woman's Exponent and a poet. Much has been written about this legendary pair.8 Two self-proclaimed authoresses listed in the Gazetteer were Miss Josephine Spencer and Mrs. A. G. Paddock.

Librarian Annie E. Chapman should be included with the literary group. She began as assistant to Christopher Diehl at the Pioneer Library.

However, "the record shows, [she] did most of the actual work, nursing the tiny collection in its out-of-the-way corner with a loving care that helped it to grow in spite of a general indifference on the part of the city fathers." The Ladies' Literary Club is credited with planning and open'" Augusta Joyce Crocheron, Representative Women of Deseret . . . (Salt Lake City, 1884), pp. 76-81. See also Deseret News, January 16. 1909. This eulogy, signed with the initials EBW (Emmeline B. Wells?), calls Dr. Barney "a born suffragist, [who] believed in and advocated equal privileges for m a n and woman."

7 Utah: Her Cities, Towns, and Resources (Chicago, 1892), p. 82.

8 See, for example, R. Paul Cracroft, "Susa Young Gates: Her Life and Literary Work" (M.A. thesis, University of U t a h , 1951) ; Carol Cornwall Madsen, " 'Remember the Women of Zion': A Study of the Editorial Content of the Woman's Exponent, A Mormon Woman's J o u r n a l " (M.S. thesis, University of Utah, 1977).

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ing the Pioneer Library in 1890. W h e n its successor, the Salt Lake City Public Library, opened on February 14, 1898, on the third floor of the Salt Lake City and County Building, "Miss C h a p m a n was no longer assistant—she was given the title she had so well earned, Salt Lake City Librarian, the first ever to wear it." She served in that capacity until her death in 1903. 9 J o h a n n a h H . Sprague, listed in the Gazetteer as a stenographic clerk for the Third District Court, succeeded Miss C h a p m a n .

Both women now have branch libraries named for them.

Women attorneys were rare at the turn of the century. Of the 208 women listed by the 1890 census in that profession, one was practicing in Salt Lake City. Miss E. R. Lee had offices 54-56-57 in the Hooper Building where a number of male attorneys also h a d offices. T h e amount of space she rented would seem to indicate an active practice, but little is known of this pioneering professional.

T h e census includes clergy in the professional category. Women in Salt Lake City who might have qualified for inclusion are two Christian Scientists, Mrs. M a r y A. Bagley and Mrs. A. F. De Long, both of whom h a d rooms in commercial buildings. Perhaps they operated early versions of the Christian Science reading room. T w o officers of the Salvation Army in Salt Lake City were Capt. Alice A. Smith and Lt. Ella F. Locke.

Difficult to categorize, a n d individually anonymous as far as the Gazetteer's alphabetic listing is concerned, are the Sisters of the Holy Cross who operated Saint Mary's Academy and Holy Cross Hospital. In addition to a sister superior who managed the hospital, 16 sisters and 5 male nurses staffed it. T h e academy was directed by a sister superior who supervised 20 teachers, most of whom were probably members of the order. 10 These were certainly working women, although their remuneration came in the form of maintenance rather than wages. All except the nurses—oddly classified by the census under domestic and personal service—would qualify as professionals.

D O M E S T I C AND P E R S O N A L SERVICE

Almost half of Utah's working women in 1890 were engaged in domestic and personal service, a mixed category that includes nurses and midwives—who would seem to be as professional as art teachers—and boarding and lodging house keepers and restaurant owners—who would seem to be engaged in trade—as well as hairdressers, laundresses, cooks, 8

Deseret News, February 14, 1948.

Utah: Her Cities, Towns, and Resources, p p . 75-76.

10

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waitresses, and domestics. Having acknowledged the limitations of this category, one can examine more closely some of the Salt Lake City women who pursued such careers.

T h e Gazetteer lists 33 female nurses in Salt Lake City. If one includes the 16 Sisters of the Holy Cross who were nurses but who were not listed in the Gazetteer, the total is 49. Many of the nurses were not attached to hospitals but practiced in private service. This can be deduced from the fact that 19 of the nurses listed themselves in the directory's business guide. Hospital employment may have been limited in that period when much medical care took place in the home. Possible institutional employers were Saint Mark's Hospital, Deseret Hospital, and the county infirmary. Some of the nurses may have assisted physicians and the city's five midwives in delivering babies at home and caring for the mother and newborn afterward.

Women who operated hotels, lodging houses, and boarding houses or let furnished rooms total more than 60 in the Gazetteer. Mrs. Julia Alexander, for example, was the proprietor of Alexander House at 374 South Main Street. Her advertisement touted "home comforts and pleasant surroundings" plus the convenience of the streetcar. Tivoli Lodging House one block north of Alexander's was run by Mrs. Nellie Bonner, and May Cavin operated the Tontine Hotel on Commercial Street.

Mrs. L. Fitzgerald ran a quarter-page ad for her furnished rooms at 129 West Second South. Each room had a stove and electric lights.

Another woman who advertised her furnished rooms was Mrs. H. S. Nowlin, proprietress of the rental units in the Clayton Block at 2 1 4 / 2 South State Street.

More than 60 Salt Lake City women were in the lodging business. Many of them advertised in the pages of the Utah Gazetteer.

SELECT FURNISHED ROOMS. M K S . T^. F I T X O E K A L D , 1 2 0 W. S e c o n d S o u t h .

C a s and Electric Light.

***? S t o v e s in all Rooms.

Everything Comfortable and Homelike. Adjoining Po.stoJJkc.

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Mrs. Elizabeth A. Corker was proprietress of the Grand Hotel at 164 East First South. Other Corkers living at the Grand Hotel were Lucy, a student; Gertrude, no occupation listed; and J. Fred, notary, patent attorney, and real estate and investment dealer. No familial relationships can be determined from the Gazetteer, of course, but the four Corkers were presumably related.

T h a t women dominated the lodging and boarding business is clear from the listings in the Gazetteer's business guide. Another observation worth noting is that many of these women—and perhaps most—were genuinely in business; they were not merely renting out an extra room or two in their homes. Many of the addresses are in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City.

Unique in the local restaurant business was Mrs. E. Houghton's Woman's Exchange that featured "first-class home cooking" at 42 East First South. She served breakfast from 7 to 9 A.M., lunch from noon to 2:30 P.M., and dinner from 5 to 7:30 P.M. Mrs. Houghton also offered breakfast and a midday dinner on Sundays. O n e suspects from its name that the restaurant catered to the many women working in the downtown area.

More than 150 women listed themselves as laundresses or washwomen in the Gazetteer. T h e city had five steam laundries where both women and men were employed. For example, the Empire Steam Laundry at 21 Commercial Street had been established by three men from New York and Ohio. 11 T h e firm employed some 30 persons, two of whom were Miss Millie Hansen who lived at 156 East Third South and M a r t h a McGee of 535 West Third South. Nothing more is known of these two women except that neither lived with another person of the same last name. Perhaps they were new to the city and trying to make a living on their own.

T h e Gazetteer often lists where a person is employed as well as her occupation. Some of the laundresses are shown without a place of employment, leading one to conclude that they might have "taken in washing" or provided laundry service in someone's home. This assumption is borne out to a degree by help wanted and situation wanted advertisements in the city's daily newspapers. 12 T h e positions of waitress and cook occupied some 30 women in Salt Lake City, a relatively small corps considering the size of the city 11

Ibid., pp. 79-80.

Classified advertising sections in the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune the 1890s. See the one in the Tribune for October 8, 1892, for a sample.

12

were small in

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The Troy Laundry at 431 South Sixth East was one of several commercial laundries that employed women. Photograph by Harry Shipler, Utah State Historical Society collections.

and the number of restaurants and fairly large hotels. Mrs. Hannah Olsen was a cook at Deseret Hospital. Miss Annie Harrop was a waitress at the Brooks Arcade on a corner of State and Third South streets. Maria Schuler, the proprietress of Brooks Arcade, rented furnished rooms. The premises also boasted dining parlors.

The largest number of women in any single occupational classification in Salt Lake City were domestics; more than 460 of them are listed in the Gazetteer. Included in this group are housekeepers, janitresses, maids, chambermaids, and domestics. The city's hotels employed some of the women. Mary Peterson, for example, was a chambermaid at the Hotel Knutsford and also boarded there. Hannah Olson was a domestic at the White House. However, most of the women listed as domestics have no place of employment given. Advertisements of the day reflect the popularity of these jobs for women and show that many of the opportunities were in private homes.13 13

Ibid.

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A look at the Swensons listed in the Gazetteer leads one to believe that domestic work may have been a necessity for recent immigrants not too familiar with English. Of the 25 individuals with this Scandinavian surname, 15 are women. Four of the women were domestics and one was a chambermaid at the Hotel Templeton. T w o men worked at steam laundries. Domestic and personal service certainly gave the newly arrived, the non-English-speaking, and unskilled persons job opportunities they might have lacked otherwise.

O n e of the city's 13 female hairdressers was Mrs. Ray Robinson who operated the Sylvan Hair Dressing and Manicure Parlors on the second floor of the Walker Mercantile Block.

O t h e r miscellaneous occupations in this category are school and hospital matrons. Six women were so occupied. Mrs. S. A. Barton was matron of the Industrial Home. Mrs. Florence C. Metcalf served as matron at the deaf school. (Frank W. Metcalf was principal of the Deaf M u t e Department at the University of Utah. Both Metcalfs lived at the same address and were, perhaps, a wife-husband working team or mother and son.) Dental attendant, spa attendant, and hired companion were other positions filled by women.

One final occupation that might fit this category is medium. Mrs. J. B. Elliot offered such service at 129 West Second South in tandem with her husband, a magnetic healer. Their clients could solve health problems and contact the spirit world at one convenient stop.

TRADE AND TRANSPORTATION

Most of the 540 U t a h women listed by the 1890 census in this category were involved in trade rather than transportation. In Salt Lake City, one woman, M a r t h a J. Frees of 95 Rio Grande Avenue, is listed in the Gazetteer as an engineer for the Rio Grande Western Railway. According to the census, only four women in the United States were pursuing careers as engineers or brakemen for the railroads. One would like to know more about the rare Ms. Frees, but she remains a faceless historical curiosity.

Retail trade occupied some 260 Salt Lake City women, according to the Gazetteer. They included almost 40 store or business owners or managers and about 220 salesladies, forewomen, clerks, and cashiers.

Women owned and managed grocery and general merchandise stores, employment services, and real estate businesses. Eliza Snow Dunford was superintendent of the George Dunford Shoe Company, one of

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alt Lal^e E m p l o y m e n t Office, •J*

TZgfe**T^^.T3T^TSai-T l.^Diri

1882.

»}•

I.udles and others needing help can do well by calling at, or by notifying this office by letter. Pee $100 In advance.

Cood help furnished.

One week's notice required for country orders.

Girls and others looking for situations In gentlemen's families, hotels, and elsewhere, will do Well by culling ut the office and leaving their address.

The office is centrally located, live doors east of the Continental Hotel.

U!> XV, First South S h e e t .

ill U.S. I. McHW.iN, P r o p .

I

Mrs. McEwan was one of the city's independent

businesswomen.

the city's oldest mercantile houses, having been founded as a general store in 1854." She is listed with the company's officers in the Gazetteer under incorporated companies. Other women corporate officers were: Mrs. Juliette L. Roundy, Nettie L. Reinsimar, and Mrs. Claire L. Clawson of Little, Roundy and Company, dealers in crockery, glassware, and cutlery; and Mrs. M . I. H o m e , Mrs. M . W. Thomas, and Miss Gladys Woodmansee of the Woman's Co-op Mercantile and Manufacturing Company.

Mrs. Isabella M c E w a n ran the Salt Lake Employment Office, which she h a d established in 1882, to provide help for women and others seeking employment. O n e of her specialties was domestic employment in "gentlemen's families, hotels, a n d elsewhere." H e r fee was $1.00 in advance. Four women were engaged in real estate locally. Mrs. Rosana M. White and Mrs. E m m a A. Williams operated as real estate agents under the firm name of White a n d W'illiams at 57 East Second South.

Women store owners in Salt Lake City included Mrs. M . E. Buhring who operated the Wasatch Meat Market at 22 West First South. E m m a Ball, Agnes Bolto, Jennette Gowan, Mrs. L. F. James, Mrs. B. Lindsay, Mrs. Thomas Mclntyre, and Sarah Williams ran general merchandise stores. Nettie M . Abbott, Mrs. A. Butterworth, Agnes Crockett, Sarah A. Hickok, Mrs. Caroline Hill, Jane Pope, a n d Mary E. Rodehaver were grocers. Mrs. Nellie Osborne managed the Twenty-second W a r d Store, and Mrs. M a r y Ann Rich the Fifth W a r d Co-op.

In other areas of trade, one finds women in the positions of forewoman, saleslady, cashier, and clerk. For example, Miss A. Bickel, who boarded at Mrs. Ford's, was forewoman of the millinery department at Walker Brothers and Fyler Company, and Mrs. Geneve E. Grosscup was 14

Utah: Her Cities, Towns, and Resources, p. 67.

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forewoman of the millinery department at Z C M I . T h e major retail stores in Salt Lake City employed many women: Z C M I was staffed by 300 women and m e n ; Walker Brothers employed 45 female clerks and assistants and 40 males. 10 T h e Bowmans who lived in the M a r m a l a d e district on the west side of Capitol Hill contributed more than their share to the city's retail trade. Robert ran a general merchandise store at 55 Pear. At that same address wore Amy, a clerk at the store; Elizabeth, another clerk; and Dora who clerked at R. G. Dun and Company, a mercantile agency.

Although women did not dominate in sales positions, they did constitute a significant portion of the sales force. Nationally, there wore 58,451 saleswomen in the United States in 1890 and 205,943 salesmen.

Locally, men had been discouraged by Brigham Young from engaging in some types of retail sales work. T h e L D S church leader is quoted as saying that he found it "disgusting . . . to see a big, fat, lubberly fellowhanding out calicoes and measuring ribbon; I would rather see the ladies do it. T h e ladies can learn to keep books as well as the men." 10 W h a t effect such pronouncements had on employment in Salt Lake City cannot be known, but women do have a long tradition behind the sales counter in U t a h .

General office workers comprise a subsection under trade in the 1890 census. T h e Gazetteer lists almost 80 female stenographers, secretaries, typists, bookkeepers, and copyists in Salt Lake City. If that seems like a small number, one must remember that at the turn of the century men also pursued such careers.

Miss Annie Bowring was a bookkeeper at the J. G. McDonald Candy Company, and Miss Emily R. Hillam kept the books of the Singer Manufacturing Company.

Miss J. Field was a stenographer at Z C M I , and Miss Annie C. Maddison was a secretary for the waterworks. Few generalizations can be made about these women except that most of them were single. ,=

Ibid., pp. 49, 64.

"Leonard J. Arrington. "Building a Commonwealth: The Secular Leadership of Brigham Young, Utah Historical Quarterly 45 (1977) :229-30.

Woman takes shorthand at LDS College, 1894. Utah State . Âť ' . .

Historical Society collections.

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Several women advertised their stenographic services in the business guide. T w o enterprising women organized a partnership to serve local business. Miss B. F. MacMasters and Miss M. L. Stansfield, whose offices wore in the Dooly Building, advertised stenographic and typing service.

Another job in the category is telephone and telegraph operator, an occupation that attracted men as well as women. T h e Gazetteer identifies eight women operators.

One final entrant in this category is Mary Jacobson, Murray postmistress. Mary and her sister apparently had the federal position locked up. O n e was a Republican and the other a Democrat. During a Republican administration, the Republican sister would serve as postmistress and the other as her assistant. When the party in the White House changed, the sisters switched jobs. 17 M A N U F A C T U R I N G AND M E C H A N I C A L P U R S U I T S

Almost one-fourth of the employed Utah women, 1,760 of them, found work with manufacturing firms or in mechanical jobs, especially printing.

Some women were themselves manufacturers. Mrs. John Manning was the proprietor of the Great Western Trunk Factory at 64 East Second South. Mrs. L. I. Bradley manufactured Bloom of the Lilies soap that she promoted in a half-page Gazetteer ad. According to Mrs. Bradley, her product was ideal for cleaning and beautifying the skin and also removed freckles.

More than 50 Salt Lake City women made or trimmed millinery; and more than 300 women, according to the Gazetteer, worked as dressmakers, seamstresses, and tailoresses. Some of these women were selfemployed and some were employers, hiring other women as assistants.

Alice Nunn, for example, was employed as a milliner by Mrs. N. G. Burrows, an importer of French millinery goods. Miss Ella Hills advertised both millinery and dressmaking at 109 South West Temple. Mrs. M .

Tracy h a d dressmaking parlors in the Progress Building. M a d a m e R. Hall took a half-page ad to promote her goods: evening costumes, trousseaux, tailor-made suits, and robes, soliciting out-of-town as well as local orders.

17 Murray Bicentennial History Book Committee, The History of Murray City, Utah ( M u r r a y : Murray City Corporation, 1976), p. 11. T h e sisters' names are spelled differently in the Gazetteer.

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More than 90 dressmakers are included in the directory's business guide, underlining the independence of many of these women. Sometimes members of one family combined their talents in cooperative dressmaking enterprises. The Mather sisters, Georgia and Helen, lived at 337 South Second West and were business partners at offices in the Culmer Block. Miss Maria ZCMI shoe factory, 1889, one of many Nowlin, modiste, seems to have manufacturing concerns that employed employed a relative, May Now- women. Utah State Historical Society collections. lin, in her dressmaking parlors.

Miss Nowlin featured "the popular 'American Excelsior System' of cutting and fitting." The Nowlins were an enterprising family of women: Mrs. H. S. Nowlin, mentioned above, operated a lodging house.

Almost 200 women worked in knitting mills and in carpet, shoe, and other kinds of factories. They made an almost endless variety of products from cigars to crackers. Mrs. Delia M. Brown, Josephine Colletti, Miss Lulu Daman, and Louisa Domain were Salt Lake City's four female cigarmakers. Mary A. Noyce was employed at the ZCMI shoe factory, one of many women who worked on the manufacturing end of the large merchandising firm.

The Deseret Woolen Mills employed a number of women at the plant on Fifth North and Third West, including Mamie and Rachel Collett who lived just up the hill at 36 Almond. The Utah Cracker Factory, with a capacity of 30 barrels a day, employed 8 women and girls and 14 men.18 To go with the crackers, one might have enjoyed a glass of beer from the California Brewery at 64 East First South, managed byMargaret Wagener.

Women were certainly accepted in many manufacturing roles. Had Utah been more highly industrialized in the 1890s, it seems likely that more women would have found employment in factories.

As typographers and printers women affected the union movement in Salt Lake City to some extent. The Gazetteer lists 29 women compositors and printers. The compositors set type for several printing com18

Utah: Her Cities, Towns, and Resources, p. 78.

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panies and for such local periodicals as the Salt Lake Herald, the Salt Lake Times, the Salt Lake Tribune, the Salt Lake Stock and Mining Journal, the Juvenile Instructor, the Woman's Exponent, and the Swedish-language Korrespondenten.

T w o of the compositors wore officers of the Salt Lake Typographical Union, Local 115: Mrs. E. E. Sylvester, who worked for the Tribune, was recording secretary, and Sadie Asper, a Herald employee, was treasurer. Miss Asper began working for the Herald in the 1880s. When she resigned to enter the university in the fall of 1888, the newspaper saluted her skill by stating that she could "lay claim to being the quickest and most expert lady compositor ever known in this section of the country." 19 She must have rejoined the Herald following her university experience.

When women began entering the typesetting field in Salt Lake City, members of Local 115 expressed concern. In 1886 union officers complained that none of the nine women employed locally was a union member. In 1890 the local reported to the International Typographical Union convention that "cheap female labor" was a problem for the union in Salt Lake City. However, some women did realize the benefits of union membership. Records show that in 1891 female union members totaled 12, nonunion females 14.""

OBSERVATIONS

From this brief review of Stenhouse's Utah Gazetteer, 1892-93, several general observations can be made. Although Utah was not heavily industrialized in the 1890s, local factories, mills, and laundries provided some women with jobs. Using ingenuity and tenacity, many women in Salt Lake City created jobs for themselves, especially as milliners, dressmakers, and lodging house keepers. They entered trade on their own or in partnership with others, using advertising to promote their products and services. They worked at a wide variety of occupations requiring different levels of education or training, experience, mental and manual dexterity, management and leadership skills, business acumen, and even physical endurance. Although many women worked at jobs low in prestige such as domestic, laundress, or seamstress, a significant number entered the professions or owned and managed businesses. One may fairly say that women played an important role in the local economy as employees and employers.

19 J. Kenneth Davies, Deseret's Sons of Toil: A History of the Worker Territorial Utah (Salt Lake City: Olympus Publishing Company, 1977), p. 169.

30 Ibid., pp. 168-69, 174-75.

Movements

of

"Strong Minded Women": Desdemona Stott Beeson and Other Hard Rock Mining Entrepreneurs

BY LAURENCE P. J A M E S AND SANDRA C. TAYLOR

Above: In the man's world of mining, Desdemona Stott Beeson, second from right, was entirely at home. Photograph shows a new stope on the East Crescent Vein, Park City Consolidated Mines Company, 1934.

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JL H R O U G H O U T HISTORY MINING has been a male profession, an exclusive masculine bastion. Folk songs and legends relate the tales of those women who did populate the miners' world, those relegated to the subordinate positions of dance hall girls, camp followers, prostitutes, and, very occasionally, wives. Women were not to be found as miners, certainly not in nineteenth-century America, which placed women on a pedestal; not even slaves or immigrant women were used in such work. T h e strong taboos against women going underground in mines prevail to the present day; laws are still on the books in many states, including Utah, to prohibit this great perversion of the natural order of things.

From the first discovery of ore in U t a h in 1863 until around the turn of the century, women as miners, locators, or entrepreneurs, wore almost nonexistent. By the end of the century a few women had entered the mining world; and in the first decades of the twentieth century some unusual women wore to be found working as prospectors, locators of mining claims, and also as entrepreneurs, technicians whose knowledge of mining engineering or ability to handle financial operations gained them a special status as "female mining men." This paper presents a detailed look at one woman professional—Desdemona Stott Beeson— and glimpses of the careers of several other women and offers some analysis of why they were able to succeed in the masculine world of mining in Utah.

Not only wore the miners of U t a h male, they w ere also usually nonMormons from outside the state. Brigham Young, in warning the Saints away from the pursuit of precious metals, had sought to keep both sexes from the temptations of the mining camps. T h e camps themselves were diverse communities of Catholics, Protestants, Masons, and atheists, as befitted the polyglot ethnic mixture that came to work the mines. Relatively few Mormons sought this kind of work. T h e technical people came from other Great Basin camps or still further afield. Copper experts from Michigan mixed with gold speculators from Cripple Creek and California, and typically moved on after a few years. T h e wives and girlfriends who accompanied them stayed in Salt Lake City or the nearby towns.

Prospecting and locating a mining claim on some potentially valuable ore body was a relatively easy, though risky way to possible wealth.

Dr. James is a consulting geologist in Denver, Colorado, and Salt Lake City, U t a h . Dr. Taylor is associate professor of history and assistant dean of liberal education at the University of Utah. T h e authors would greatly appreciate hearing from anyone with further information on historic women in western mining.

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T h e locator was usually not involved in rock excavation or mine management but only in seeking out a likely prospect. T h e records of many U t a h counties show women as locators. One of the more persistent was Leatha Millard Amott. She arrived in Gold Hill on the desert near the Nevada border in 1907, and in the succeeding six decades she came to know7 the region well. Eventually she married an independent miner and prospector, Art Amott, and became involved with the operation of small mines and prospects in the Gold Hill and Dry Canyon districts. 1 T h e pattern she set is one that most women who became entrepreneurs also followed: eventual partnership with a male, a spouse whose presence "legitimized" the female who intruded on the man's world.

T h e "mining m e n " generally served as intermediaries betwoen the initial discoverers and owners of mining property and the financiers who had the capital required to actually produce metals. Some operated small mines, hoping to develop large bonanzas, while others sought newdiscoveries. Some were trained in geology or mining engineering at colleges or universities, while others learned their considerable technical skills through a lifetime of practical experience. Most such entrepreneurs were closely involved in the planning and supervision of mine operations, although usually they did not mine the rock themselves. T h e hand labor necessary to get the ore to the surface was left to the semiskilled, assisted only by a mule until mechanized equipment was introduced between 1900 and 1930. Mining engineering, according to Clark Spence, was definitely a "man's world, into which but a fewr of the gentler sex intruded." 2 Although most observers no doubt agreed with one Denver male who wrote that "a lady mining engineer is a revolutionary and anarchical departure from established precedent," 3 by the end of the century there were a few in the nation. Only three female mining engineers wore listed in the 1900 U.S. Census, though some women apparently worked as assayers, metallurgists, or chemists. 4 A few women graduated from the better known mining schools, and some did work in the profession. However, none appears to have worked in Utah as an 1 Nell Murbarger, Ghosts of the Glory Trail: Intimate Glimpses into the Past and Present of 275 Western Ghosttowns (Palm Desert, Calif.: Desert Magazine Press, 1956), p. 188. James interview with Art Amott, Gold Hill, U t a h , July 6, 1963.

"Clark C. Spence, Mining Engineers and the American West (New Haven. Conn.: Yale University Press, 1970). T h e one exception in the literature was two women working in placer mines near Grants Pass, Oregon. One worked with her father and brother, the other with her husband, in the operation of hydraulic mines. Salt Lake Mining Review, May 15, 1904, p. 21. :: Ibid., p. 6. See also Charles H. Shinn, Mining Camps, a Study in American Frontier Government ( 1 8 8 5 ; reprint ed., New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), and Rodman W. Paul.

Mining Frontiers of the Far West, 1848-1880 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1963).

4 U.S., Bureau of the Census, Occupations at the Twelfth Census (Washington, D . C : Government Printing Office, 1902), p. 7.

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engineer. Such jobs wore generally to be found with large companies where women had virtually no chance for employment in such nontraditional roles. The few7 women who did labor as engineers worked in small operations, usually in company with their husbands. Training and marital status, along with extraordinary ambition, ability, and luck, wore the prerequisites for success. Only a few7 exceptional women achieved it.

At the outset of Utah's mining history some women did indeed try to gain access.3 In 1864, one year after Gen. Patrick E. Connor and soldiers of the U.S. Army had discovered ore near Bingham, official records documented the location of the "Woman's Lode Mining Claim": We the undersigned "Strong Minded W o m a n [women?]," do hereby determine and make manifest our intention and right to take u p F e e t ' ore [sic] anything Else in our names, and to Work the Same independent of any other m a n . We do therefore take u p and claim in our own Right '200 T w o H u n d r e d feet Each . . . at this Notice and R u n n i n g in a N . E . direction 1000 O n e T h o u s a n d feet a n d in S.W. direction from the same 1000 O n e T h o u s a n d feet with all its dips, Spurs, a n d Angles, and Variations and Whatever other Rights and priveledges [sic] the laws or guns of this district give to Lodes so taken up. 6

The general's wife headed the list of those signing the notice. All the names wore prefixed by "Mrs." and followed by the husband's army rank. The author who recorded this episode could not restrain himself from editorializing: "What would cause nine women to declare that they were 'strong minded' and would work the claim 'independent of any other man' is open to conjecture."7 At any rate no further record could be found of the activities of the "strong minded women." One can only speculate as to their motives: did the general mining excitement attract them, were they bored by life in a quiet military outpost, or wore they acting in some way for their husbands?

Within a few years Connor and his soldiers were transferred. The general later returned and lost a fortune in several Utah mines. Mining of silver, lead, and gold flourished for a few years, then declined slowly until the early years of the twontieth century. Records of the late nineteenth century mining operations are sparse, but apparently no more women were involved in the profession until the early decades of the twentieth century.

5 William Fox, "Patrick Edward Connor, 'Father' of U t a h Mining" (M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1966), pp. 73-74.

6 Ibid. See the "West Mountain Mining Destrict, Book A" (1862-64 mining records), cited by Fox. 7 Ibid., p. 96.

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Desdemona Stott Beeson, who was to become the foremost U t a h woman in mining, was born August 2, 1897, in the silver boom town of Eureka. T h e rapidly growing mining camp had attracted her parents, Bradford N. C. Stott and his wife, Emma, to move to U t a h from the Midwest. Stott entered law practice in Eureka and used the profits from his thriving profession to erect the Stott Building and to speculate heavily in mines and mining stocks. 8 T h e Stott children, Desdemona and her two brothers, grew7 up in a town built between mine headframes. As a young girl Desdemona w7as fascinated by the mines, and the manager of the Gemini shaft, almost adjacent to her home, let her ride the cage down with the shift. Her older brother worked in the mines, and once took her into the Iron Blossom No. 3 to show her a giant, newly discovered cavity full of native silver. T h e sight of so much beautiful wire silver ore made a life-long impression. In later years she recalled that she and her brother wore sent out with a gun to frighten off claim-jumpers when her father, hardhit by the depression of 1907, could not afford to do the annual assessment work required to hold his claims. T h e children stood guard in the snow on New Year's Eve until midnight when their father could post the new notices. By the time Desdemona was a teenager the mines were offlimits, and her continued fascination with the underground world could only be whetted surreptitiously. Once she dated a young foreman who, at her request, let her spend evenings with him deep in the noted M a m moth Mine. 9 Access to higher education was no problem for the Stotts' daughter.

H e r mother had studied botany in Indiana, and Desdemona wont to the University of Utah. She w7anted to study medicine, a choice her parents objected to, so she took her degree in psychology. Among the classes she attended were courses in geology, drawing, and the liberal arts.

Although the classes wore exciting, she found college life in Salt Lake City more restrictive than being the relatively privileged daughter of a noted citizen of a small town. Fifty years later she recalled her irritation at being chastised by Dean Lucy Van Cott for going downtown alone and without a h a t ! During her junior year she agreed to move to the nearby mining c a m p of Alta for a few months. Her newly married brother

s W. S. Downs, ed., Who's Who in Engineering, 5th ed. (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1941), p. 1720. Also, James interview with D. S. Beeson, December 15, 1975.

11 Beeson interview, December 15, 1975. Conditions in Eureka are described in Beth KayHarris, The Towns of Tintic (Denver: Sage Books, 1958). Further information came from James interviews with D. S. Beeson and J. J. Beeson, September 23, 1964.

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George wanted someone to cook for him, a chore his wife could not manage in the family tent, so Desdemona obliged. 10 Alta, a silver mining camp near the crest of the Wasatch Mountains, was in the midst of a mining boom in 1916. George's position as a mining engineer gave Desdemona some access to the ever-fascinating mines.

Underground at Alta she met Joseph J. Beeson, a Stanford-educated geologist. H e had been hired to find the faulted-off part of the famous Emma Mine ore body. T h e British operators of the E m m a Mine had abandoned the search for the lost ore and the mine in the 1890s, and the workings below the tunnel were filled with water. Joe worked out the surface geology and spotted four holes for a recent technical innovation, the diamond core drill, that he hoped would hit the lost ore body. 11 Joe and Desdemona wore married in Salt Lake City a year later, with the blessings of the whole Alta mining camp, and they set up housekeeping in a twolve-by-fourteen-foot tent. 1 " Joe's future at Alta was made more secure w7hen the fourth drill hole struck the ore body, only twentyeight feet from the spot where the British had given up. Alta and Joe Beeson made headlines. As winter set in, the E m m a company gave the young couple a room in the boardinghouse right over the compressor installation. Small mines could not afford frills, and the Beesons stoically endured other similar quarters in the next few decades.

Desdemona might well have followed her generation's typical life pattern of wife and mother. She had some education plus a lively interest in a mining career, but with a successful husband she might have been a "mining m a n " only vicariously had not fate intervened. In 1917, when the United States entered World W a r I, Joe enlisted and was sent to Europe as an army engineer. Soon after, the E m m a Mining Company wont bankrupt due to excessive stock promotion. After Desdemona had a miscarriage she decided to return to school at Stanford University to learn technical skills to prepare for future family operations. 15 At this point in her life she moved into nontraditional paths.

10

Beeson interview, December 16, 1975.

F. O Calkins and B. S. Butler, Geology and Ore Deposits of the Cottonwood-American Fork Area, Utah (Washington. D . C : Government Printing Office, 1943), frequently cite J. J. Beeson's work. T h e E m m a ore body had been mined until it ended against a fault or offset of the rock formations. The direction of offset and the location of the displaced ore had led to much unsuccessful shaft sinking and tunneling by the British operators. '"Beeson interviews, December 16, 1975, and September 23. 1964. T h e miners planned a traditional shivaree, a day-long march through camp shouting and beating on cookhouse pots, for the Beesons' return, but Joe bought them off with beer and ice cream. Beeson interviews, September 23, 1964, and December 15, 1975.

13 Beeson interview, December 15, 1975. Her declared major at Stanford was education.

She attended classes there as a graduate student, 1917-19, but was not awarded a degree. Letter to S. C. Taylor, November 28, 1977.

11

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Stanford presented her with new challenges. Regulations demanded that she live in the dormitory with the freshmen girls, since she was unaccompanied by her spouse—a clear indication of the prevailing view7 of the "place" of women. Although the course work in mining engineering presented Desdemona with few7 difficulties, she found the attitude of her professors toward a female student much harder to cope with. She was unable to convince Professor Austin F. Rogers that her knowledge of mineralogy, acquired as a young woman in Eureka and Alta as well as in his laboratory, warranted more than a C grade even though she earned A grades on his examinations. H e had never given a woman higher than a C, he responded to her complaint, and he had no intention of changing. 14 His attitude certainly was not atypical of the times.

However, Desdemona had a better relationship with most professors, who respected her for her experience. She recalled later that she w7as one of the few7 students in a class on ore deposits who had ever been in an underground mine.

When her husband returned from the army a year and a half later, Desdemona left her studies in mining engineering and geology and joined him at his profession. They wont back to Bingham, U t a h , and the two began a lifelong partnership as independent mining entrepreneurs. Joe studied the geology and Desdemona researched old courthouse records.

W h e n she found some claims delinquent in taxes, they filed on adjacent land and went into partnership with Joe's wealthy in-law7, James Hogle.

While waiting for the title to be cleared through a tax sale, Desdemona gave birth to her first child and Joe supported the family through geologic consulting. After the title was cleared, years of hard work on the Bingham Prospect began, with meager results at first. For fifty dollars a month Desdemona kept the books and ran the mine whenever Joe took a consulting job to keep the family eating. However, great woalth slipped from their grasp. Hogle held control of the property when two leasers finally located a rich ore body, and he brought in Desdemona's brother George to run the mine. Blood ties did not bring agreement over management policies, however, and Desdemona was ordered off the property.

But Hogle rehired her since she was good at keeping books. It was a recurring irritation to her when one miner even objected to having his paycheck signed by a woman! 1,1 " I b i d . , September 8, 1966.

15 Ibid., November 1974. Information on the discovery of the Bingham Prospect came from James interviews with T. P. Billings, January 2, 1969, and R. L. Christie. February 14, 1976. See also J. J. Beeson, "Projective Geology and the Search for New Ore Deposits," Mining Congress Journal 34, no. 7 ( 1 9 4 8 ) : 4 4 - 4 9 . Salt Lake County courthouse records indicate the Beesons were legal partners on this and subsequent ventures.

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Desdemona w7as a determined worker despite personal obstacles.

She put in so many hours at the Bingham Prospect that she was hospis talized with sunstroke, the first of several long hospitalizations; how7ever, no one could keep her from jL working strenuously. But times wore \ hard, and wdien a large Boston firm made an offer on the Bingham Prospect, Hogle and the Beesons agreed to sell. The corporation vice-president, an acquaintance of hers, came to the hospital to collect her signature. He had negotiated a 25 percent reduction in the price w7ith Joe and Joseph J. Beeson, ca. 1917, at the the others. Desdemona was outraged Emma Mine, Alta. He and 7 but had to give in. She w as, after Desdemona lived nearby. Courtesy J. J. and D. S. Beeson. all, only one of several owners.

The 5 percent of the proceeds of the sale of the Bingham Prospect that the courts finally granted the Beesons appeared a substantial sum, although it w7as a considerable reduction from their original interest. The money was needed to finance Joe's Park City Consolidated venture. Here again the Beesons operated as a team; Desdemona helped stake the claims, carrying four-by-four posts while she was pregnant. Since outside capital was again needed, the Beesons brought in John Hayes Hammond and associates. An inclined shaft was sunk and rich silver ore was struck, but again the financiers put in their own manager and received most of the profits.

The mining business was a peripatetic one. The Beesons wore next associated with a losing venture in Cerro Gordo, Inyo County, California, which swallowed up most of the Park City money.16 The next move was to Jarbidge, in northeast Nevada. Joe again supplemented the family income with consulting, and when he was away Desdemona ran the operation. On one occasion there was a labor dispute and the miners went on strike. They wanted to be paid from the time they left the board18 C. W. M e r r i a m , Geology of the Cerro Gordo Mining District, California, U . S . Geological Survey Professional Paper No. 408 (Washington, D . C . : Government Printing Office, 1963).

This contains several references to J. J. Beeson. T h e Park City Consolidated venture was initially organized a n d financed by the Beesons, U t a h Gov. George H. Dern, James H . Devine, and Morris R. Evans. Salt Lake Mining Review, August 30, 1930.

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Cardiff lease, 1965, where Desdemona S. Beeson last engineered and managed silver mining operations. Mine office and change room, foreground; Wasatch drain tunnel right rear. Snowbird resort now occupies site.

L. P. James photograph.

inghouse in the morning until they returned from work at a tunnel high on the mountain. Since this differed from Utah practice, Desdemona hurriedly drove one hundred miles to Elko to check Nevada law7, then returned and nailed the relevant statute to the boardinghouse door. She informed the men that if they did not want to work under her conditions she would pay them off. Her determination and poise won the day and the strike ended.17 A woman doing a professional job, replacing her husband when he was away, could command the respect of the miners and win her point. Her practical knowledge of the mining industry coupled with her husband's skill in mining operations was usually a successful combination.

The miners generally respected Desdemona Beeson, although her professional colleagues sometimes did not. She was occasionally refused permission to visit underground mines when she traveled with her husband, even though she was a professional, not a tourist. Mining customs could not be ignored, but when she was at work her authority w7as not easily disputed. When a diamond drill crew- made some careless errors in procedure she gave them a scathing lecture on the unacceptability of such sloppy workmanship. She once fired a husky workman for using a shovel to catch the drill sludge. When he balked at leaving, she yelled 17

Beeson interview, December 16, 1975.

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at him, "You get out of here or I'll wrap that shovel around your neck!"

He quickly left.18 In the late 1930s Joe was offered a position with the Office of Price Administration governing appropriations for lead-zinc mines. Desdemona accompanied him to Washington, but found it difficult in late depression times to secure a job on her own. She did some consulting for coal companies and then was able to secure the first of several government positions when the outbreak of World War II caused the government to change its attitude toward hiring women. She spent most of the war working for the Foreign Economic Administration, monitoring world metal production and demand and purchasing foreign metals including uranium. At the war's end she, like most women employed in war industries, found her services no longer necessary. She could stay on, she was informed, but her rank would be reduced from professional to secretarial.

Even though her pay would have remained the same, her pride was hurt.

Desdemona, cushioned by her husband's continued employment, quit.19 After six years in Washington the Beesons returned to Salt Lake and Desdemona went to work for Thayer Lindsley, a noted Canadian entrepreneur. She began compiling data on Nevada and presenting it to Lindsley in Toronto. But soon Joe had new7 ideas. Prosperity had returned and with it a new demand for metals. Desdemona gave up her independent career and joined Joe in a partnership, Beeson Exploration. They leased an old mine near St. George and opened a rich little ore body. Then the dangers always inherent in the mining business caught up with them.

While she was checking out a section of the mine a huge mass of rock gave way, striking Desdemona and breaking her neck. She had to spend months in the hospital, since she was badly injured. As she said later, "It didn't cure me. I was back working in a neck brace."20 Tragedy seemed to pursue the family. In the next few years, their eldest son, a test pilot, was killed in the crash of an army B-29. Their son-in-law7, William Burgin, a geologist with Bear Creek Mining, w7as killed in the crash of a commercial airliner in Wyoming.21

,N 19

ibid.

Ibid, and James interview with D. S. Beeson, M a r c h 17, 1976. ""James interview with J. J. Beeson, September 8, 1966. See also Salt Lake Tribune, July 10, 1976. T h e quotation is from a speech Desdemona wrote to deliver to the U t a h Geological Association in 1975. " Information on Burgin's work can be found in J. B. Bush, D. R. Cook, T. S. Lovering. and H. T. Morris, " T h e Chief Oxide-Burgin Area Discoveries, East Tintic District, U t a h : A Case History, Part I I , " Economic Geology 55 (1960) : 1509 ff.

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Nevertheless, the Beesons, well into middle age by this time, remained as deeply committed as ever to the mining profession. They returned to the Wasatch in the late 1950s, when Joe w7as hired to direct the connection of the Wasatch Drain Tunnel with the w7ater-filled workings of the Cardiff Mine. The Cardiff had once been the biggest mine in the Alta district, and Joe and Desdemona had been to the bottom level in the 1920s, before the mine was closed and filled with water. After the connection was made, the Beesons and Desdemona and Joseph Beeson, Charles A. Steen, the uranium 1964. Courtesy D. S. Beeson. magnate, obtained a lease to mine ore below the tunnel level. It was a difficult venture that required the sinking of an incline shaft at the end of two miles of tunnel. Big electric pumps and underground power lines were installed. Ice-cold water cascaded constantly onto the employees, who wore rubber suits and long underwear. Desdemona later recalled that operation as her most difficult engineering job. When the pumps broke down they had to be hauled out on cables, sent to Salt Lake for repairs, and reinstalled before the mine filled with water. They mined good ore from the incline but not enough for Steen, who decided to pull out, despite Desdemona's chiding him for being afraid of "a little water."

The Beesons continued the operation at the tunnel level until 1967.22 One winter Desdemona slipped on some ice at the tunnel portal and broke her ankle. The doctor insisted that she not go underground again, but she still went regularly into the mine, in cast and neck brace, to keep up with the operations. She also continued to handle ore sales and other paper work.

But times had changed. The operation barely broken even, and the Beesons were finally forced out by a different sort of entrepreneur—the men who built the Snowbird ski resort, an operation incompatible w7ith an underground mine. The Beesons, their last dream ended, retired to an assortment of medical afflictions. Joe and Desdemona, despite heart troubles, still enthusiastically attended Salt Lake City geological meet-

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ings. They were elected honorary life members of the Utah Geological Association. Desdemona concluded their acceptance speech: "Together we have added new7 money to the state, had a good payroll, and thoroughly enjoyed being hard rock miners.""

I n a conversation in 1975 Desdemona commented on the women's movement with some wonderment. Women, to her. wore born liberated; "liberation" w7as a strange term. Marriage and family were worthy goals, and since she had successfully combined them with a career she could not see why other women might not. Could not any other woman have done the same? 24 Desdemona Beeson died of cancer on July 8, 1976. At the Unitarian funeral (which she had planned) were many professional associates. One former employee, a husky, middle-aged mine foreman, commented that there wore no mining people like the Beesons any more. "They wore great to work for and they always took care of you."" 5 Desdemona had indeed been a trailblazer for the many women who now7 work in various aspects of Utah's mining industry.

Another U t a h woman successful in the operation of small mines was Lena Larsen. H e r interest in mining apparently developed as she worked at the boardinghouse of the Hidden Treasure Mine in Dry Canyon, above Ophir. There she observed how fortunate miners or prospectors could "strike it rich." She opened her own boardinghouse and became involved in mining ventures. 20 Moving to Salt Lake City, she acquired several lead-silver claim groups, notably the Muerbrook and Southport mines near Stockton.

Betwoen 1912 and 1915 she employed about five men at the Muerbrook, supervised by H. B. Westover. Weekly production sometimes reached as much as one railroad car of ore worth thirty to forty dollars a ton. T h e prospect appeared good enough to interest two young graduate engineers in leasing part of the property. 2, Lena's biggest venture in the mining business was also intriguing.

Through her friendship with old Mack Gisborn, she acquired the oncerich Mono Mine. Gisborn had made and lost several fortunes when he "Engineering and Mining Journal. September 1 9 6 1 : Salt Lake Tribune. April 5. 1961. and July 28, 1961. See also L. P. James's forthcoming work. Geology and Mineral Resources of the Big Cottonwood District. Utah, to be published by the Utah Geological Survey. "'Beeson interview, December 16, 1975. The quotation is from the speech for the U t a h Geological Association, 1975.

2i Ibid. * Salt Lake Tribune, July 10, 1976: James interview with Dan Jacobson, July 1976. "! James interview with L. W. Hoskins, May 27, 1976, and August 28, 1977. "; Salt Lake Mining Review, May 30, 1912. p. 3 3 ; May 15, 1914, p. 32.

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Mono, left, and Hidden Treasure, right, area of the rugged Dry Canyon district, Tooele County, 1972. Lena Larsen first worked in a boardinghouse here and later owned and prospected mining properties in this steep-walled gulch. L. P. James photographs.

met Lena in Dry Canyon. She agreed to provide him with room and board at her boardinghouse, and a daily allowance of whiskey, in exchange for which he sold her fifty-eight claims in the district, including his interest in the Mono Mine, for $5,000.28 Lena's family life remains obscure. She was married to Otto Larsen, but he was not involved in her mining activities.29 Whatever her personal life, mining men respected Lena Larsen as a crafty financial manager who was strong-willed enough to halt work on a venture requiring some of her land until her terms were met. She also had no hesitation about entering that sacred male bastion, the saloon, for a drink. A Dry Canyon mining operator once remarked to George Lawrence, Salt Lake mining attorney, that Lena had been studying law- and was probably 28 Tooele County, U t a h , "Mining Book 3F," p. 534, a n d "Mining Location Book L," Tooele County Courthouse, Tooele; Hoskins interview: W P A Writers Program, Utah, a Guide to the State ( 1 9 4 1 ; reprint ed., New York: Hastings House, 1954), p. 3 9 4 ; W. H. Weed, ed., The Mines Handbook (New York, 1918), p. 1434; J. Gilluly, Geology and Ore Deposits of the Stockton and Fairfield Quadrangles, Utah, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper No. 173 (Washington, D . C : Government Printing Office. 1932). pp. 120-21, 193; Salt Lake Mining Review. September 15, 1901, p. 25, December 15, 1901, p. 24.

29 R. L. Polk and Co., Salt Lake City Directory, 1 9 0 8 - 3 5 ; Tooele County, Utah, "Mining Book 3G," p. 270. An Otto J. Larsen, a millman for U t a h Copper, resided at Garfield until 1910, the year her husband died. O t t o N . Larsen, apparently a son, filed proof of assessment in 1919 on her behalf at the Tooele County Courthouse.

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seeking admittance to the Utah State Bar. Lawrence was not surprised, and ventured the opinion that she had been admitted to "just about every other bar in the mining regions." " A more dispassionate opinion in the Salt Lake Alining Review referred to her as "one of the best knowoi lady mine operators of the state" and later as "one of the few successful mining women of the west."31 Lena Larsen was an operator, a character, and an institution in Tooele County, though the big bonanza always eluded her.

Mining records hint at the presence of a few other women in mining ventures. A Mrs. Mary J. Stew7art, proprietress of the Stewart Hotel and Boarding House at 231 South State, Salt Lake City, owned and managed a small mine in one of the most rugged areas of Utah. Her mine was situated nearly ten thousand feet high in the Silver Lake section of the American Fork Mining District in the Wasatch. Each summer she hired men to work it, but the short season and the long pack trail into the property made development costly and slow. She took a partner, J. E. Teeter, in 1914, and he supervised the installation of a new gasolinepowered air compressor and drill. But the Stewart mine never proved out, and it probably failed to pay the considerable expenses of its backers.32 Mrs. Stewart herself remains a shadowy figure. Apparently she w7as a divorcee, with no technical training. She was the proprietress of several hotels and rooming houses, and her interest in mines is uncharacteristic.

She died or left the area in 1919.

These Utah women were largely unsuccessful in winning lasting fortunes from the earth, but so were the vast majority of mining men.

Joe and Desdemona Beeson succeeded in finding and mining ore in several of their properties. Theirs appears to have been a true partnership; Joe provided the more theoretical and scientific bases for finding ore while Desdemona was, as she put it, "the practical nuts and bolts" of the operation, working as manager, bookkeeper, and mining engineer together with her husband in the rugged world of underground mines.

As a point of comparison, two other western women who joined the ranks of successful "mining men," Elizabeth Pellet of Rico, Colorado,33 30 Hoskins interview. U t a h Bar Association records do not list her as an attorney. See also E. H. Snyder to S. E. Craig, ca. 1934, Combined Metals Reduction Company, Bauer, Utah. ::1 Salt Lake Mining Review, January 15. 1915, p. 72 : January 15. 1916, p. 74.

32 Ibid., December 30, 1914, et seq.: R. L. Polk and Co.. Salt Lake City Directory, 190820, shows she had previously been proprietress of the Belmont Hotel and rooms at 102 East Second South.

33 Elizabeth Eyre and Alexander Klein, That Pellet Woman (New York: Stein and Day, 1965).

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Two unidentified "strong minded women" in a mine at Alta look very familiar with the business end of a shovel. Utah State Historical Society collections.

and Josie Pearl of Nevada, 3 1 h a d much in common with Desdemona Beeson. Both Pellet and Pearl were married to mining engineers. They worked on mining properties with their spouses but also played important roles in property development themselves. Both became highly involved in entrepreneurial ventures, which they continued after their husbands' deaths.

Probably a more typical story of the role an educated woman played in the mining industry is that of Lou Henry, who graduated in geology at Stanford and intended to teach it until she met and married Herbert Hoover. She accompanied him around the world on his mining ventures and raised a family. She also managed to translate with him De Re Metallic a, a Latin fourteenth-century classic on mining, that is still in use today as a valuable historical work. 30 Women in Utah mining in the past one hundred years wore not atypical of the women in the profession in the West generally. They wore few, they were non-Mormon, they worked long and hard under difficult conditions, and they, like the men, generally failed to find the "great bonanza." Only Desdemona Beeson was really successful; she sawnothing unusual in having become a "mining m a n " who happened also to be a wife and mother. All these women contributed to the development of mineral resources in Utah. History has perhaps overlooked them in favor of the more colorful dance hall girls, but their contribution is an important one as we search out and fill in the roles women played in the history of Utah. :iC "'Ernie Pyle, Home Country (New York: William Sloane and Associates, 1 9 4 7 ) ; Nell Murbarger, Sovereigns of the Sage: 'True Stories of the People and Places in the Great Sagebrush Kingdom of the Western United States (Palm Desert, Calif.: Desert Magazine Press.

1958), pp. 1-8: Alma Schulmerich. Josie Pearl (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1963). "'"Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, Vol. 1, Years of Adventure, 18741920 (New York: MacMillan and Co., 1951), pp. 118, 123. O t h e r women in geology are cited

by Lois Arnold in "Symposium on Women and Careers in Geoscience," abstracts with programs, 1976 annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. :;,; Recent widespread employment of women in the mining industry is discussed in Eiigineering and Mining Journal, February 1975, pp. 6 3 - 6 7 .

f

IB

^

Utah's Peace Advocate, the "Mormona": Elise Furer Musser EDITED BY J U A N I T A B R O O K S A N D J A N E T G. B U T L E R

Above: Elise Furer after her arrival in Salt Lake City. Utah Historical Society collections.

State

A A K E N FROM H E R O W N WRITINGS, diaries, and letters, this manuscript of Elise Furer Musser is essentially an autobiography. Where her words were sparse, quotes have been taken from newspaper articles printed at the time.

Mrs. Brooks is a Fellow of the U t a h State Historical Society and the author and editor of numerous historical works. Mrs. Butler is assistant editor of Utah Historical Quarterly.

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The original typescript, edited by Juanita Brooks with the aid of others, is contained in the holdings of the Utah State Historical Society.

The final version was edited and annotated by Janet G. Butler.

We tend to forget in this era of vocal feminism that, indeed, there is nothing new under the sun. When fighting the good fight in favor of women professionals, power for women, and women in politics, we may do well to recall a now little-known woman, born in 1877, upon whose fragile shoulders the state of Utah was carried a few giant steps further into the arena of national and international politics.

Perhaps in today's climate, where formal education is obligatory, Elise Furer Musser would not have attained the position she did with the schooling she had, but her intelligence, social skills, knowledge, and background served her well in her time. She began her social service and political career with work in Neighborhood House, became influential in Utah's Democratic Women's Club, served as a state senator, and became the only woman delegate to the Buenos Aires Peace Conference in 1936.

For the next thirty-one years, until her death on August 30, 1967, she continued her social and political activities, and her home on Harvard Avenue in Salt Lake City was a gathering place for influential people of the day.

A person like Elise Musser puts the current women's movement into proper perspective. She may be viewed as a focal point for the feminist cause of her day. And to place her in context furthers the concept of the women's movement on a continuum rather than as a new, spontaneous phenomenon.

Not a native Utahn, Elise Musser converted to Mormonism and migrated to Utah when in her teens. Whereas Utah did not produce this gracious, international figure, it nurtured her and matured her. That she attained political eminence with a Utah background may be seen as a logical extension of the state's early tradition of woman suffrage and the heritage of its women pioneers. Although a Mormon, with a husband and son, she did not assume the traditional role of the woman in the home. Nor did she follow- the more traditional pathways of famous Utah women like Eliza R. Snow or Emmeline B. Wells. She was an individual wdio, by her career, taught a lesson that could be relearned today: merit and quality may still prove the basic stepping-stones to individual goals of change, success, and self-improvement. Elise Musser danced to her own drummer, and it may be said that Utah and the women's cause are much the better for it. Her story follows:

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. . . .1 was born on December 7, 1877 at Les Loges, Canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland. . . .

There were five children, . . . I was fourth. . . . . . . we proudly spoke French and despised German, but we understood German because Mother always spoke it to us. . . .

I was only three . . . when my father died. . . . . . . my mother had a very difficult time. . . . . . . .We had a lot of sunshine in our home in spite of the hardships. . . .

When I was seven Mother married a man named Frederic Rufener, a good, kind man who treated all of the children alike and was very fair. My father's sister had married a man named Ever, and they lived in Lausanne. Since they had no children, she offered to relieve Mother of one of hers. She really wanted my younger sister, Louise . . . but . . . I was accepted as second best. . . .

In this home I never felt that I had any sympathetic understanding. . . .

I suppose they were proud of me because I had a perfect record in school. . . .

Those four years with them could have been a very happy time if they hadn't kept me trembling with fear all the time. . . . . . . .When I was eleven, I unburdened myself to Mother. She would not hear of my returning [to my aunt and uncle's house], so another mouth to feed was added to the load she and my step-father were uncomplainingly carrying. . . .

The struggle for existence seemed just as hard as when Mother was alone. . . .

Seeing her almost crushed by the load she was carrying, I suddenly grew up. . . .

The one-room school, where one young, inexperienced teacher was supposed to teach thirty or thirty-five boys and girls between the ages of six and fifteen, was a new experience. . . . She put me in the highest group. . . . Fortunately the little ones had to be taught. She-soon found she could use me there to great advantage. . . .

This may have had something to do with the offer that came to me shortly afterwards from M. Buchenel, President of the Board of Education of one of the towns in the valley . . . [His] housekeeper . . . needed some help. He thought I could easily give her that necessary help, and at the same time have the privilege of attending his very fine school. . . . . . . .1 [was] placed in the highest grade of the school. . . . I never acquired quite so much information in any one year. . . .

When I was not quite fifteen . . . another uncle . . . invited me to spend the winter at his home and attend high school. . . . . . . .I graduated five months later. . . . . . . .five months of real work because of the German and the many "practical" things required. . . .

Society and my family now considered me prepared to take up my responsibilities among the adults of the community. Incidentally, it meant also that I might now receive attentions from young men without criticism. . . . I was not in the least affected by this change of attitude, except that I enjoyed having the older men appraise me approvingly. . . . . . . I was so busy planning for a great life. Far from being appalled by the responsibilities suddenly thrust upon me, I faced them with a hope incomprehen-

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sible in later life. . . .

It was at this time that life dealt the first shattering blow to my radiant hopes. After an abscess in my ear, which made me seriously ill, I developed what has been my physical nemesis all through life—a protracted case of phlebitis in both legs. This long illness led indirectly to my coming to America. A sister of my step-father, who, with her family, had joined the Mormon Church, visited me several times. There was so much in that new practical faith—the practical social set-up of the Church organization and especially the beckoning of the promised land—to fire the imagination of an impressionable child my age. . . . . . . .At any rate, quite against the wishes of my family, I became converted and was duly baptized one dark cold night (May 11, 1894) in the river Seyon. . . . . . . .1 developed before long a much more serious case of phlebitis than the first one. . . .

I was finally in pretty good condition when arrangements were made between my family and the president of the mission to have my elder brother Rodolphe and me leave for America. If this chance had come one year before, I would have been overjoyed. But now, having had much time for reading, for reflection, and having in a measure grown up, I undertook the journey with many misgivings. . . .

We left home in the wee small hours of a winter morning. . . .

In some ways my introduction to this country was a terrible experience.

We . . . arrived in Salt Lake City at four o-clock in the morning of February 4, 1897. It was dark and very cold, yet people were there at the station to meet the new Saints that arrived and to take them to their homes. At last all were gone, and no one had come for me. I was lost and lonely as I stood there.

At last Arnold Schulthess 1 . . . .said, ' Y o u come right home with me. . . ."

Mrs. Schulthess was very gracious and kind. . . .

They really had no place for me in their old fashioned home, but they helped me get work at another place. It was only house work at three dollars a week. I was glad to get it, because it would help me with my English. However this family moved away shortly so I worked there only a few weeks. The second family was named Trent. . . . In both homes I was definitely a servant. . . . I didn't mind this at all for a while, but certainly did not mean to work for this kind of wage for long. . . .

Finally we had word from Brother George Naegle, who had been president of the Mission in Switzerland. He had talked so much about Mexico and the opportunities there . . . that Rodolphe became quite excited about going there.

Brother Octave Ursenbach . . . thought he would like to go there, too. By the time the tickets came, Rodolphe . . . did not want to go to Mexico at all.

Brother Ursenbach was going, and my job wasn't very good, so I decided that I would go myself rather than have the ticket wasted. . . .

1 Arnold Schulthess was of Swiss origin and had been back to Switzerland on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was at the station to act as interpreter and help pair off the newcomers with their hosts. The Schulthess home was a kind of headquarters for many of the Swiss girls who immigrated to Utah.

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Octave saw many opportunities in Mexico because he was young and daring, but . . . I think he decided it wasn't the place to raise his children. . . . But I had no money to go back, and Brother Naegle was quite insistent about my staying, since he had paid my way down. J Octave said when he left, "Well, I hope vou will be happv if vou marry him."

I said, "What are you talking about?"

"Haven't you noticed? People around here are all polygamists." (Of course I didn't know about this polygamy.)

"I would never enter into that," I said. But I stayed for a while and worked as a hired girl in the Naegle home.

Soon after, Pilares Mining Company was extending the work at the mine. . . .

Mr. Haynie, who was in charge of shipping the ore . . . came to see me and invited me to his home to have dinner. George Naegle was quite irritated, but I thought it was lovely for anybody to give me an invitation to a meal. At this dinner he decided that I was just the person for the job. . . . I was to keep the books. . . . . . . .After I had worked a while, I felt quite rich, so I stayed on with the job. . . . . . . President Anthony W. Ivins'1 came to the town one day, and he found that I was working out there across the stream and that I was usually alone all day long except for the Mexicans who were in the vicinity. I never had the slightest fear, and the Mexicans were so lovely to me . . . I felt strictly on a par with them, for they were working for a living and so was I. Brother Ivins. . . .thought the whole thing was rather dangerous for a woman to be across the river from the Colony—especially a young, unmarried woman. . . .

There lived near us an older lady. . . . I used to call in nearly every day for a short visit with her. . . . Once she gave me a gift of a fine heifer calf. . . .

The men put [a] brand on the heifer, and turned it out on the range . . . I thought nothing further of it. Later, after I had returned to Utah, the cow and her calves were rounded up and sold, and the money was sent to me. . . . I sent most of this money to my family in Switzerland to help them come to America, as all of them finally did, except my eldest sister, Marie.

Several things combined to make me decide to return to the United States.

President Ivins' advice about a young single girl being alone. . . , the danger of the river, the fact that I simply could not think of entering polygamy, and also that now I had money of my own to finance me until I could get other work in Utah—all were contributing factors. . . .

When I came back to Salt Lake City, I returned to the Schulthess home in the First Ward. . . .

3

Many polygamists had gone to Mexico to escape prosecution under the Edmunds Act of

1882.

3 In 1895 Anthony W. Ivins was sent to Mexico by Wilford Woodruff to take charge of LDS church interests in that country. Ivins was ordained to the Council of Twelve Apostles in 1906 by President Joseph F. Smith.

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My first work . . . was to be a governess to young David Keith. . . .4 Right after I left there I went to business college, because I thought I could better myself a little. . . .

At this time I met James H. Anderson . . . one of the County Commissioners. . . .he found an opening for some special work in the County Recorders office. . . .from this I learned my job of abstracting. . . .the. . . job. . .

I held for quite a number of years until I was married.

O n one occasion I was called to settle a dispute between a Swiss-German and an Austrian German who couldn't understand each others dialects. After that, I was often called as an interpreter.

About a year after my return from Mexico my Mother and stepfather arrived with the rest of the family. . . .

In the meantime, while I worked at the Court House, I went to summer school instead of taking a vacation. . . .

About this time I became acquainted with Blanche Musser in the old Second Ward. . . .

It was at a Sunday School party at the Musser home that I met Burton. . . .

Blanche found ways for us to meet again, and soon we were keeping company and engaged. He was the sweetest, most loveable young man that ever was. . . . .Every little while when talking about our future, he would say, "And then I will study law." I knew it was paramount with him and encouraged him to stay with it in spite of our poverty.

We were married December 22, 1911. . . .my savings were little. But I got us to Washington, and had enough to keep us for a few months. Burton got work through Senator Smoot for a short time, but he wouldn't let me work.

[Following are selected entries from Elise Musser's diary.]

May 28 [1912]. I left for Philadelphia and Burton for his work in the South.

He was working on an abstract on land that is now in the Appalachian Authority.

We located first in Abdingdon, Virginia, where I joined Burton June 6. Then we went to Mountain City, Jackson County, Tennessee. W,Tere there seven months and then we went to Bristol. . . .

June 23, Mountain City. Attended a meeting of the Christian (Carmelite) church. Real blood and thunder sermon. The boy . . . who sat next to me . . . spitting on all sides kept me dodging all the time. . . .

Nov. 5. Buying and selling votes was flagrant to-day. . . . Everything very quiet; as this section is Republican, there is little excitement over the election of Wilson. . . .

Jan. 22 [1913]. Burton left this morning for Nashville to take the Bar Examination. . . .

March 3 About this time I decide to go to Washington.

Apr. 13 Tonight I saw and heard Helen Keller, that wonderful deaf and ' Young David Keith was son and namesake of the prominent mining man and capitalist who made a fortune, along with Thomas Kearns and others, in the Silver King mine in Park City. He was also president of the Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Company.

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blind girl, whose accomplishments would put any seeing and hearing person to shame. . . .

Apr. 14. At night went to Chase's new theatre to see (or hear) Edison's latest invention, the Talking Moving Pictures. . . .

Burton. . . .thought he would like Columbia University, so we went to New York, arriving there June 12th. We felt like two strange little children. . . . . . . I thought he [Burton] would let me work while he was in school, but he simply wouldn't hear of it. Some of the boys would get a job for Saturday, but . . . Burton had to study hard for what he got.

H e got a foundation in Law (He spent only three years in school) that many people wouldn't get. . . .

Aug. 17 Attended L.D.S. meeting on 125 Street and in the evening had a most pleasant walk through Riverside Drive. . . .

Elise learned to ride and became an expert horsewoman during lier stay in August 24 After dinner went to Mexico. Utah State Historical Central Park to the concert given by Society collections.

Yolpe's excellent band. . . .

Sep 4. Spent 2 hours at the Metropolitan Art Museum. . . .

Oct. 2. Had my first class in Educational Psychology at New York City College this afternoon. Prof. Huckman.

Oct. 3. Thoroughly enjoyed my first lecture on American History by Prof.

Guthrie. . . .

Oct. 4. Tonight attended a lecture on Chemistry. Hydrogen by Prof. Nesich of Columbia. . . .

Oct. 29. School is getting more interesting each day. The two hours I spend going there each day are such a nice diversion to the daily routine of housework!

Nov. 5. Yesterday was election and Tammany was defeated. One more forward step for rule by the people. . . .

Mar. 7 [1914]. Attended a little informal party at Mrs. Wesley Young's at Bonnie Castle. Danced the turkey trot with Mahonri Young, the famous Utah sculptor and learned to play pinochle. (What Next?). . . .

June 14 . . . Burton, mother and I went to the Jewish synagogue on Lenox Ave. . . .

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Aug 2. Preparation for war all over Europe. Thank heaven for peace in our United States and prospects of peace in all the Americas. . . .

[End of diary.]

I was pregnant with Bernard at the time of Burton's typhoid. I was constantly threatened with miscarriage. . . . My money was completely gone by that time. . . . All we had between us was a quarter which was given to Blanche. . . .

She had it made into a pin. We took off the pin . . . intending to use the quarter to send a telegram to Joseph, Burton's brother. The telephone man, thinking we looked honest, reversed the charges. We used the 25ÂŁ to get bread, and Joseph sent us $100.00 to tide us over.

When Burton got well, we started for home. . . .

On our return from New York we went right into our house on 8th East and 7th South (Grandfather Musser's old home). . . .

Returning home to the proverbial poverty of the young lawyer waiting for clients was hard for Burton. . . .

When Bernard was born, going to the hospital was out of the question. His arrival in the world the morning of December 4, 1914, was the cause of great rejoicing in the old home, and brought unspeakable joy to me. . . .

For three months after confinement I was on my back with phlebitis. . . .

I was able to begin teaching in a small, individual way. . . . It all helped the family budget.

The terrible war (World War I) by the spring of 1917 had ravaged half the world, and approached nearer and nearer to us. Every day our relations with Germany and Austria became more strained, finally resulting in declaration of war. . . .

Burton had a small office in the Newhouse Building. With his partner, James Ball, he was employed on cases for the Utah Oil Refining Company. Later Burton became attorney for the Company. . . . . . . .When Bernard was about three we moved to a home on 4th Avenue and A Street. With all the housekeeping to do myself, and taking classes at the University of Utah, any spare time being given to the Red Cross, I kept myself busy. . . . . . . .1 asked the University if I could get Bernard in the Kindergarten there. It was then under the direction of Miss Rose Jones, a remarkable teacher and also a member of the Neighborhood House Board'. . . . I attended listening classes while he was in school. Going to school was something I seemed never to get enough of. . . . T h e Neighborhood House at that time was serving many people of foreign origin. They were always having difficulty dealing with these people.

Miss Jones mentioned to the Board that I would be a fine person to have as a member. They immediately got in touch with me and I accepted. "' Neighborhood House, established in 1894. is presently located at 1050 West Fifth South.

Salt Lake City. Its primary purpose, when Elise Musser was active in it, was the care of children of working mothers, often of foreign origin. At the present time it is still a day-care center geared to low-income clients.

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At the Neighborhood House my contact was much with people who couldn't speak the English language. . . . I had never thought my knowledge of languages a real asset. At the Neighborhood House I decided it must be kept up. . . . By this time, in the early 20's, Bernard was getting to where I could leave him a little. . . .

Other organizations would use me also. I was gaining a great deal of experience with those problems. . . .

The latter part of 1924 found us busy with plans for a new home. . . .fronting on Harvard Avenue. . . . We moved into our new home late in 1925. . . .

With the acquisition of an automobile we were able to have many lovely trips. . . .

I had never thought of getting into politics, though my work at Neighborhood House made me conscious of the needs of many of our people, particularly the minority groups of foreign born. About this time I was asked by members of "Cleophan," a culture group . . . to do a paper on the revolution in Russia.

One member was also a member of the local Democratic club, and she gave such a favorable report of it that Mrs. Dem, wife of the Governor, asked me to give it to the Democratic Women's Club. A little later she phoned and asked me if I would accept the position of State Chairman of Democratic Women . . . I laughed because I had never thought of doing anything of the kind. . . . But she was determined and wouldn't let me say "no". . . .

So I did take the job and I worked very hard at it. . . .

Governor Dern had a progressive and liberal attitude, and I was sincerely interested in accomplishing something. . . .

I developed a lot of ideas about organization. . . .

We worked hard and our LJtah organization later became the pattern for the National Democratic one. I served asJState Committee Woman for nine years (1922-1931). . . .

It is strange how things that seem not too important at the time sometime turn out to be really crucial. Miss Mollie [Mary W.] Dewson," a marvelous person in her own right and later a close friend of the Roosevelts, came to Salt Lake City. . . . She learned how it was that I had become familiar with many languages. When she left, I felt that we had become enduring friends. . . . Years later we worked together on important projects, and it was she who told President Roosevelt of my language skills. This resulted in my later opportunities to use them in South America. I have always felt that if one is prepared, there will be places to l)e useful.

I was selected in 1924 to be Delegate at Large from the State of Utah to the National Democratic Convention to be held in New York City beginning <: "Molly Dewson was . . . extremely active during the first Roosevelt campaign. I never met anyone just like her. Her secretary became my secretary at the Buenos Aires conference, so I heard a great deal about her for she was an admirer of Miss Dewson. . . . She was here in Salt Lake at one time (Spring, 1936) and stayed at our house. She saw me feed a flock of quail at the kitchen door. They came when I trilled .She couldn't believe that wild birds would do anything like that. The funny thing about it is, I used to trill for Bernard when I wanted him, and the quail just started coming! No matter when I trilled, about 100 of them would come down to my door. Wild ducks would come, too, and I remember one duck that would always try to follow me into the house!"

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June 24. That was a real experience for me, for the struggle between Al Smith and William G. McAdoo was long and hard. . . .7 As soon as I arrived home, I picked up my work at the Neighborhood House. . . . It began with volunteer care of the children of working mothers. . . .

Soon it spread to the help of teen-agers and others out of jobs. . . .

Later, after the bank crash of 1929 and during the depression of 1930 and the years following, I was elected and re-elected president of the broadened welfare work. . . .

Perhaps more important than the financial help these people received, the foreign women especially, was the encouragement, the added confidence, and Elise Furer Musser the initiative to try for new skills. . . .

In 1932 the Democratic women thought we should have a Democratic woman in the Senate. Mrs. George Dern called a meeting here at my house. Some of the leading women of this community were here. . . . My name was put up.

I was known in Social Welfare circles, and had talked many places on many subjects. . . .

Burton and I had earlier been Republicans, but while we were in the East we came to admire Woodrow Wilson very much, so we both became Democrats. 8 In this campaign I was given good support by the Party, both in billboards and newspaper write-ups. . . .

With this kind of whole hearted support, I won the election. During my term in office I supported all social legislation. I introduced and sponsored the first child-labor law in Utah, and pushed it through to passage. . . .9 7 There was a ten-day deadlock between Smith and McAdoo for the 1924 Democratic party nomination. The Utah delegation was pledged to support McAdoo. The deadlock ended when a compromise candidate, John W. Davis, was chosen. The latter lost to Calvin Coolidge in the election. s Burton Musser was born in Salt Lake City July 10, 1886. During his lifetime, he was director and general counsel of Utah Oil Refining Company, partner in the law office of Ball & Musser, president of the Appeals Board of Utah's Selective Service System, president of the Finnish War Relief Fund in the Mountain West, Utah state senator (from 1929 to 1933) and president of the Utah State Bar Association. A little over a year after Elise's death he married her good friend Jessie Greenhalgh on October 12, 1968. His death came on May 22, 1974, when he was eighty-seven. " Elise's papers say little else of her work in the Utah senate. She does mention that she did not speak there often but, when she did, her colleagues listened with respect. As a result, she says, some laws were modified at her suggestion. The senate records for her term of office 1 9 3 3 34, show her as introducing a few other bills, but none dealing with crucial issues.

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Partly as a result of my work in the legislature, and partly because we had built up a high morale among Democratic women, others were encouraged to run for public office. Later we had five women serve in the House of Representatives: Mrs. E. E. Ericsen, Mrs. Grover Rich, Mrs. A. C. Lund, Mrs. Minnie V. Harris, all of Salt Lake City, and Mrs. Reva Beck Bosone of Price. . . .

Later when I met Governor Dern back in Washington, D . C , he introduced me as the most brilliant woman in Utah. . . . . . . .He was a good governor and served well as Secretary of War under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was partly through him as well as Miss Dewson that I became so well known to the President and Mrs. Roosevelt.

Because of my activity in the Democratic party in Utah, I was invited to attend the Inaugural Ceremonies for President Franklin D. Roosevelt March 4, 1933. . . .

[During the years 1933-34 Elise Musser revisited Europe.]

Early in 1936, when the clouds of war were beginning to get ominous in the European sky, President Roosevelt wrote a letter to each of the Presidents of the other twenty Pan-American Republics asking them if they would not think it wise to meet around the conference table in the hope of making war less likely in this hemisphere. The response was immediate and unanimous. All wanted a conference at the earliest convenient time. Buenos Aires was chosen as the seat of it, and December 1st as the date. 1 " A few months later, I was one of fourteen women chosen from all parts of the country to make suggestions to the Platform Committee at a preliminary7 meeting prior to the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. There the possibility of the President's appointing a woman to represent our government at Buenos Aires was unofficially discussed. Mollie Dewson, Chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the Democratic National Committee Women's Division, asked me if 1 would like to go. . . . . . during the late spring. . . .there was a letter from Secretary Hull and Assistant Secretary Sumner Wells, written in the name of the President, asking me to accept the appointment. . . .

The appointment seemed to assume more and more important proportions as the days went on, and it was hard for me not to get panicky at the thought of the tremendous responsibility entailed. . . . .There is another side to the work of a delegation that is often overlooked. Conferences like legislative bodies have their lobbyists. . . . As the lone 10

T h e primary purpose of this conference was to treat with the lingering apprehension " -?d

Cordell Hull and the prestigious Argentine authority Carlos Saavedra Lamas, this pact represented the culmination of the Good Neighbor Policy. For a more complete discussion of this chapter in inter-American diplomatic history see: The Latin American Policy of the Lnited States: An Historical Interpretation,

by Samuel Flagg Bemis (New York. Harcourt. Brace & Company.

1943), pp. 284-94, and Hands Off: A History of the Monroe Doctrine, by Dexter Perkins (Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1941), pp. 350-51.

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Mrs. Weston Vernon, William G. McAdoo, Mrs. Musser, and Mrs. George H. Dern at the Democratic Regional Conference at the Newhouse Hotel, Salt Lake City, April 7-9, 1924. Utah State Historical Society collections. woman on the delegation, I was a potential victim for both good and bad groups of women who had a cause to advocate or some ulterior motive in getting the attention of the Conference. . . . I had to set my own precedent about so many things. Since I was the only woman member of the Conference also, it was often said, jokingly, "ninety-nine men and Mrs. Musser."

[Selected entries from Elise Musser's diary.]

Nov. 25. [1936]. . . .Getting into B.A. [Buenos Aires] quite disappointing after Rio & Montevideo.

Every day the papers were full of meâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;good, bad and indifferent. One of the sensational sheets had a long article about the " M o r m o n a " in the Yankee delegation. . . .

Things really began to buzz when it was announced that President Roosevelt was to attend the opening session of the Conference. . . . We were hugely amused when I was handed my formal invitation to meet the President at the boat, to find a note in it saying: "Morning coat and silk hat should be worn". . . . This matter of "one woman" in the group certainly makes things interesting and complicated. . . .

Nov. 27. - Tea at Y.W.C.A. Met women of many nationalities[,] delighted to speak their language. . . . Met Miss Shaine and many int. [interesting] B.A. women. Took Miss Shaine home. During trip she explained matter of Women's

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Conference held in B.A. Nov. 22-25. . . .& difficulties with Doris Stevens 11 Monday - Arrival of Pres. Roosevelt. Met him at boat and went along in procession to Embassy of U.S. . . . His personal remarks as each ind. [individual] files by makes one realize how much his dynamic personality means in his success. . . .

Tuesday Dec. 1. . . .

6: Official opening of Conf. [Conference] by S.L. [Saavedra Lamas]. Speech of welcome by Pres. Justo, [of Argentina] followed by Rs [President Roosevelt].

9:30 P.M. Official dinner of Pres. Justo to Pres. R. . . .

Wed. 2 - Meeting of Del. [Delegation] 10 A.M. . . .

1 P.M. - Went to airport to meet Mrs. O'Day & People's Mandate group. . . .

Thursday-3 Meeting of Del. 10 A.M. Tea at Mrs. Robbins - meet numerous ladies of Consejo Nat'l de mujeres. Tea at Mrs. Shaw's beautiful home. Meet some of the supporters of "Equal R". . . .V1 Monday (7th) Meeting 9:25 at Alvear[.] Meeting at Anchorena with Sec. Hullâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Welles & Reed to hear Doris Stevens plea - very modest - only for votes for women. Meeting of neutrality and reduction of Armaments Com. [Committee].

Had coffee with reporters 3 P.M. - Group of women (supporters of D.S. [Doris Stevens]) call vociferously demanding "Equal Rights" resolutions be heard in plenary session. . . .

Numerous cables from Women's Org. [Organizations] against introduction of "Equal R.". . .

Being on 3 of the big com. [committees] of Conf. [Conference] and Chairman for one of them for our delegation, means about 5 or 6 meetings daily, besides all the work & reports. Then some days I have as high as 4 social engagements besides all the calls and interviews. . . .

Wed. Dec. 16 - Meeting 9 : 3 0 Plenary Session 10.

2 U.S. treaties accepted with 12 others. 5 speeches - Columbia's a fiery one for 11 During this time a Peoples Conference in Favor of Peace was organized by Argentine feminists to prepare resolutions to present to the peace conference as an expression of "Pan American public opinion on how peace could be maintained." Apparently, relevance aside, as Elise notes, this was a way to get the attention of the conference for the women's cause. Doris Stevens, from the United States, was the president of the Inter-American Commission of Women who drew much attention to herself and feminism during the conference with her strong stand on women's rights.

13 T h e question of women's rights was injected into the conference deliberations by a resolution to adopt "the most adequate legislation in order to fully recognize their [women's] rights and duties as citizens," since "women's action within society and in the defense of peace is well known." This was a weak statement in comparison to that of Doris Stevens, the "Equal Rights" resolution, which urged all governments to grant the vote to women as a means to strengthen democracy and aid international peace. Although this may sound innocuous enough today, woman suffrage was a fiery issue at that time in that part of the world and the term "equal rights" acted as a red flag to conservatives. Doris Stevens and Elise Musser had a run-in as per the former's statement to the press: "From many sources it was said that the U.S. delegation at this point made it known in various ways in addition to Mrs. Elise Musser's statement that they were opposed to any mention of equal rights in the resolution, even if this equality were envisaged only for the future." Elise was probably referring to this situation and Doris Stevens later when she said in a letter " . . . I am going to be the victim of a mess the delegation got into at Montevideo. A woman who covets publicity above all things wants to put something over in the Conf. which we do not want. I had to be the goat & made a statement, so I suppose I shall be duly villified [sic] in the press. . . ."

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an American League. Conf. with Mr. Berle on Equal Rights. . . .

5:00 Meeting . . . Presentation of final draft of Am. Proposal by Mr. Welles.

Enthusiastic response. . . . i : Friday Dec. 18. . . .

2 University Professors called (one in law one in architecture) Say women are not as anxious for votes as to live down customs & traditions that allow them no freedom. . . .

Monday [Dec. 21]. . . .Last of treaties accepted-more speeches. . . .

Wed. 23 - . . . .Dr. Saavedra Lamas's closing speech brilliant, but full of dynamite. . . .14 We landed in New York the 12th of January. . . .

[End of diary.]1"' Upon her return from the Inter-American Peace Conference in Buenos Aires a Deseret News article (January 19, 1937) noted Mrs. Musser's views of the conference. She believed numerous peace campaigns would result and that Europe was looking to America to start an international conference. She felt the meeting, if nothing else, created a better understanding among the nations of the Americas.

I n late 1937 Mrs. Musser, as a member of the People's M a n d a t e to End W a r Committee, the so-called "flying caravan," completed a 20,000-mile trip to twenty-two Latin American countries to ask each nation to ratify the treaties approved at the conference a year before. She returned to Salt Lake City w7ith an optimistic view: "Latin America is looking toward the United States to preserve peace and these countries are showing their confidence by early approval of the treaties. .. . O u r trip w7as 13 The United States' closing speech, not really a proposal, given by Mr. Welles in proxy for Secretary of State Hull, stressed the need for the twenty-one nations to consult, if peace were threatened from within or without, while still maintaining individual sovereignty. His statement for better understanding among the republics called for equality of commercial treatment and lowering of trade barriers in addition to measures for the interchange of students and professors. " D r . Lamas noted that the conference had surpassed expectation. It had engendered the impression of reciprocal security. T h e Monroe Doctrine, which he considered a unilateral policy, was dead. He praised the neutrality convention, resulting from the conference, as a new method of avoiding war. He said the Americas had finally recognized they could not remain apart and indifferent without endangering the common defense of rights and interests.

13 T h e following three paragraphs were summarized from newspaper clippings since there were no diary entries for this period, and little narrative. It might be well to .note here an interesting feature in this material about and by Elise Musser. The beginning few chapters involving her childhood contain much detail, many anecdotes, and a lot of space devoted to scenic description. This is also true of her vacation trips. However, when it comes to vital subjects such as her senate accomplishments or her second and third Latin American trips. Elise says little. Perhaps she assumed that newspaper clippings would provide the necessary data.

Possibly it was as Jessie Greenhalgh said in a tribute to Elise upon the latter's death, that she "loved her home and family too well to accept the national career for which her unique talents fitted her." O r perhaps Elise shied away from the political spotlight.

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a r e m i n d e r to t h e L a t i n A m e r i c a n n a t i o n s , for few of t h e m h a d t a k e n a n y steps t o w a r d legislative ratification of t h e p e a c e m e a s u r e s . " 1 6 I n D e c e m b e r 1938 P r e s i d e n t Roosevelt a p p o i n t e d M r s . M u s s e r a n official d e l e g a t e to t h e e i g h t h P a n A m e r i c a n c o n f e r e n c e in L i m a , P e r u .

U p o n h e r r e t u r n she a g a i n n o t e d that the twenty-one participants w e r e n e a r e r to c o n t i n e n t a l solidarity a n d p e r m a n e n t peace. 1 7 Returning home on Tuesday, the 7th of February (1939) I immediately took up again my duties with various organizations â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Neighborhood House Board meeting the next day, Friday a Elise Finer Musser meeting of the Y.W.C.A. Personnel Committee, Saturday, the Women's Legislative Council, etc. Numerous groups, civic, church, school, and social, invited me to speak. At a dinner given in my honor at the Newhouse Hotel, at which more than two hundred were present, I was asked to report on the Lima Conference. . . .

On Wednesday, November 29, 1939 . . . Bernard was married to Elizabeth Ann (Betty), daughter of Harry and Retta Pyper Shepherd. . . . Betty's sister Dorothy had been my secretary on the last South American trip. . . . . . . .[I] at once became active in such organizations as the "British War Relief". . . .

In November, 1940, [I] went as Chairman of the Utah Delegation to the Centennial Meetings of the Women's Congress, which were held at the Waldorf -Astoria in New York City. . . .

Activities with many organizations filled the next three years. The O W L S (Order of Women Legislators) held their convention in Salt Lake City on June 20, 1946. On April 12, 1947, [I] was honored preceding another trip to Europe. . . .

Throughout the next years, after [my] return home, [I] worked with the Neighborhood House, the Craft House, and with the Social Security Administraw 17

Salt Lake Tribune,

December 15, 1937.

As opposed to the tenor of the 1936 peace conference which primarily concerned relations within the Americas, the Lima conference stressed hemisphere defense as the leading issue.

T h e American republics pledged to defend their democracy against any effort by totalitarian states to implant their ideology on the American continent. In keeping with this and the subsequent Act of H a v a n a in 1940, when Pearl Harbor was attacked December 7. 1941, those very Latin American republics that had been the "victims" of U.S. intervention or influence during the decades of U.S. imperialism, declared war against the enemies of the U.S. Those that did not actively declare war severed diplomatic relations with Germany, Italy, and Japan.

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tion of the W P A days. In fact [I] was [known as] "a combination of motherconfessor, guardian angel, friend, and trouble-shooter" for many of the foreignborn in Utah, as with the underprivileged of any nationality. 18 Many people of note, and groups, of both humble and great, were entertained at our home and in the garden. . . . The Italian-American League met here once a year, and the Pan American Club came regularly. . . . The summer of 1936 the People's Mandate Committee met in the garden. . . .

In 1937 the Y.W.C.A. held a . . . fashion show here, and the following year their Regional Conference. . . . The Credit Women's Association . . . and different sororities had garden parties . . . various groups of students came to our home. The Carnegie Foundation met here. . . .

The Democratic Women . . . Utah Oil Women Employees . . . various groups . . . from Neighborhood House came to our garden for . . . parties; also Mexican groups . . . . The Scandinavian League . . . . The GermanAmerican League. . . .

On many occasions groups of lawyers came for informal affairs . . . the Utah Nurses Association had a tea here. . . .

Governor and later Secretary of War George H. Dern and family were frequent visitors, as were U.S. senators William H. King and Elbert D. Thomas, with their wives and Governor and Mrs. Henry H. Blood. . . . [an] almost endless [list] . . . entertained in [our] home. . . .

With clouds of war becoming ever more ominous, much time was given to aiding the cause of refugees from nations being spoiled . . . French . . . Norwegian, Greek and Russian relief also . . . Finnish . . . British. . . . For this work with this group [British War Relief Society] I later received a medal and citation from King George V I .

As a Utah Delegate to the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in 1940, I witnessed the nomination of Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented third term as President of the United States. . . .

T o celebrate the 100th anniversary of women's entrance into public affairs, the Women's Centennial Congress was held in New York City November 25-27, 1940. I was chosen one of the delegates from Utah.

President Roosevelt's declaration of war following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor . . . rallied . . . all Americans in behalf of the war effort. . . .

We were overjoyed to receive word of the birth of our granddaughter, Elizabeth Ann Musser, in Lafayette, California, February 15, 1943. . . .

As a member of the national Board of Y.W.C.A. I had an opportunity to attend meetings in many countries and states. . . .

F o r t h e r e m a i n d e r of h e r life Elise F u r e r M u s s e r c o n t i n u e d h e r v a r i o u s activities a n d w a s m a n y times a c c l a i m e d by t h e associations she inspired. H a v i n g j o i n e d t h e U n i t a r i a n c h u r c h in 1940 she w a s h o n o r e d by t h e i r service u p o n h e r d e a t h in 1967.

18 For some reason in the previous few paragraphs the narrative was written in the third person. T o preserve continuity, these entries have been changed into first person: thus the brackets.

The Josephine Diaries: Glimpses of the Life of Josephine Streeper Chase, 1881-94 EDITED BY F A E D E C K E R DIX

Above: Josephine

Streeper

Chase. Courtesy Marjorie

Mathews

Ward.

JLN T H E A N N A L S OF M O R M O N HISTORY only a few women's voices are heard. These few have been repeatedly used in lesson and lecture as special examples of strength. They wore strong and talented, often heroic, Mrs. Dix is a former program director for the Division of Continuing Education, University of U t a h .

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always favored. But many persons of less renown also merit attention.

These individuals, too, gave strength to their contemporaries. They attended their meetings, cared for large families, and labored in their yards, homes, and orchards. Often they worked under unbearable stress far from the center of the church—far from adulation. But they toiled on wherever they wore sent with their families, these patient, obedient women, and carried their burden bravely with unshakeable faith in their eternal calling.

Some of them kept diaries. One such was Josephine Streeper Chase of Centerville, Utah. Her fame lay not in public work but in graciousness of personality—an embodiment of true hospitality. She did not attain churchwide fame, but she was well known where she lived as a mother of fifteen children and one foster daughter, polygamous second wife, Sunday School teacher, staunch supporter of women's rights (but only through reading the pamphlets brought home by her daughters), successful manager of a large household, and faithful church member. She numbered among her friends and acquaintances the kindly folk of the town, high church officials, and people passing by—salesmen, artists, wanderers, and friends of her children. Their visits overspread the pages and light up the story of her toilsome life. People remembered her for her friendly spirit and the close family relationships she established with her children.

They were a warm-hearted family—easy in laughter and strong in familypride.

Mrs. Chase kept a diary for several years. It was found long ago in the window box of the old cabin on the Chase Farm property now listed on the State Register of Historic Sites. The cabin is preserved better than the diary, written as it was on scraps of paper and occasionally in notebooks, but saved, by some odd circumstance, to become a definitive record of a Mormon household. 1 Sort the scraps of paper into years, and they soon emerge into the typical pioneering story of struggle and disappointment, sadness and laughter, and work, work, work—forever work. Even though this family kept a hired boy and sometimes hired the family washing done, there is no respite to the personal toil that each day brought in keeping up their large household.

T h e diary covers the years 1881 to 1894. T h e last writing is in July on the clay of the writer's death. Missing are the years 1883 to 1887.

1 The diary was presented to Special Collections. Marriott Library, University of Utah. in 1970 by Marjorie Mathews Ward, a granddaughter of Mrs. Chase. It is published here with the permission of Special Collections.

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This diary does not portray the image of a happy woman contentedly supporting her husband in church callings. Rather it bespeaks overwhelming weariness, love of children, obedience surmounting doubt, artistic yearnings, and impatience with frustrated dreams. These thwarted dreams pulse up from the journal like a plaintive cry, a mirthless pleading. Clinging at times to heartbreak, she bursts into brief but joyous description of a sunset, the moon rising, clouds over the lake, snow in the fields, or a book to read by the warm fire.

Most of the complaints seem due to long illness; much is due to a troubled marriage and overworked family. Still, she can write in peace at times saying, " O u r fires are lit," as she sits by her fireplace to read for a few stolen moments her favorite passages from the Juvenile Instructor,' Ecclesiastes or Ruth, or from Dickens's David Copperfield.

Aside from the lamentingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;quite easily overlooked, or even with itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Mrs. Chase has written a priceless journal of the daily activities in a busy Mormon home, describing them with surprising detail. She makes observations on housecleaning; on the outdoor chores; on baking, preserving, and churning; and on special family recipes like mincemeat, headcheese, and Dutch bread. She tells with some detail of the arduous hog-killing times, and the days when the thrashers came. And, in softer tones, she mentions planting roses from a start her mother gave her twenty years earlier and helping to plant honeysuckle seeds where she had always wanted them.

Josephine Streeper Chase was born in Philadelphia on May 6, 1835, to Wilkinson and Matilda Wells Streeper. Her family moved to Nauvoo for a brief time and then to Saint Louis where her father became superintendent of the city gas works. In Saint Louis she attended a "Select School for Young Ladies," but by age sixteen she had crossed the plains with her parents to the valley of the Great Salt Lake. She taught school for some time before entering polygamy as the second wife of George Ogden Chase. It is reported in family records that this marriage was suggested to George O. Chase by Brigham Y^oung during a dinner at the mill farm when Isaac and Phoebe Chase were entertaining the First Presidency of the church and members of the Q u o r u m of Twelve Apostles. Her future husband knew her by sight and sawr her later at Pioneer Square sitting in a swing wearing a leghorn hat with blue ribbons over her brown-gold hair. Slim at ninety- pounds, she was a lovely girl and he swept her up beside him on the white horse he was riding, and * LDS church publication.

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they cantered off to her parents' home. Indignant at first, she relented and listened to his marriage proposal. They were married in the Endowment House on M a r c h 25, 1856, and embarked on a busy life at the Big Field (now Liberty Park) where Isaac Chase, her new- father-in-law, had established a gristmill.

T h e first wife of George Ogden Chase was Emily Miranda Hyde, daughter of Orson Hyde, the Mormon apostle. Both wives knew the happy pastoral life of the hospitable elder Chases who had so willingly aided the Saints at the time of the great cricket scourgeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;passing out a handful of flour here, ten handsful there, wherever it was needed according to the size of families. They wore included in the numerous social gatherings at the Chase home for the many friends who came from the city to join in dancing and games. 3 They knew how to keep a home immaculate, bake bread to sell or to give to the poor, and, in general, to adapt themselves to the comfortable life on an established valley farm.

T h e n they were "called" to leave and reestablish themselves on a farm in Centerville where their housing consisted of an old log cabin and an awkward two-story house built near the black willow tree beside a spring.

Chase soon replaced this with a more gracious home adjoining the cabin. This was a home suited to the warm hospitality of its occupants.

It boasted four white pillars on a broad veranda and an upper balcony stretching the full width of the structure. T h e rooms were spacious for their time, and there was still the cabin, the buttery or pantry, the sturdy rock granary, with a sleeping room above, and later a smokehouse. Still, this was hardly adequate for the many overnight guests this busy family housed. Eventually, hollyhocks and honeysuckle vines filled the front garden, flowers were tended carefully, and many trees were planted to provide shade.

T h e first wife, Emily, lived for a time in Farmington where Chase established another gristmill. But she soon left the family and returned to Salt Lake City where she later asked for and received a divorce with generous alimony. This brought hardship to the second family as much of their work went to provide produce and money for Emily and her six children. Emily later became the wife of Sharp Walker, a widower. To the credit of Josephine Chase, there is no mention of this in her diary, and no criticism of the first wife is evidenced. Whatever she felt is never revealed in these pages.

3

Heritage.

See Emmeline B. Wells, "In the Chase House," in Kate B. Carter, ed.. Our 20 vols. (Salt Lake City: Daughters of Utah Pioneers), 1 : 4 4 3 - 4 5 .

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flUTllllll'imiill lllllllllll!;

George Ogden Chase home in Centerville with its distinctive pillars and broad veranda. Corner of earlier log dwelling can be seen at left. Utafi State Historical Society collections.

All of this must have caused a difficult adjustment for Josephine.

Since her husband was frequently gone from home for long periodsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; involved in establishing a new mill, a lake resort, a farm, as well as many church dutiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;she bore the weight of making family decisions in many things for which she felt no competence. She constantly worried about the crops, the orchard, the milking, and the "brining" of meat; schooling for her children; the interchange of farm goods at the store; and the buying and selling of land, horses, lucerne, molasses, and other products as they struggled to establish themselves on the unworked land.

Despite this involvement and worry, no one was ever turned from her door. Passersby stayed for a meal, a night, or a week.

Josephine plainly felt neglected by her husband and plainly said so. " H e tries my soul," she wrote in firm hand, or " H e vexes m e . " She hated asking him for money to run the household and did everything possible to pay their tithing and other dues with produce. " I do not think husbands should make widdows of us and leave us without 1 cent," she moaned as she appealed to her son John who was the financial mediator betwoen the two. Yet, she managed to keep the children properly dressed

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(the girls always in white starched dresses at summer church) ; gave them some amenities, including music lessons; and provided whatever schooling was available.

Most painful to her was her husband's lack of cooperation in getting the children to school on time during the fall term. She felt the farm harvests could wait. H e did not. Her heart would break at this division of purpose. She wrote in passionate outcry of her fierce determination to have her children educated. She taught them manners, grace, and grooming at home, but they must have intellectual challenges, too. Her anger against a husband who made such despotic decisions seemed to know no bounds on this issue. It was equalled only by her refusal to sign the deeds for land he wished sold from time to time. And she never forgot his statement that "the second wife's signature is not legal in the eyes of the law." She had an inordinately strong sense of dignity and this wound went deep. She retorted that she "did not care for the laws of the land" but would expect "the laws of this church 2 defend me in my rights."

But later she wrote in defense of polygamy, "I tell them it is true. I was taught so . . . I thought I was doing right when I went into it though it wont hard for me."

Still, such outbursts against her husband must be considered as frustrations of the moment. She must have been proud of his position in the community. When he was made Sunday School superintendent, and later called on a home mission in Davis Stake, she recorded that he had the unanimous backing of members. One sees him moving through this time as most Mormon pioneer landowners didâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;strong father, hard taskmaster, loyal to church duties, hospitable in church and social circles.

From his childhood in Nauvoo, George Chase had known many of the church leaders and remained friendly with them. He was mentioned prominently in writings of the time as a popular Marshal of the Day. 1 T h e family states they took pride in combing and dressing their father for this frequent honor. If his wife could not march beside him to lead a promenade, their eldest daughter, Kate, was given the honor. Kate never married and her mother seemed to favor her and leaned on her for strength. In the last summer of her life, Josephine wrote that Kate had been the Goddess of Liberty in that Fourth of July paradeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;an honor

4 See "The Village" by N. A. Porter, leading educator of the period and general Sunday School superintendent, who describes the citizenry without names. According to older townspeople, "we always knew the part about 'town aristocrats' meant the Chase family. They always led the town promenade." Interview with Mrs. Effie Gransden. September 12, 1974.

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much coveted by girls when the nation's birthday celebration was saluted throughout the land with a morning parade.

Josephine reveled in good reading when she could wring a few moments from her treadmill days. Always sensitive to beauty, she interrupts the listing of daily chores with a description of the bright sunset, a cloud overhead, a storm on the way. One spring day she wrote of dew- on the grass and blossoms on the peach and apple trees. Realistically, she ended by w7riting, "But I see plainly this earth is not heaven."

She read the newspapers of her day and the woman suffrage materials then in wide distribution. She spoke of reading history books and once wrote a vivid description of the gilded trappings for the funeral of Alexander the Great. One senses in her a great intellectual hungering and a yearning to fulfill this despite continuous deprivation.

Sometimes she describes the delicacies brought home from Salt Lake for their table: an orange, bananas, "fin and hacldy," some shrimpâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the first she ever tasted and she did not like them.

Although known for their elaborate celebrations at Christmastime, Josephine makes but brief mention of themâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;mainly that the entire family gathered, cooked a goose, and had gifts from Santa Claus for the children. Her two daughters, Kate and Mary Ella (Mina in the diary), inherited the family home and lived there many years, continuing the family tradition of bounteous holiday feasts. Kate became the tow7n midwife, and Mina became a teacher and, eventually, the collector of Chase family records which she kept in impeccable form.

T h e family hospitality enveloped any stranger or visitor at their door.

People gathered by the large fireplace in the sitting room and discussed the news of the day or themes of gospel doctrine, or told their dreamsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a common pastime of the period. Sometimes Josephine joined them. Sometimes she could only listen as she passed from the kitchen to the buttery continuing her multitudinous chores. She often records snatches of lively conversations (and her reaction to t h e m ) . At bedtime she gave her guests a candle to light their way to bed in the cabin, the granary loft, or a couch by the fire.

Although worn with household cares and frail in health, she held to a household standard that kept her children on the run. T h e rooms must be whitewashed periodically. Brother Mills came to do that. But the children must help her do the rest. T h e buttery must be immaculate, the cabin and the smokehouse "cleansed" and aired, the sleighbells polished, the ashes "skimmed" or taken up, and the milk pans scoured and scalded.

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She called it "neating up the house" or "sweetening the rooms." Whatever she called any chore, her children and the hired man, "Elija," were hard put to keep up with her demands. She speaks of patching the walls (adobe w7alls could easily crumble), weeding, planting, raking the leaves, and burning the rubbish. Once she washed the sleigh "with my bare hands" because she could not abide "the condition Pa had left it in." H e r home-churned butter, with its carefully printed top, was most welcome at stores where it sold immediatelyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a matter of pride to any housewife.

Faithful in church attendance, Josephine also displayed a keen interest in community affairs. She was by no means a destroyed mind despite the brutally hard work of her daily existence.

Fiercely loyal to her children, she turned to them in every trial. H e r strong love for them permeates her diary. But she quotes the circumstances of their follies with the same intensity of spirit as she rejoices in their success. W h e n one son lost a court trial over a runaway team he had tried to stop, only to have one of the horses break a leg, she summed it up by saying, "the other side lied and we didn't." When a daughter lost her position in a mercantile institution, her mother mourned with her and rebuked a local family for sending the daughter a "horrid valentine," making them "feel ashamed." When another son could not get a temple recommend for being an inactive church member (for swearing and for once refusing to make a speech when called on without warning), she stood steadfastly by while her husband as steadfastly made all the necessary arrangements to have him rebaptized when the ward bishopric said he must. 5 She got her erring son's clothes together and sent him with his sister, his brother, and his father off in the sleigh to Garns Pond w7here his uncle rebaptized him, and they moved to the family parlor where the hired m a n confirmed him. She wrote in her diary: " T h e Sun came out & shone bright around them, and no wind blew- just as he went down into the water."

She saw the girls through courtships and weddings, babies, and new affluence. She knew death at firsthand through four infants stillborn, and the loss at four years of her youngest child, a little girl named Clarissa.

And at age nineteen her stalwart son, David, died shortly after enrolling at the Agricultural College in Logan.

5 For many years it was customary in the Mormon church to require rebaptism for many reasons or just for personal comfort. At or near this period it is easy to find other examples of rebaptism for such things as betting on horses (Preston. I d a h o ) , hunting for precious minerals (Beaver, U t a h ) , and subscribing to and writing for the non-Mormon Tribune (Springville, Utah). '

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Upon reaching the last summer of her life, this brave woman who had battled so long against bruises of spirit and misery of body, was gravely ill. At age fifty-nine she was worn and wracked by a pneumonialike cough she caught in February, which did not subside during the cold spring. In June and July she was still keeping a diary, written in a faint scrawl and almost illegible. It was as if she literally willed herself to keep ahead of each clay's work.

O n July 18 she wrote, " O u r paper said this morning that U t a h w7as a state. 0 There was a Bee Hive at the Heading & was Signed by Grover Cleaveland the President of the United States a Democrat Well I put our colors out & tied Some willows & deer horns too 1 tree . . . our colors . . . red, white & blue."

O n the nineteenth Josephine wrote of their need for thread to finish some sewing. She mentioned a moment of relaxation with pictures in h e r "Story of the Book of Mormon." They h a d root beer and ginger snaps.

A brief sentence or so on the next day mentions that Kate was busy with sewing, but it trails off with a short list of things to be purchased. T h a t night at ten-thirty she died suddenly of apoplexy, according to her obituary in the Davis County Clipper.

At her funeral, held two days later at her home, the speakers, all holding high office in the Mormon church in Salt Lake, Ogden, and Centerville, lauded her for her friendship and hospitality. 7 T h e Centerville brass band wras present and not only played "appropriate selections" but also led the procession to the cemetery.

She h a d "endured to the end," constantly breathing a prayer to do so a n d constantly bolstering her faith that there would be a brighter time.

H e r life h a d closed but she left a stalwart family a n d a w7ritten legacy of continuing faith that voices the spirit and ordeal of her time.

Excerpts from her diary: 1881 April 19th h a d a bithday for Dave h a d the Streepers a n d Smith a n d C h e n y a n d Parks children d o w n h a d a nice time h a d 2 O r 3 pres[ents] May 3 tuesday Dave was babtized Alike h a d a very sick Horse

confirmed by Elder G Chase

sent to Babtism

' ' U t a h did not achieve statehood until January 4, 1896; however, the Deseret Evening News for July 17. 1894, carried a story on the passage of the Enabling Act, quite probably the story read by Mrs. Chase. T h e paper stated that "the President today signed the U t a h Statehood Bill." A brief description of the bill was given. T h e president's signature on this date caused it to become law, and Utah could set the machinery in motion to petition Congress for statehood. ' They included Apostle John Henry Smith, Angus M. Cannon, Bishop Raleigh, Lorin Farr, Nathan T. Porter, and George Goddard. Bishop Aaron B. Porter presided.

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May 3 and 5th held concert 2 nights at Centreville Hall one night at farmington Hall 13th friday Cleared 50$ for meeting house May 13th 1881 Sold 2 bee hives for 7$ 5$ in cash & 2 gallons and half molasses spices 25 cts broom 50 cts sugar 50 cts currents 25 cts tea 50 cts coffee 1$ Saturday June 25 I did not feel very well had many things to see to one was to advise the children how to arrange Some flowers for Sister Tingyes [Tingeys] little son he is to be burried without m u c h cerimony because of his disease President Smith m a d e some remarks at grave and they . . . comfort them Mon 4 of July We are enjoying peace and plenty O u r flags are u p and flying on the breeze We sang the Star Spangled Banner O h long may she wave a n d ate our dinner gave praise drove down [to] see Ine 1882 February 23 i have not touched my journal 7 months just 4 months tomorrow since my dear little girlie died s oh w h a t sorrow i have gone through we were all so sick I have been visiting at Sister Randalls with other friends today I enjoyed myself and my sleigh ride H o m e very m u c h while there I signed that petition for our protection 9 March 12 Sund . . . O h how pleasant it seems this evening sitting by the pleasant fires the children all washed and gone to bed . . . I feel very thankful for the Blessings we enjoy but I often think of my deary that left me and it hurts me terrible i cry and cannot bear it sometimes . . . and to me this earth seems a sad place of trouble and sickness and separation 1888 Nov 14 Wends busy in Kitchen all day Pa gone to city with load of H a y i sent molasses to Min this makes 27 load[s] Pa has sold this fall heard to day Sis Nancy Clark is dead . . . Frank & Dave hauled m a n u r e all day & did chores Harison is President queer works nowadays 1889 Jan 23 Wends Pa & my brother Will took the widdows [on] a grand sleigh ride I lent my bells & Pa his horses it is a very pleasant dry & i have been on my feet again keeping u p the fires washing dishes & making home pleasant Frank went to fetch V home i spent the evening reading Peterson a new book just sent to K Because I cannot sew when there are so many around the table C Rollins is here & Pa. F, D, K, V, & A 1 " & myself We all had lunch Feb 2 Sat . . . M i n gave me a cup of tea & oatmeal in my bed my head ached & it was 2 oclock before i could do my baking . . . Pa & Frank took a load of H a y to Glenfield in S L City . . . Frank brought me home some shrimps they are the first 8

H e r little daughter, Clarissa, had died at age four on October 24, 1881.

" When the U.S. Senate passed the Edmunds bill, Mormons petitioned Congress to send an investigative delegation to the territory before passing any punitive legislation.

10 She almost always refers to her children by initials. Here she means Frank, David. Kate.

Viola, and Alice. Her married daughters are more frequently called Mrs. Wood (for Josephine or Ine) and Mrs. Mathews (for Fan or F a n n y ) . Min or Mina is Mary Ella. Her husband is called Pa or Bro Chaseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;sometimes Mr. Chase.

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I ever saw i don't like them Pa brought some fin & haddy [finnan haddie] after supper my 3 sons C Rollins V A M all went over to Bro Streepers to say S Schooll lesson . . . I must read my lesson over sew strings on my cloak & go to bed it is 10 Oclock July 31 Wends . . . Alice W e n t on the 11 Oclock train this morning to go to K a t e in O g d e n She took 2 Satchels 1 for each an umberella Extra hat for K a t e & 2 hubbards cloaks . . . T h e n Pa m a d e the buggy ready & wrent for Bro Raleigh he called & bid us good bye And then Pa took him home to City It is just 3 years the 29th of this July since he went in hiding 1 1 Aug 20 tues . . . I a m very busy cooking & making pies & cakes for thrashers to morrow and felt quite vexed at Bro Chase comeing home late this afternoon & so m u c h to do . . .

Aug 21 Wen O h dear Min says they had 9 men to breakfast & Pa has gone to train to meet F a n But she did not come he bought us a whole cheese & payed my Bro Will 10$ & 25 cts for a sack of sugar we had off h i m last week also 1 pan & 6 tumblers some rice 25 cts & currents 25 cts it takes something for 15 & 25 people to eat & there was 15 men to dinner & supper besides our family it is a pretty sight to see the machine agoing & all the men & boys so bussy all sweat & dirt . . . Viola & M i n & myself are on our feet all day We had 500 bushels of weat [wheat] & Oats all together and it is a great blessing my 3 sons stacked & hauled all of it and they are working very hard today Frank is cutting the bundles David is on the stack pitching bundles & Jack & Sam hauling the grain to granery & Jack Sam & David carried all the 500 bushels into the granery the thrashers stayed here all night again Bro Hess called to see them wants them to come u p to F a r m [Farmington] from here M r Daynes called to see about some lucern Sept 30 Monday this is Viola's Birth Day 27 years old V & me gathered the last of our Green Gage plums I bottled some . . . at 5 o'clock we make ourselves ready to go to M r & Mrs Woods to keep Vs Birth day . . . But we arrived safe home at 10 Oclock evening had Ice cream talked of the K i n g d o m and tried to explain some things to Frank who does not think a m a n ought too have but 1 wife I said my prayers & we all went to bed Feb 1890 Feb 3 Wendsday . . . Pa went to city with a load of Hay took it to M r Glenfield I do not know what for Pa said for money . . . This morning i done u p the dishes & housework as usual then read in the Contributor 1 - some interesting facts took in the Hearald [Herald] to see what the People were going to do And I think it is too bad the way the Liberals treat our people & the trouble we are all put too 1:! I think right is might Viola rode her horse to School to day this afternoon my S class met here to review their lesson on Self Denial . . . m a d e yeast & worked the butter Pa churned. . .

Feb 10 Monday We are u p at 4 T h e alarm awoke Pa So the boys are dressing . . .

They Saddled u p & off they went for the City J o h n rode the gray horse . . . T h e r e 11 In this period many Mormon men who were polygamists hid from federal marshals to avoid prosecution under the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887.

12 LDS church publication.

1,; The political power of the People's party (Mormon) was seriously challenged by the Liberal party (non-Mormon) in this period.

/7c?

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is snow on the ground & the wind is blowing cold . . . W7ell i pray the Lord to take care of the boys & save the City from the Liberals i have done all i feel able to do to day. . .

Feb 14 Friday . . . I found plenty to [do] to day I m a d e a jar of mince meat & bottled 7 jars of winter pears Pa helped me pare them I prepared everything for supper & when Viola came home she set it on this after[noon] . . . We had a chat about the People & Liberals We donot like the position they have taken But i think our Heavenly Father knows what is best for his people I read in School journal of Alexander the Greats royal funeral of the golden car & the gold coffin & gold lace & little bells on the edge and it [took] them over 1 year to carry him from Bablon [Babylon] to Alexandria April 6 Sun [She is attending April conference in Salt Lake City] . . . at noon i met mother again & then she went over to Marie's to her dinner & i took a short walk to see the grounds & lawns around Assembly rooms which I admire very m u c h & took a good look at the T e m p l e & notice[d] how narrow the doors & windows are & think i guess the Lord knows best i donot stay long for the east wind is blowing strong & sending dust & lunch p a p e r all flying i go over to Mrs. Pheobe Bates whe[re] she invited me to lunch & was introduced to a Sister Smoot by Aunt Zina Young later on . . . We had a good time hearing Bro Woodruff & C a n n o n speak they commenced the meeting by singing the good old time hymn[s] & Bro Woodruff concluded services saying the gospel is here & the FI Ghost & Saints are here & will stay here After church we took Electric C a r and rode to Depot to see K a t e off . . . the train started with many cars & 2 engines loaded down wind & dust blowing a tight gale all day May 19th . . . Pa went to city & Min took early train witli her flowers for the same place he goes off never asks me if there is anything to do for me Viola gone to school & it took me 3 hours to keep u p fire & wash u p the Sunday dishes & I a m out of patience waiting for bro Mills to come & finish papering he said he would come & I want D to pull out dead trees & not green ones But they do just as they please & Brother Chase never tells a boy to mind a woman & i feel indignant Aug 22 Friday . . . Viola came home from school at 5 & fetched a little girl bay [baby] 11 10 months old for me to raise as our own poor thing we are all strange She cryed & so did I We let Viola put her to bed to night Jack went to party Nov 6 Thu It is very pleasant mild weather . . . I had no time to read my D News or book for had to cut out petticoat waists for babe & plan a night dress larger hers are too small m a d e the petticoats out of Davids shirts . . . T h e r e is a nice fire burning in the grate a log fire & i enjoy it All gone to bed except Viola & me. . .

Nov 26 Wends This is a very pleasant day But David is just tired out with hunting a goose for Thanksgiving And i tell him to Kill & dress 3 nice chickens & with his 8 ducks we will have a nice dinner & the roast of Beef Pa has bought H e did obey me & has promised to not Shoot for Turkeys on 44ianksgiving Dec 9 Tues . . . David has studied his lessons set his Alarm Clock too make him early & gone too bed he & Elija read some verses in the Bible that is w h a t i wish my boys to do Search the Scriptures Pa has a fire & light out in cabbin and he also is reading But not so much as he ought too long ago Dec 10th Wendsday . . . this morning found boiler on Stove . . . M e n been u p setting things doing as please Pig killing I see Jack is good to me & takes the " The foster daughter referred to as E m a or Em ( E m m a Eakle).

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Boyler as soon as possible for it leaks & puts out the fire Dec 11 Thurs I have to give Pa & J o h n pans to put the Leaf lard in Show them where to put sausage meat I put on 2 pots of lard & showed Elija how to make the hot brine & I asked Pa & Elija to pour it over the meat just before they went to bed it is cool now . . . Pa & all men folks can go to bed at ten & rest & sit & read all evening But w o m a n poor woman must iron Sew Bake dust tend Babies. . .

Dec 13th Sat . . . it is 11 Oclock nearly noon Pa returned from City just tired out with Sad news Says Harry 1 "' baby is dead died at 3 Oclock this morning And poor F a n feels dreadful. But the Lord giveth & he taketh away all our pets when he wants them. . .

Dec 14 Sun O h dear here is Viola come back from City on the early T r a i n and says m a you must hurry u p & dress to catch the half past 10 Oclock train for the funeral is today instead of M o n d a y . . . I dreaded to go But did so & found Fan m o u r n i n g But I said Fan this will never do for you to make yourself sick. . .

Katy and Alice met me & then took me in too see Harry They wished me to See hownice they had dressed him before they put him in his Coffin wich was a very sweet white one of brocaded velvet or plush twined around with a lovely silk cord and my children had strewed a green vine & lovely white flowers with fresh green leaves all around H i m as he layed on Anns little Table Well he just looked like wax & on his finger his ring tied with a tiny ribbon But I donot enjoy Such Sights But we must do the best we can his lovely head & pretty brown H a i r & his large happy blue eyes half closed and his dear little legs with Silk Stockings & white kid slippers . . . But . . . Its 2 Oclock . . . H a r r y in coffin with a lovely flower pillow resting at his feet & H a r r y in purple flowers writte[n] on it and we & our friends are all seated around him T h e n Apostle J o h n Plenty Smith and Bro M o r g a n come to address us very comforting & m u c h intelligence then quoir Sings prayer All go through rooms to take last look T h e n go get in carriges waiting at door and pass along to Cemetry just as the Saints are pouring out of assembly rooms on their way home O h it [is] a pretty Sight to me lor i just love to go to meeting And as we passed along I noticed a n u m b e r of feeble Old ladies & gents totering along leaning on the arms of the young & strong or on their walking Canes We noticed fresh graves & fresh flowers when we arrived at cemetery and we afterwards learned from one of the drivers T h a t this was the 3rd time they had been u p there today T h e City has built a fine house & p u t u p a fine gate at the entrance. . .

Dec 16th Tues My cold little better on my feet all day long trying lard m a d e head cheese . . . This evening i coughed & choked untill i could not stand it I had to soak my feet and take ginger tea & burn 2 hankerchiefs and put c a m p h o r on my neck. . .

Dec 21 Sun . . . our Leaflet lesson today was O u r Saviour and the little ones and the K i n g d o m of heaven was no place for ambitious people T h e ground was covered with frost and every little stick or straw just sparkled when i walked u p But on return at noon sun m a d e the ground d a m p and i felt chilly So i changed my dress warmed my feet then Min called me to dinner She had fin & haddy fish, fried potatoes my g r a h a m bread & butter fresh blackberries and T o m a t o Sause . . .

Elija and J o h n all went to church home missionaries Bro Joe Ford and J. Wooley spoke first then Bro B II Roberts told the congregation a little Story in a parable

Their little grandson. His mother was Fanny Chase Mathews.

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Standing: Mary Ella Chase, Josephine Chase Wood, Fanny Dean Chase Mathews, John W. Chase, I 'iola Chase Rollins; seated : Kate M. Chase, George Ogden Chase, David N. Chase, Josephine Streeper Chase, Alice Chase Smedley, Frank L Chase. and then tried to explain why we kept X m a s and Hygh Mass was called Christ mass And said people ought not to drink strong drinks such as wiskeys and wine to excess as it displeased our Lord a n d Saviour Viola and Min had to Stay after church to practice for concert. . .

1891 March 10 Tues Alice set on breakfast Viola has gone to School I make a cake for Pa's Birth day to morrow and David has caught a wild goose and Elija picked and dressed and i p a r boiled it M r Stanley the African Explorer was in S L City M o n d a y night & lectured in T h e a t r e March 11th Wends Alice is u p Breakfast is over and she has cooked the chicken done & is chopping some cabbage I prepare the stuffing & bake David's goose very nice W h e n Viola comes h o m e at 5 Oclock Supper is all ready and Uncle Will Streeper & Millie came over to take supper with Pa Alice has dressed and combed him & he looks very nice But he is not well. . .

May 6th Wen O h dear i feel so weak & weary this morning & This is my 56th Birthday . . . T h e South wind is blowing the dust along the roads & spoils the love[ly] Lilacs & blowing the Blossoms of[f] the fruit trees & the Sun does not Shine m u c h all day Still it is quite pleasant . . . I m a d e the dinner ready & everything is ready for Supper for Viola to Set on . . . then Mrs. Mathews came & fetched my groceries & m a d e me a present of a Silk dress very fine & unexpected

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to m e T h e n Mrs Wood . . . gave m e a nice hankerchief T h e n David brought the mail & there was a present from Alice in Croyden a pair of beautiful Stockings I a m very thankful for all the things for they are gifts from my dear children & I pray the Lord to bless them forever And Frank J o h n & David wished me m a n y returns of the day . . . They all Sat down to Supper & I waited u p until Frank came home it was 12 Oclock We had ice cream Viola mixed it & E churned it . . . Viola was my nice girl that set supper on table with E help while I took a walk through the orchard with Ine & F a n & E m to See the little colts one Born yesterday . . . & to See dandelions But they had closed u p or gone to Sleep & Fan says how natural it all looks as if it was only yesterday W h e n i was at home We rested on the log of a tree D had cut down & it look[ed] lovely & the blossoms on trees Smell delightful May 11th Mon A lovely morning . . . Min is home to day & she generaly very good to m e & this time fetched in my room a cup of tea & piece of Bread & butter After i dressed I mixed Bred & set to rise got dinner had Elija C h u r n Min printed it I watered flowers fed the Bird Skimed the milk & washed & scalded the usual a m o u n t of milk pans & cream can . . . J o h n is Harrowing Elija Shilling [shelling] corn all morning David is watering new orchard & Strawberry plants W h e n Elija took Min to train I sent 200 [lbs] flour 3 doz eggs 4 lbs butter to trade at Mr. M a t h e w s Store for soap coal oil & groceries June 2nd Tues . . . Josy & F a n n came with 2 bonnets for me to choose from But i had not time to considr J o h n & E & D cut & hauled willows for the Bowery J u n e conference next Sat & Sundy. . .

June 19 1891 Ine fetched me a p a n of gooseberries for wich i gave her cherries Bro Wood [Ine's father-in-law] Sees Signs in the weat [wheat] in the apple trees in the white clouds & he knows the great day of O u r Lord is near he left his Bless[ing] & went home T h e n I cleared u p & Viola helped me make a cake for J o h n Oct. 25th Sunday [her son, David, has died after days of illness] . . . and Frank was calling & telling David not to go not to die But of no avail for he is gone . . . my Poor D e a r Son But if its the Fathers will I must Stand it . . . But David looked like a lovely Sacrifice to me And I hope my heavenly F a t h e r will comfort me a n d help me too bear my great loss October 26th Monday day in lamentation

I feel to m o u r n greatly I miss him so . . . We all spend the

October 27th Tuesday I feel feeble & sorry But every thing looks pleasant T h e flowers at Davids head & feet take the gloom away President Smith came in to see David he seemed very sorry . . . Katy is gone to have Sis Bashabe [Bathsheba] Smith make Davids robe shoes & cap We d o not feel able to sew or do any more . . .

Pa & J o h n keep the ice refreshed around David T h e home is quiet & pleasant And i sit & watch by David & think of him & tell him & the Lord how i feel & callers come & go And this morning . . . the boys wanted me to take a ride u p to the grave yard to chose [choose] a place in our lot where to have David's grave dug . . . T h e sun shone w a r m on the place W e chose & our little ones played on the spot & on Clara's grave & went around gathering acorns while J o h n & the Sexton Bro Rigby marked the ground then took our orders afterwards Pa came & liked the place we chose. . .

Oct 28 Wednesday I a m u p at 7 Oclock this m o r n i n g . . . T h e morning is grey yet & the lamps are b u r n i n g And there lays D in the North East corner as peaceful & the flowers just as fresh as ever After a while the family are all astir & Frank has gone to fetch the Bishop his F a t h e r & Bro Mel R a n d a l l to help dress

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our boy for the burrial to day . . . H e looks very nice & is dressed lovely . . . then they place the h a r p or lyre on with all the rest of the beautiful flowers on top And i feel proud to show him to . . . 3 of his School mates just come by train . . . they feel so Sorry . . . lots of friends come . . . the room is full and . . . i was hurrying on my Bonnet And some one took all the flowers off & the Boys & cousins were carrying David out And soon the process[ion] was on its way . . .

1892 Jan 12th Tues T h e r e is So much too do . . . Jack hauls in ice alone to day But Elija helps him to pack it Bro Charles Rockwood Saws the ice for him Pa is gone to a meeting this evening down to Parishes to try to keep the little Moter [?]

Railroad from comeing u p through Centreville. . . fan 15th Friday . . . John & Pa went u p to u p p e r farm came home & shelled out Some corn Alice chopped meat & citron I looked over the fruit & had Elija peel the apples and I mixed some lovely mince meat our dinner is waiting But our ward teachers are come So we all quit work & come to answ r er w h a t they ask us as well as circumstance will let us We know the gospel is true & come too Stay. . .

April 6 [The family is in Salt Lake City to see the statue of the Angel Moroni raised to the T e m p l e spire] . . . then M r White ordered the m a n to drive us u p to West Tabernacle gate We drove u p main St through crowds of people & ve[h]icles and we were just in time to get good seats to See and hear Bro Lorenzo Young teach us to repeat the 3 Hosannahs to God & the L a m b Amen Amen Amens & wave our hankerchiefs with the assembly & m a r c h out with them & me & K a t e stood near the Stand u n d e r the flags at the South West corner where the Speakers Sat to make Speaches And I stood there when they laid the first foundation Stone in 1853 when my F a t h e r . . . was alive m o t h e r was there & all our family . . . And we are all alive But F a t h e r now I Saw the Signal to See the cap Stone or Angel Moroni go u p on the temple he is covered with gold leaf is 14 feet tall but looks like a youth of 19 years from the ground T h e T e m p l e is so tall We took a drink of wattr from the flowin well at the East gate inside the Temple grounds it was good watter We met friends then walked over to M r Whites office to meet Pa & Jack . . . We had ice cream & cake & W h e n time to go to train M r White Send a carrige to take me to the train. . .

April 11 Monday . . . This eve we went to S School Union meeting A nice ride in carriage had restitutions & Songs Min & Frank played on Banjo & guitar . . .

April 12 Wends [She means April 13th] I a m home all alone Pa & J o h n are gone to Bountiful with Big horse Frank & mason are hauling Sand I set on dinner Amelia took the girls to School T h e n Iter & Fan drove to Farmington to Women Suffrage meet But it was at 4 & they could not stay But dined at M r s Mrs M and met Aunt Zina Young there & had a good time F a n introduced Ame[lia] to Aunt Zina O n their way home they called on me 1893 Jan 7 Sat . . . Viola does neat u p rooms & sweeping Got a letter from K a t e . . .

Wants me to send 3 Turkeys all dressed to night O h dear I send Frank with them on 4 train Pa and J o h n are gone S. L City . . . girls sit u p late writing & studyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Pa don't touble about m u c h . . . Frank gone to Hoitsville 2 take 3 Turkeys to K a t e She will give me 20 cts per lb She very tired like me & needs rest from cares my cares are Prodigous

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Feb 10th Friday I have been very Poorly for a. week with a dreadfull cold on my lungs and a cough that racked my whole body O n e week ago 2 night We went 2 a Pioneer Ball They called it 1847 T h e Supper for that year was molasses cake & Squash Pie and for 1893 we had a piece of mince Pie & sugar cake with a cup of coffee both cost 10 cts Well the Ball was a great success They took in over 80$ But i took cold going from I tall 2 our waggon Some how And for 3 nights i have been in great distress of mind and body until this morning i rose feeling much better Katy Slept with me & has nursed me gave me nourishing drinks kept me so I could breathe for wich I feel very grateful 2 wards her Also i think i a m better. . .

March 5 Sun It rained and snowed this morning a while then stoped at 9 Oclock South East breese blowing and thawed all day roads very slushy & deep ruts in roads . . . W h e n folks came home [from conference in SLC] They said the roads were awful But the meeting was just lovely I asked what was the Subjects Preached on O h for our young men and women 2 get married Apostle Lyman Said he was only 17 when he got married But Said his oldest Son was 26 years old Before he married and he thought maybe he would never m a n y Said our y people must not drink tea nor Play cards And now Alice calls us all 2 dinner. . .

1894 Jan 16 Tues I got u p as usual felt as good as i could on Hearing Such news as we did . . . from Jack last eve when H e came from Band Practice last night I was rocking E m a 2 sleep when Fie Said Well the President is dead I was surprised for i thought H e would be sure 2 get well But he is dead 1 0 Well we heard it once before & made me feel very bad But i thought awhile & that old H y m n came 2 my mind you hear often in your H y m n Book gather first my friends around me those who 2 their covenants stood Those who humbly Sought & found me through the dying Saviours Blood O h i felt So S o n y for him I loved him much long ago & now if I knew him like I did then But i felt comforted it must be the Lords will But it seems 2 me something is wrong or he could get well if H e wanted 2 Feb 11 Sun Pa and Min went [to] afternoon meeting T h e missionary] from Bountiful Spoke 2 audience O n the message the Angel brought that was seen flying through the air blowing his T r u m p e t saying Repent Repent for the H o u r of the Son of M a n in neer You can read it in Revelations We had a stewed chicken for supper J o h n helped me set it on & wanted to wait on Pa & me so nice went 2 farmington 2 get Alice Brown dress fitted for wedding Feb 14 . . . rose early this morning 2 dress and go to Temple . . . with Alice 2 see her married 2 M r Smedly . . . There was 3 large Snow drifts 2 go through I saw them married met old friends many 2 my surprise July 5th Thursday This is fast day But none of us went only K a t e as I felt very tired after yesterday the 4 & as Pa had to go in cart to get his 2 tents home But I did not forget the Lords goodness 2 me in giveing me life & health & [to] be well enough to see an other 4 of Julyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;quite a day . . . for all the y[oung] men & boys Sold ice cream cake lemmons . . . i stayed at home but thought & prayed [over] any sin I may have done [Josephine Streeper Chase died two weeks later at her home.]

10

She refers to the death of the Davis Stake president, William Reed Smith.

Double Jeopardy: Visual Images of Mormon Women to 1914

BY DAVIS B I T T O N A N D GARY L . B U N K E R

Above: "Pure White 'Mormon Immigration'on the Atlantic Coast."

Courtesy Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

J r ICTORIAL P R E J U D I C E TOWARD W O M E N , 1 as well as ethnic, racial, and religious groups in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was typiDr. Bitton is professor of history, University of Utah. Dr. Bunker is associate professor of psychology, Brigham Young University.

1 This article is part of a larger project by the authors dealing with pictorial images of Mormonism between 1830 and 1914.

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cally American. 2 Although the media images of women were usually more subtle than the prevailing stereotypes of unpopular American minorities, they were no less effective in delineating the socially sanctioned province of women and punishing by ridicule any deviations from these accepted conventions of behavior. 3 For women belonging to an unpopular ethnic or religious group, there was double jeopardy. They could be maligned for the supposed attributes of their gender, the real or imagined characteristics of their group, or a more complex interaction between these factors. T h e image of the tyrannical Irish servant-girl, Bridget, or the domineering Irish housewife exemplify how gender and group interacted to fix an unfavorable image.'

As vulnerable as any women of this period to negative stereotyping were Mormon women. Although the literary dimensions of the subject have received some attention, no one has yet examined visual images of Mormon women. 5 Since the visual portrayals undoubtedly influenced American public opinion, perhaps more profoundly than verbal characterizations, they deserve analysis.

T h e pictorial images of Mormon women consisted of a complex collage of mental, moral, social, emotional, and physical elements. For purposes of analysis we are grouping the different elements into two general categories. T h e first concentrates on the systemic effect of Mormonism upon its female constituents. T h e system was portrayed as victimizing women, attracting undesirable female specimens to the fold, or some combination of the two. T h e second category exploited general stereotypes of women and applied them to the special case of Mormonism. Although there is unavoidable overlapping in these categories and the different images used to convey their message, they are sufficiently discriminant to warrant separate discussion. Several distinct images emerge from the analysis.

Mormon Women as Commodities. T o judge from many of the pictures, Mormonism provided no happiness for its women. Quite common were the representations showing them being treated as though they had 2 For example, see John Appel and Selma Appel, " T h e Grand Old Sport of Hating Catholics: American Anti-Catholic Caricature Prints," Critic, November-December 1971 pp.

50-58. :: Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle (New York: Atheneum, 1974). ' J o h n J. Appel, "From Shanties to Lace Curtains: The Irish Image in Puck, 1876-1910."

Comparative Studies in Society and History 13 (1971) : 3 6 5 - 7 5 .

5 Several studies have appeared on images of Mormon women, but none concentrating on visual images. See Claudia Bushman, Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah (Cambridge, Mass.: Emmeline Press, 1976).

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only instrumental value—as role occupants rather than humans. " I found a parody on the religion of the Bible and of the Koran," wrote one traveler to Utah, "sanctioning and prescribing the treatment of women, not as intellectual h u m a n beings, but as mere h u m a n toys." 6 T h e assertion that they were treated as less than h u m a n was reinforced by animal imagery.

"Brigham's wdiole herd of women" were "turned out into the enclosure to be aired." 7 "A carload of female recruits," "a fresh supply of wives" (as in fresh fish), "a cargo of recruited women," "a new lot of English female converts," and "recruiting inmates for the seraglios of U t a h " further expressed depersonalization. When someone asked, "Where's Brother Jones?" someone else replied, "Gone East to replenish his fall stock." 8 T h o m a s Nast, the celebrated cartoonist for Harper's Weekly, captured the essence of the theme by showing immigrant Mormon females being herded off a ship with signs around their necks designating their respective roles—cook, chambermaid, waitress, nurse, laundress, and seamstress. 9 Often women were shown as something betwoen sexual objects and cattle. A m a n might be shown dickering with a father over the "purchase" of his daughters—assessing their age and beauty to see how many he could bargain for with the livestock he was willing to trade. 10 An illustration depicting the "arrival of an installment of wives at Salt Lake" shows comely and fashionably dressed young ladies alighted from a train.

One poses prettily while a prosperous-looking gentleman holds her face by the chin and appears to be sizing up her physical attributes. 11 Similarly, another cartoon shows a father consenting to give away two attractive daughters with the stipulation that a third, ugly duckling type, be thrown in on the deal. 12 Once married, these M o r m o n women, according to the popular media, continued to receive affronts to their individuality. Insensitive or forgetful husbands could not keep their wives straight, and even failed to recognize a spouse now and then. I n this vein, an illustrator for Puck pictured an old businessman chastizing his office boy for not taking down his wife's " n a m e and n u m b e r " when she called. T h e most ridiculous extension of this idea appeared in Carl Pretzel's Weekly: c

A p p l e t o n ' s Handbook of American Travel. Western Tour (New York. 1872), p. 260. ' Harper's Weekly, October 9. 1858.

•s Argonaut. November 2 1 , 1904.

'•'Harper's Weekly, M a r c h 25, 1882.

10 M a r i a Ward, The Mormon Wife (Hartford, Conn., 1873) p. 325.

11 Alfred Trumble, The Mysteries of Mormonism (New York, 1882), p. 12.

32 Life, August 21, 1913.

Visual linages

of Mormon

Women

'Bringing Home the Fifth Wife." Courtesy Harold B. Lee

187

Library.

A M o r m o n editor of Salt Lake City has the following in a recent issue of his p a p e r : T h e unknown woman w h o was killed at this place about three m o n t h s ago by the cars proved to be one of the wives of the editor of this p a p e r ! A new count appears to have revealed the fact! 1 3

The Embattled Mormon Woman. It w7as not simply male versus female, for, according to a constantly reiterated theme, Mormon wives were engaged in horrendous domestic strife: new versus established wife, young versus old, and the husband in the middle. T h e arrival of a "new wife" was a situation whose emotional dynamics were frequently explored in visual representations. T h e husband usually enters the home with the new wife, young and well dressed, on his arm. T h e three or four other wives, older and in everyday housedresses, all stare at her. T h e children hide behind their mothers or show their curiosity by staring also. T h e new wife is shy or apprehensive, the older wives fearful, resentful, or angryâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and sometimes surprised. T h e emotional tension is always high. 11 ^'Argonaut, January 3 1 , 1885, reprinted from Carl Pretzel's Weekly. " A n n Eliza Young, Wife No. 19; or, The Story of a Life in Bondage (Hartford, Conn., 1876), p. 297; J.W. Buel, Metropolitan Life Unveiled; or. The Mysteries and Miseries of America's Great Cities . . . (Saint Louis, 1882), p. 450. For illustration see Harper's Weekly, January 2, 1875.

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QmjMl â&#x20AC;˘

"Better Halves in Utah." Courtesy Secured Art Brigham Young University.

*

Gallery,

Mormon males wore shown placing a high premium on youth. This prompted a warning to the young: "in time the present new-comer will have to take her place in the background in favor of some younger and more fascinating charmer." 1 ' One clever cartoon on "Better Halves in Utah" depicted age discrimination by showing a husband followod, in order of age, by five wives. A caption commented, "The first shall be last and the last shall be first."10 The Impoverished Mormon Woman. Mormon women were often portrayed as victims of poverty. An article on the "Dreadful State of the Women" noted: T h e r e are a m o n g this people . . . hundreds of females w h o have not a shift to their backs, and in instances not a few their outer garments (alias tatter and rags) are insufficient to conceal their nakedness as they go about the house. 1 7 ^Harper's Weekly, January 2, 1875.

T h e original illustration is in possession of the Secured Art Gallery, Brigham Young University.

"Harper's Weekly, September 25, 1858. lfi

Visual Images

C

of Mormon

'A Mormon Home Ruler."

Courtesy Harold B. Lee Library

Women

189 T o convey this predicament visually artists would show a poor, usually polygamous, rural family, whose members sit or stand outside a small, rough cabin. 18 An inside view of a poor Mormon home might show a small, cluttered room with women getting in each other's way, several children underfoot, and a tattered sheet hung from the ceiling to separate the beds in the sleeping area. 19 In one illustration, a woman sits on a bare chair in an almost empty room, holding one hand over her sad face and comforting her children with the other as they beg her for bread. 20 T h e effects of their harsh existence often showed on the faces of these women. Tired, worn-out features and sour expressions wore common. 21 Even young girls, apparently seeing no possibility of an improvement in their condition, looked dejected and dispirited. 22

The Subjugated Mormon Woman. Especially popular was the image of the Mormon woman as an overworked slave, tyrannized by her husband. In some scenes male domination was unmistakable. The husband points out to his new7 bride a sign over the door reading "I rule the ranch"â&#x20AC;&#x201D;with pistols, club, whip, and skull and crossbones mounted below7 it. T h e bride draws back aghast. 21 In other pictures the wife is shown as an all-purpose slave, toiling over huge tubs of laundry, 21 or beat1S

Buel, Metropolitan Life Unveiled, p. 478.

Mrs. T. B. H. Stenhouse, Expose of Polygamy in Utah: A Lady's Life among the Mormons (New York, 1872), p. 154.

20 Buel, Metropolitan Life Unveiled, p. 467.

21 Jennie Anderson Froiseth, The Women of Mormonism; or The Story of Polygamy (Detroit, 1882), p. 184.

22 Kate T a n n a t t Woods, Across the Continent (Boston, 1897), p. 189.

23 Trumble, Mysteries of Mormonism, p. 38.

-" Young, Wife No. 19, p. 532.

19

igQ

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ing the oxen and trying to lead them along while her husband, swigging from a bottle, rides in the wagon. 23 In several pictures, the husband holds a whip. T h e women, like slaves, labor in the fields.20 One picture, captioned "Wives as slaves toiling under the lash of the whip," shows several immigrant-convert-wives digging and scratching in the ground or carrying heavy sacks over their shoulders. Attached to their ankles are balls and chains bearing the labels "sealed" and "ignorance." Nearby sits the husband, a whip labeled "intimidation" tucked under his arm. H e is reading a sheet titled "Account money saved in farmhands." 2 7 T h e effort to draw- a parallel with southern Black slavery, already patent enough, is reinforced in this picture by a Black man carrying a scroll labeled "emancipation" who casually looks upon their labors. By implication, Mormon women were even worse off than the enslaved Black.

Mormon women were often pictured either fleeing from or being deserted by their husbands. O n e common scene shows the husband standing in the doorway, pointing his finger at the offending wife as he sends her out of the house. She clutches a small bundle of belongings and covers her face with her hand. 28 In a similar picture the ejected woman is an older woman, while the husband in the doorway embraces a younger, more pleasing wife.29 Another favorite scene is the woman either driven or fleeing from her home in a snowstorm, usually carrying a baby and accompanied by two or three small children. They may be heavily bundled or without any coats at all. T h e woman's face, if visible, show7s despair and hopelessness.'" T h e similarity to the pathetic flight of Liza in Uncle Toms Cabin would not have been lost on nineteenth-century readers.

The Worldly Mormon Woman. Periodically, illustrators painted lurid scenes of lust and debauchery. This was the Mormon-household-asharem motif, but sensuous Mormon women might, in the imagination of the public, have been enjoying this aspect of their experience. Several 28

Trumble, Mysteries

of Mormonism,

p. 38.

* Ibid., p. 18. "'William J a r m a n , Uncle Sam's Abscess; frontispiece.

28

or, Hell upon Earth

(Exeter, England, 1884),

Young, Wife No. 19, p. 3 1 .

29

Trumble, Mysteries of Mormonism, p. 58. " William Jarman, The Mountain Meadow Massacre of the Mormon Bishop John D. Lee (n.p., n . d . ) , p. 6. :

and the Confession

and

Execution

Visual Images of Mormon

'Last into Bed Put Out the Light."

Women

Courtesy

191

Yale

University

pictures fed this imagination by showing enthusiastic female participants.

Obviously anything that suggested orgies or sex would, in the past century, have been titillating to the mass audience. For this purpose baptism and temple ceremonies were occasionally portrayed pictorially and of course distorted in order to show attractive, seminude female figures." Even light-hearted, cartoon scenes, as the oversized bed of Brigham Young, or the popular separately published print, "Last into Bed Put Out the Light," could carry suggestive overtones.32 Though the most common theme of the worldly Mormon woman was lust; murder, torture, sadism, and other infamous patterns of behavior were occasionally part of the repertoire.

The Uncultured Mormon Woman. Ignorant, lowor class, and backward wore the essential components of this category. Rarely were Mormon women considered as gifted with strong minds. When a writer for Harper's Weekly visited Salt Lake City, he was "amused at the idea of 21 Trumble, Mysteries of Mormonism, pp. 14, 22, 52. and frontispiece. See also J. B. Franklin, The Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism (London, n . d . ) , p p . 3 7 8 - 7 9 ; and Buel, Metropolitan Life Unveiled, p. 369.

12 "Last into Bed Put O u t the Light," Yale University.

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strong-minded women" being in Utah. He conceded there wore a few like Eliza R. Snow, but then resorted to ridicule: "I asked 'if there were any connection between her homely face, her strong mind, her age and her name of Miss?' "33 A classic pictorial representation appeared in Wild Oats by the noted illustrator Edward Jump. 34 The pipe-smoking, unrefined, pregnant wife vividly portrays the stereotype.

Detractors explained that conversion to Mormonism was a means for poor, unintelligent, immigrant girls to come to America.

Pictorially, dozens of pictures "Brigham Young the Great showed the young females arriving American Family Man." Courtesy on the ship, being examined by the American Antiquarian Society. villainous polygamists, journeying to the West, and being sent out to the settlements. Although such women need not be mentally inferior, it was easy to picture them as lower class, uneducated people. The middle-class audience that read the illustrated weeklies throughout the country might very well feel some sympathy for these "victims" of a nefarious system, but it would be rather natural for the widespread nativist sentiment, which saw immigrants as an inferior group of uneducated rejects, to rub off on Mormonism and on Mormon women in particular.30 In some ways the most interesting explanation of Mormonism's appeal was pseudoscientific. A journalist for Harper's Weekly reported: I could not listen to the sermon for looking at those wretched and deluded women, who, first enslaved by this atrocious fanaticism, were then swayed at the will of their prophet. I asked myself what new principle of mental magnetism or psychology could fully explain their submission and his power. 3 6 33

Harper's Weekly, October 10, 1857.

Wild Oats, March 28, 1872.

33 Harper's Weekly, March 25, 1882.

30 Harper's Weekly, October 10, 1857.

34

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Women

193

The stock psychological answers were supplied by the theories of the day—mesmerism, phrenology, physiognomy, and humoral psychology.37 Such an explanation was quite consistent w7ith the ideas already expressed: lower-class, uneducated females would be particularly susceptible to such devices.

The Unsightly Mormon Woman. Sometimes several motives combined to stimulate a certain theme. Explaining how women could be attracted to such a repulsive system as Mormonism, demonstrating the horrible consequences of polygamy, illustrating the claim of some physicians or scientists,38 entertaining by making the subject ludicrous—all of these combined to encourage portrayals of Mormon women as unsightly physical specimens. And there wore literary parallels, evoking laughter at the expense of the Mormon women. Humorist Bill Nye's description is one of the harshest: I thought I had seen homely women before, but today was reserved for me a spectacle of Mormon hideousness that will haunt me always. In my opinion, polygamy carries its own punishment along with it. It is sufficient punishment for the men to stay in the house with the warty creatures they call their wives.39

Something similar to the above account, a motley crew of assorted fat, tall, "warty creatures," appeared in a Comic History of the United States.*0 Note the inclusion of Blacks and Orientals in the Mormon family, another strategy to disparage by highlighting physical difference.41 All of the visual motifs examined to this point might be considered as anti-Mormon rather than antiwomen. The real target of the criticism, in other words, may have been Mormonism as a system. As one comic writer put it, in the dialectical humor fashionable at the time: "Der Mormon relitchion is pilt on der ruin und disgrace of voomans und der wreck uf decency."12 These are the kinds of women that Mormonism attracts, and this is what Mormonism does to its women—this w7as prob37 Gary L. Bunker and Davis Bitton, "Some Antecedents of Psychology and the Legitimization of Stereotypes." Paper presented to the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, August 29, 1977.

38 J. H. Beadle, for example, saw the deleterious effects of polygamy in the "strange dullness of moral perception, a general ignorance and apparently inherited tendency to vice."

Quoted in Kimball Young, Isn't One Wife Enough? (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1954), p. 24. !!

' Argonaut,

40

October 8, 1881, reprinted from the Laramie

John D. Sherwood, The

41

Comic History

of the United

Boomerang.

States

(Boston, 1870), p. 452.

For another example of the identification of Mormons with other minorities see April 28, 1904, p. 404.

'-Judge,

August 22, 1885.

Life,

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194

"yf Mormon

Family Out for a Walk."

Courtesy Library of

Quarterly

Congress.

ably the prime thrust as it was understood by the cartoonists and w7riters.

But this larger intention was small comfort to the Mormon women, for they wore scarcely being flattered.

Also available to the illustrators were negative stereotypes of women in general. Familiar for many generations in American and European society, these traditional images took on an air of novelty as they were adapted in portraying M o r m o n plural wives. It was not new7 to show women as fickle and flirtatious, as acquisitive and domineering, as crotchety mother-in-law, or as unlovely, "pushy" women's rights activists, but all of these in their M o r m o n variants assumed an exotic aspect and renewed their humor in the new setting.

Unlike the images previously discussed, this category tended to shift the burden of interpersonal difficulty in polygamous marriage squarely on the shoulders of women. One woman was bad enough in a marriage, two or more incomparably worse. Multiple w7ives were harbingers of multiple male woes. 43 O n e verse, from a larger poem describ1:1 An editorial in one of the humorous weeklies actually saw Mormonism as a challenge to this stereotype. " T h e strenuous exertions made by Mormondom to establish the right to contract polygamous marriages knocks the bottom clear out of one of the most popular superstitions of the dayâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;we refer to the belief that man, as a rule, finds one wife to be so much of a nuisance that two or three of them would render life intolerable." San Francisco Wasp, January 25, 1879.

Visual Images

of Mormon

195

Women

"Frightful Scene of Carnage arid Desolation at the Sack of Salt Lake by the United States Troops." Courtesy Harold B. Lee Library.

City

ing Brigham Young's encounter with Saint Peter at the pearly gates, underscores the spirit of this general category.

"Who's there" asked Pete "Only Brigham Young," said the m a n with a humble grin.

"Nineteen wives," mused Pete "Well you've had your hell, I guess we may let you in!" 4 4

Several images have contributed to this multiple wife-multiple woe conception.

The Fickle, Flirtatious Mormon Woman. At least as early as the U t a h War, Mormon females wore portrayed as especially susceptible to the w7iles of Gentile men. T h e solution of the war and the demise of polygamy wore often tied to this imagery. 45 This idea appeared in an early cartoon from Harper's Weekly.40 " San Francisco Wasp, September 22, 1877.

See Gary L. Bunker and Davis Bitton, "Illustrated Periodical Images of Mormons, 1850-1860," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10 (1977) : 82-94. "'Harper's Weekly, May 22, 1858.

4j

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Ao*A

"77iÂŤ Orc/y Solution

to the Mormon

Problem."

Courtesy Library of

Congress.

Thirty years later when the Mormon right to vote was denied by antipolygamy legislation and non-Mormons gained political control of Salt Lake City, the image resurfaced. Old Mormon males "with a superabundance of young wives" were "amazed to see the gallant Gentiles picking the prettiest from the flock."47 Actually the image kaleidoscopically recurred in different forms and colors. When the Japanese ambassador to the United States visited Salt Lake City in the 1870s, a cartoonist for Leslie's Weekly pictured overly anxious Mormon females soliciting the ambassador's attention.48 Other versions saw female flirts attracting males to polygamyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;"No wonder a man is a bigamist."49 The Acquisitive Mormon Woman. The female, fashion-conscious spendthrift was magnified by Mormonism. Life published an abbreviated, fictionalized "Diary of a Mormon." One entry revealed: "Spring open47

San Francisco Wasp, February 22, 1890. * Leslie's Weekly, February 24, 1872.

411 Judge, December 15, 1883.

Visual Images

of Mormon

Women

197

ings! Today one of my better sixteenths stole away from me while I was snatching some much-needed sleep and went shopping. I see my finish!"""

And Hepworth Dixon, after seeing Harper's Bazar for sale in Salt Lake City, was even more explicit. "Whatever might have been possible in an isolated community, where women dressed in calico and sun-bonnets, plural marriage could not exist in company with fashion journals which set waves dressing against each other." 51 Cartoonists eagerly picked up on the same theme. One cartoon presents " T h e Only Solution of the Mormon Problem" by showing Mormon wives in a state of ecstatic joy as they see shops that offer for sale perfumes, candies, and the latest fashions. They paw the poor husband from all sides, emptying his pockets by force. Another polygamous family in the background is seen walking along, the husband heading a file of wives, with two or three of the wives breaking away from the group and starting to run toward the shops they have just noticed from a distance. 52 T h e message may have been serious enough: polygamy as an institution simply cannot maintain itself for financial reasons, once the goods and commodities from the national market become more available in Utah. But with respect to women one could also readily conclude that "women will be women," thus adapting to the Mormon scene an existing negative stereotype of women as frivolous creatures whose materialistic interest in fashions and perfumes dominates their lives.

The Domineering Mormon Woman. I n t e n d i n g the nagging, domineering wife image to Mormonism was predictable. A reporter got the following response from an apocryphal "Senator Gilfeathers" w7hen asked his opinion on the Mormon issue: " H e said that one wife was all any m a n wanted. H e had had personal experience himself and knew of wrhat he spoke; and he exhibited a beautiful broom-stick bruise which he had got for coming home late from the club as evidence." 3 Naturally, the Mormon husband was the target of multiple broom-wielding wives.' 1 Although the ecclesiastical leadership of the church was usually depicted totally in command, some humorists could not resist the temptation to use the domineering female theme. Joseph F. Smith, surrounded by three enormous, formidable women, was caricatured in a New York 50

Life, May 5, 1904. "â&#x20AC;˘' Harper's Weekly, October 12. 1889. '"'-' George Y. Coffin, " T h e Only Solution of the Mormon Problem," Print Division. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. "Judge, March 11, 1882. :A Judge, December 17, 1881.

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Above: "There Are Influences Greater Than the Government in Utah." R i g h t : "Too Much Mother-in-Law." Both courtesy Harold B. Lee Library.

World cartoon of 1904 over the caption "There Are Influences Greater T h a n Government in Utah." 5 5 Similarly, a cartoon in the Minneapolis Journal pictured B. H . Roberts's three wives with rolling pin, cane, and broom under the clever caption "Roberts' Rules of Order." 5 6 Some humorous dialogue from Life drew a similar conclusion concerning the Roberts case. " 'I see there is some criticism because one of the newCongressmen has three wives.' 'Why should there be?' 'They claim he is controlled by a syndicate.' ""'7 As with other facets of the image, it was not a new theme; the traditional woman as shrew was simply taken over and given a fresh twist in the Mormon setting by introducing more women.

T h e epitome of the assertive, ill-tempered female, a stock figure for centuries, was the mother-in-law. Recognizing that a tried and proven humorous device would be even funnier if there were several such women, the caricaturists introduced many versions of Mormon mother-in-lawjokes and cartoons. O n e such illustration was captioned: " T o o Much Mother-in-Law 7 ." 58 T h e r e is nothing original about them except the increased number of women pictured.

5

"' Salt Lake Salt Lake "' Argonaut, :,s Trumble, M

Tribune. December 27. 1904, reprinted from New York World.

Tribune, November 25. 1889, reprinted from Minneapolis Journal.

February 20. 1899. reprinted from Life.

Mysteries of Mormonism, p. 48.

Visual Images of Mormon

Women

199

0

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' W i ^

<.MÂą .&

<Z\7\iS

K

U fV

M-

Nr \ ^

.JSZH^L "Mormonism

Is on the Wane in Utah." Courtesy Library of

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l

Congress.

Some misogynists would combine several images into one as they denounced female suffragists, often portrayed as ill-tempered, domineering viragoes or ridiculed as mindless kitchen servants or frivolous followers of fashion.59 Since Mormon women were already being similarly stereotyped, there was no need to tar them with another brush. Actually, they deserved to be identified with the women's movement, at least to some extent, for they had enjoyed the franchise early, agitated to regain it after the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 abolished it, and in other respects identified with national women's causes.0" These political activities of Mormon women were ridiculed from the first. Giving them the vote, according to the Argonaut, "is to give to a mob of ignorant, foreign-born females the privilege of sending a Representative to Congress."01 Finally, one cartoon brought the two unpopular causes together visually. Four plain, crotchety women with banners of feminism draped around them, were shown attacking a symbolic Mormon male. It is not clear whether the symbolic women represented the national movement or the hope that Mormon women would have the pictured effect. The stereotype of M O t h e r images appeared infrequently in the popular media, such as the talkative Mormon woman. " 'But to my mind,' said the clerical tourist from the East, 'a plurality of wives is unspeakable.' 'Huh,' snorted the good-natured Mormon. 'I never even heard of one wife that was unspeakable.' " Argonaut, July 13, 1907, reprinted from Philadelphia Press. ''"' Beverly Beeton, "Woman Suffrage in the American West, 1869-1896," (Ph.D. diss..

University of Utah, 1 9 7 6 ) ; and Jean B. White, "Woman's Place Is in the Constitution: T h e Struggle for Equal Rights in U t a h in 1895," Utah Historical Quarterly 42 ( 1 9 7 4 ) : 344-69.

"Argonaut, January 15, 1881.

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feminism was clear—old battle-axes wielding their weapons with man on the run. 02 Not all of the pictures of Mormon women were negative. Perhaps because it was unconvincing to think that all Mormon women were ugly of feature and unattractive in personality, or perhaps because it would be difficult to enlist support for a crusade to rescue such women, they were sometimes portrayed in a more positive light. When their physical beauty was included as part of the picture, it was done with different emphases and in different contexts. Quite common was the Mormon female as modest, lovely, and desirable. T h e more chaste, virtuous type of Mormon woman was often the object of seduction attempts, usually by old or at least unattractive men, or by a "missionary" more interested in seducing innocent young girls than in gathering converts.

Some visual renditions even pictured Mormon females as genuinely attractive or dignified without recourse to ulterior motives. Several of the illustrations in Leslie's Weekly show woll-dressed, attractive women with an air of competence. T h e wives of Brigham Young, as shown in "Reserved Circle for Wives of Brigham Young in the Mormon T h e a t r e " (February 12, 1870) and in "Brigham Young's Family Buying Fish" (February 5, 1870) are attractive and well dressed. T h e same year " M o r m o n Leader with the Last Seal" portrays an older m a n with a young wife, but neither is cruelly caricatured (February 12, 1870). These may be members of woalthy families, to be sure, but a larger group was shown in " M o r m o n Demonstrations in Honor of Daniel Wells" (May 31, 1879). It is a demonstration or march of determined women with locked arms; flags are flying and signs bear such slogans as "Women in Favor of Polygamy." T h e accompanying article observed another slogan at the scene: " W e care less for the cut of our aprons than the loss of our rights."" 1 Although the whole incident may well have aroused amusement, amazement, or alarm, the women themselves do not appear as lowor-class servant girls, feeble-minded, or immoral trollops; they are well dressed, attractive, and, insofar as such traits can be portrayed artistically, intelligent and competent. A final example printed in the same periodical on February 15, 1870, showed a Mormon farmer and his family—three wives and two children—in an ox-cart returning from Salt Lake City. T h e subject itself might have been titillating enough, but the women wore not subjected to visual maligning. c2

' Life, June 25, 1914.

'•"Leslie's Weekly,May 31, 1879.

Visual Images of Mormon

Women

201

' r ':v

"Detachment of 400 Mormon Women." Courtesy Library of Congress.

Similar examples or more realistic or positive representations can be found for the Jews, Irish, American Indians, Chinese, and others as well as for women in general. The fact remains that all of these were subjected to visual defamation. The same is true of Mormon women.

In conclusion, intolerance of women and Mormons presented special problems for those sharing this double identity. In most cases, the frontal attack against Mormon women was really a broadside assault on their faith. Occasionally the "Mormon problem" wras used as a pretext to say something unfavorable about women in general. And at other times "femaleness" and "Mormonness" combined to form a powerful caricature of reality.

The Mormons wore aware of the unfavorable press they were receiving and did not see it as harmless, for it created a climate of opinion in which punitive legislation could be enacted. Efforts wore made to counteract the negative current. One of the reasons for the "indignation meetings" of Mormon women was to present a more favorable image of themselves and their views to the national public. "Were we the stupid, degraded, heartbroken beings that we have been represented, silence might better become us," said Eliza R. Snow7, sixty-five-year-old leader of

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the church's women; "but as women of God, . . . we not only speak because we have the right, but justice and humanity demand that we should."04 She was attempting to put forward a counterimage, what Gail Farr Casterline has called "onward for Zion" as opposed to "in the toils."65 In speeches and some writings there was perhaps some success in such a strategy. It would be incorrect to think of these women as helpless in the face of a tidal wave of disapproval. The Woman's Exponent proclaimed a positive conception of Mormon women for many years.66 The positive counterimage had its limitations, however, in that it was essentially verbal and largely localized. In the meantime, continuing to mold opinion on the subject were anti-Mormon plays and novels.67 And pictorially, as we have seen, the Mormon women were subjected to a representation that was almost always negative.

The Mormon women were misrepresented in about the same w7ay as women in general, but with a difference: polygamy made it possible to give an added fillip to the unkind portrayals.08 Perhaps like Black women or Irish women, the Mormons were part of the general negative stereotyping of females w ith an added painful thrust accorded to minority groups. To adapt a phrase used in another connection, Mormon women in the nineteenth century wore American women with a difference. And in the pictorial representations, at least, that difference w7as an increased burden of ridicule and opprobrium. <!1

Deseret Neivs Weekly, J a n u a r y 19, 1870. '':' Gail F a r r Casterline, " 'In the Toils' or ' O n w a r d for Z i o n ' : Images of the Mormon W o m a n , 1 8 5 2 - 1 8 9 0 , " (M.A. thesis, U t a h State University, 1974.) m Carol Cornwall Madsen, " R e m e m b e r the Women of Zion: A Study of the Editorial Content of the Woman's Exponent, a M o r m o n Woman's J o u r n a l , " (M.A. thesis, University of U t a h , 1977).

07 L e o n a r d J. Arrington a n d J o h n H a u p t , "Intolerable Zion: T h e Image of Mormonism in Nineteenth Century American L i t e r a t u r e , " Western Humanities Review 22 (1968) : 2 4 3 - 6 0 . <iS Carol Wald, Myth America: Picturing Women 1865-1945 (New York, 1975).

ENTERPRISING W O M E N

April 18, 1849. . . .We are spinning some candle wick which we shall try to sell for bread stuff. There is an old Lady who goes round and peddles whatever any one has to sell and as there are no stores in the town or Territory she has very good success.

February 19, 1856. During the last eighteen months we have done weaving to the amount of 102 dollars . . . besides a great amount of other work, such as sewing, spinning, coloring, house work, tending garden, both planting and gathering, and almost every kind of work that a woman was ever known to do.

"Life and Journal of Eliza Maria Partridge Lyman"

Essays of the American West, 1974-75. Edited by T H O M A S G. ALEXANDER. Charles R e d d M o n o g r a p h s in Western History, No. 6. (Provo, U t . : Brigham Y o u n g U n i versity Press, 1976. V + 147 p p . Paper, $4.95.)

T h e essays in this volume were presented as part of the Charles Redd Lectures on the American West at Brigham Y o u n g University during the 1974-75 academic year. As the introduction to the volume indicates they "deal with various aspects of Western developm e n t " and reflect a wide "diversity of Western experience."

T h e essays, in order of their appearance in the volume, a r e : " T h e Western Experience of Henry Adams," Richard A. Bartlett; " T h e Eliza E n i g m a : T h e Life and Legend of Eliza R. Snow," Maureen Ursenbach Beecher; " M c Carthyism in the Mountains, 1950-54," F. Ross Peterson; "Social Accommodations in U t a h , " Clark S. K n o w l t o n ; " C o m p a r a t i v e Frontiers: C h i n a and the West," Paul V. H y e r ; and " T h e Paradox of M o r m o n Folklore," William A. Wilson.

After a brief but interesting biographical sketch of Henry Brooks Adams, M r . Bartlett reviews in a perceptive m a n n e r Adams's five trips to the American West during the period 1871 to 1894. Fie also calls attention to Adams's attendance at the World's Fairs (Expositions) at Chicago and Saint Louis in 1893 and 1904 respectively. Fie examines his western experience via family contacts, particularly through his brother, Charles Francis Adams, and through western friends who included Clarence King, Bret Flarte, J o h n Flay, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Bartlett appears disappointed that Adams saw no great lessons nor histori-

cal implications in his western experience such as James Bryce, Henry George, and Frederick Jackson T u r n e r expressed in their writings. Perhaps this was too m u c h to expect of a person whose total experience in the West was less than six months and whose historical interests were oriented more toward the eastern seaboard and Europe as reflected in Adams's nine-volume History of the United States during the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison and the volume on Mont-SaintMichel and Chartres.

Ms. Beecher, u n d e r the headings of "poetess," "prophetess," "priestess," and "presidentess," and with effective and illustrative examples, provides the reader with an excellent insight into the character and accomplishments of Eliza R. Snow. T h e significance of Eliza R. Snow's efforts are clearly indicated, even though the essayist gives her little credit for innovation and creativeness. Yet her ability to take ideas and make them become meaningful and real and to implement them were clearly consequential. This essay is interesting as a backd r o p for the women's movement in the contemporary era.

"McCarthyism in the Mountains, 1950-54," is a thoughtful presentation on a regional basis of what was a national phenomenon. T h e impact of this movement on the political and personal lives of outstanding western leaders is clearly and effectively outlined and documented. T h e movement succeeded in removing from political life Glen

Utah Historical

204 Taylor in I d a h o and Elbert T h o m a s in U t a h . I t h a d even more tragic consequences for Lester C. H u n t in Wyoming.

I n spite of its unfortunate impact, Alike Mansfield and James M u r r a y survived it in M o n t a n a , as did Joseph O ' M a h o n e y in Wyoming, suggesting that M c C a r thyism was not a guarantee for political victory in the M o u n t a i n West.

Clark S. Know4ton's "Social Accommodation in U t a h " is an essay which, as the author suggests, focuses more upon questions than answers. Yet the questions are important and provocative and need to be studied and answered. Because of the long-standing M o r m o n n o n - M o r m o n issues, the cultural diversity in the state, the expansion of M o r monism via its worldwide missionary system, social accommodation becomes consequential both internally and externally. H o w can the predominantly Anglo-American culture in U t a h accommodate the growing cultural consciousness of its I n d i a n population? its Mexican-American citizens? its Black population? H o w can Mormonism with its Anglo-American orientation relate, in the long run, to the growing n u m b e r of converts in diverse cultures all over the world? These are the types of m e a n ingful questions raised in the essay.

O n e of the more important impacts of M r . Knowlton's essay may be to provide new vistas for social science researchers. T h e r e would appear to be a fertile field for their endeavors in the area he has explored.

Mr. Hyer's essay on " C o m p a r a t i v e Frontiers: C h i n a and the West" suggests contrasts as well as comparisons.

Whereas the American and Russian frontiers brought changes to old institutions and ideas, often effecting a newstyle of life, Chinese institutions were little changed as they extended into the frontier.

American character has been significantly influenced by its frontier experience. Apparently, the frontier experi-

Quarterly

ence of the Chinese had little real influence on Chinese personality and attitudes.

Until recently, Chinese penetration of the Mongol frontier was rather shallow, while there was broad and deep penetration of the American and Russian frontiers. T h e r e were similarities on the frontiers in that the expanding nationalities tended to impose their will and culture on the frontier peoples. O t h e r similarities involved expansion via individual entrepreneurs as well as by organized governmental political action.

Occupation of frontiers also occurred in the interest of national security, real or imagined. Lawlessness appears to be a standard feature of frontiers everywhere.

T h e last part of M r . Hyer's essay is devoted to case studies of a private land developer. W a n g T ' u n g - C h ' u n , and a government colonization promoter, I K u . This part would be of particular interest to students of Chinese frontier

history.

Comparative studies of frontiers of the nature of Mr. Hyer's should help provide greater insight into particular frontiers: for example, our own experience in western America.

A major thesis of Mr. Wilson's " T h e Paradox of M o r m o n Folklore" is that folklore is the unofficial part of M o r m o n culture that is maintained through the process of oral transmission. H e rather effectively supports this thesis with a variety of interesting examples. T h r o u g h folklore, suggests 'Wilson, important attitudes, aspirations, desires, and concerns are expressed a n d / o r discovered. Folklore serves as a means of social regulation and a source of psychological release, both important and necessaiy in any culture.

Of particular interest in M r . Wilson's essay are the folklore illustrations associated with the T h r e e Nephites and the J. Golden Kimball stories. T h e p a r a d o x of M o r m o n folklore is: " O n the one

205

Book Reviews and Notices h a n d it persuades members to accept and support church dogma and practice; on the other it provides them with the means of coming to terms with the tensions such support at times imposes upon them."

Because of its nature, folklore is universal and has universal appeal. It provides color and interest for the historian, but it also poses challenges in the process of ascertaining facts and arriving at truth.

All the essays are well documented.

Because of their variety they should have

appeal for a wide spectrum of readers.

T h e serious student and scholar along with the general reader will find food for thought and enjoyment.

Perhaps the most impressive feature of the volume is the succinct and incisive statement of the editor which precedes each essay. Each thoughtful editorial statement provides the reader excellent insight with which to approach the reading of the essay.

D E L L O G.

Weber State

DAYTON

College

Fort Supply: Brigham Young's Green River Experiment.

By [FRED R.] G O W A N S and [ E U G E N E E.] C A M P B E L L . (Provo, U t . : Brigham Young University Press, 1 976.

Iv 4-83 p p . $2.95.)

Probably no more than a handful of motorists w h o travel that m u t e concrete b a n d connecting our coasts â&#x20AC;&#x201D; called Interstate 80 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; are mindful as they cross the southwest corner of Wyoming that they are traversing a region t h a t nearly a century and a half before was the nucleus of M o r m o n pioneer activity in this yet sparsely settled area of the American West. T o d a y there remains little physical evidence to testify to the industry of pioneer missionaries that labored to develop a center for the outreach of the L D S church a m o n g the I n d i a n tribes of the Green River basin.

With the publication of this latest work by professors Fred Gowans and Eugene Campbell the silence of the past has been broken, and the role of Fort Supply in the development of the local region is manifest.

Overshadowed by the more famous fur trading post built by James Bridger which occupied the same valley, Fort Supply was functioning as a mission outpost for at least two years prior to 1855 when Bridger and Vasquez m a d e their decision to sell their jointly owned fort to the L D S church. T h e authors convincingly present the thesis that the pioneers w h o built Fort Supply were in-

strumental in pacifying and civilizing the Indians, nullifying the influence of the m o u n t a i n m e n to monopolize the lucrative Green River ferry business, a n d extending church control to the area immediately east of Zion, in the Salt Lake Valley. As an adjunct to their mission, Fort Supply was to lend logistical support to the plan for the immigration of M o r m o n converts to U t a h from the East a n d Europe. More than likely, it was the latter function that was the most appreciated, for M o r m o n pioneer literature abounds with tribute to the Saints who m a n n e d the outpost.

D u r i n g the period 1853-57, faithful members of the church responded to the repeated calls of the authorities for service at the wilderness fort. Unfortunately, optimistic plans for the expansion of the physical plant and its mission operations were abruptly, if not tragically, terminated u p o n the approach of federal troops in 1857, dispatched to quell a largely imagined M o r m o n rebellion. T h e incident (termed by some the U t a h War, while others prefer the U t a h Expedition) caused the church to a b a n d o n and destroy the product of five years of hard labor. T h e long-range effect of that act was the postponement

Utah Historical

206 of t h e development of p e r m a n e n t agriculture in the region for another generation.

Gowans a n d Campbell, members of the History D e p a r t m e n t at Brigham Y o u n g University, have based their work on previously published pioneer diaries a n d reminiscences, on u n t a p p e d manuscript journals, a n d on official correspondence gleaned from careful sifting of L D S sources in Salt Lake City. and Provo, U t a h . C o n t e m p o r a r y illustrations a n d photographs of prominent pioneers, L D S officials, military persons, a n d I n d i a n leaders gathered from archival sources, coupled with recent photographs a n d artist-rendered scenes of the landscape and physical structures ably serve to acquaint t h e reader with the personalities a n d places associated with the history of Fort Supply.

T h e persons w h o will be disappointed in this work because of oversights committed by t h e authors, or the publisher, divide themselves into three groups: T h e first will be t h e librarians, w h o will experience difficulty in cataloging this book, for the full names of the authors have been omitted from t h e title page.

T h e second group will be composed of researchers who, with regret, will discover t h a t information contained in t h e volume cannot be readily retrieved, for there is n o index. And, t h e third group will be composed of those readers u n -

Colonization and

on the Little Colorado:

J. MORRIS

RICHARDS.

Quarterly

familiar with the landscape on which the d r a m a of the Fort Supply story unfolds, for the maps d o not match the quality of the narrative. I t is the latter deficiency t h a t most detracts from t h e scholarly value of the book; and, in this regard, the authors a n d the publisher will have to bear the responsibility for accepting maps that decorate rather than illuminate. T h e large format of the publication certainly offered ample opportunity for the inclusion of a n y n u m b e r of a p propriate m a p s of historical or topographical design. Instead, t h e reader is offered maps cannibalized from t h e authors' earlier works t h a t rather thinly depict the landscape from a planimetrichydrographic perspective, overlooking the region's m a n y salient topographical features.

Modestly priced, the book should find wide circulation for this fact alone.

However, the real value of this work is that it illuminates a corner of L D S church history, as well as local history, that has for too long been neglected. Its focus upon ordinary men whose cooperative efforts produced unordinary results presents a contrast refreshingly different to a m o d e r n age marked by discord and cynicism.

TODD I. BERENS

Santa Ana,

California

The Joseph City Region. By GEORGE S. T A N N E R Ariz.: N o r t h l a n d Press, 1977. X v i + 200

(Flagstaff,

pp. $12.50.)

George S. T a n n e r , a retired L D S I n stitute instructor a n d son of one of Joseph City's original pioneers, has spent m a n y years collecting primary source material, principally in the form of diaries a n d journals, on M o r m o n colonization of t h e Little Colorado region of northern Arizona. These m a t e rials have been m a d e available to major libraries in U t a h , Arizona, a n d California. This book represents a culmina-

tion of T a n n e r ' s long-standing interest and firsthand acquaintance with the Arizona colonies. H e teamed u p with J. Morris Richards, a colleague a t Brigh a m Y o u n g University a n d also a resident of northern Arizona, to produce this chronicle. Richards acted chiefly as an editor a n d rewrote portions of the manuscript. D r . Carol Rainey of the Northern Arizona University library staff also assisted in editing t h e m a n u -

Book Reviews and Notices script and preparing it for publication.

T h e result is a very readable and enlightening account of M o r m o n colonization on the Little Colorado.

T h e main purpose of the book is to give the reader a glimpse of the colonization process, the trials and tribulations resulting in the failure and a b a n d o n ment of three of the four colonies founded in 1876, and the life-style of these pioneer colonists. In this the authors succeed. T h e general reader will gain greater insight into and an a p preciation for the difficulties experienced by the pioneers, their tenacity in the face of natural disasters of flood and drought, their forms of recreation a n d entertainment, the functioning of the United Order, the problems of isolation, the internal dissension present in some settlements, and the final dissolution of three colonies. T h e reader cannot help but empathize with these struggling pioneers as they build dams, dig canals, plow and plant only to have the fruits of their labors wiped out by flash floods time and time again.

T h e i r story tugs at the heart strings.

Yet, the serious scholar will find the look at colonization on the Little Colorado offered by this book less than satisfying. T h e brevity of treatment too often merely scratches the surface rather than plows the ground. Such c h a p t e r headings as " W h y T h e y C a m e , " " H o w T h e y C a m e , " " W h a t T h e y F o u n d , " and " L a n d Problems" suggest penetrating and substantive research and analysis that would allow the authors to arrive at definitive conclusions concerning such questions and topics. However, each of these chapters consists of only four to ten pages and often includes one or more pages of quotes from diaries or journals.

Surely such topics deserve more careful and extensive examination. Such superficial treatment sometimes leads to u n supported generalizations.

Concerning the reason for 200 families coming to the Arizona colonies, the authors make this statement:

207 T h e 200 men themselves felt that they were being called to be missionaries.

Those w h o went to Arizona and stayed did so in the firm conviction that their "call," h a d come from a prophet of God, a n d therefore was as binding as though God himself had spoken to them. T h e y remained for the rest of their lives because their leaders w a n t e d t h e m to establish p e r m a n e n t settlements in the areas to which they were sent (p. 135).

Although the above statement is no doubt true of some Arizona pioneers, it is also overly simplistic. If it were universally true, why did three of the four settlements fail and the large majority of the initial settlers in every community leave? Is it safe to assume that those w h o did not stay viewed their "call" with less conviction and thought it less binding than those w h o did stay? I suspect that comparative prosperity m a y have had as m u c h to d o with w h o stayed a n d w h o left as differences in commitm e n t to the cause. F u r t h e r m o r e , spiritual commitment to the mission call was probably not the only reason for coming to Arizona. My own research concerning M o r m o n settlement elsewhere would lead me to believe that at least some of those w h o accepted the mission call to Arizona were motivated secondarily, if not primarily, by the perceived opportunity to improve their socio-economic status by getting in on the ground floor of a newly founded colony and that the companies probably included a n u m b e r of volunteers. J o h n R. Young's letter to the Arizona mission leaders J a n u a r y 10, 1877, offers some support for this view: "Some of the brethren in your camps have developed an inclination to come without being called and to run when they are not sent." In a chapter entitled " W h y T h e y C a m e " it would seem that these possibilities should be examined along with a more thorough analysis of why Brigham Y o u n g insisted on establishing colonies on the Little

208 Colorado in spite of negative reports from previous exploration parties.

Numerous other examples could be cited illustrating the need for greater depth in examining M o r m o n colonization in Arizona than is offered in this book. Like many other local histories, it would benefit from an effort to put local events into perspective by relating them to w h a t is h a p p e n i n g elsewhere in the state a n d in the nation. It would also benefit from the addition of more detailed maps.

Yet, one should keep in mind that this book is written for the layman, not the professional scholar. Anyone familiar with the area and its people will enjoy this book. For one who is personally

Utah Historical

Quarterly

acquainted with the descendants of these first settlers, many of w h o m will no doubt read the book, T a n n e r is surprisingly open and frank in discussing the abrasive personality traits of Lot Smith a n d other local church leaders. H e pulls no punches in identifying dissension as a major contributing cause to the demise of Obed and Brigham City. O n balance, it is a welcome addition to settlement literature. T h e publisher is to be commended for the high quality job of printing, binding, and photo reproduction.

W A Y N E L.

WAHLQUIST

Weber State

College

The Bonanza Kings: The Social Origins and Business Behavior of Western Mining Entrepreneurs, 1870-1900.

By RICHARD H . P E T E R S O N . (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977. Xvi + 191 p p . $9.95.)

I n the years since they acquired their riches and fame, those men known as bonanza kings have been the subject of m u c h interest and have used u p a lot of printer's ink. Richard Peterson has selected fifty of these individuals w h o m a d e millions, or nearly so, in western mining a n d smelting and then analyzed their business and social behavioral characteristics. W h a t m a d e a successful mining entrepreneur is the book's main theme. Primarily, Peterson examines the causes of their economic success in an a t t e m p t to "determine how mining entrepreneurs secured and m a n a g e d property, labor, capital and technology in order to succeed" (p. x i v ) .

O n e of his best chapters is entitled "Capital a n d Technology: Business Alliances." Perhaps because the author felt more comfortable with this subject, or because it fit his thesis best, he presents a fascinating look into this key to the success or failure of western mining.

The Bonanza Kings is not an easy book to review; it raises m a n y questions. Its greatest significance will be for the interested layman, because Peter-

son has pulled together m a n y secondary sources and a great deal of information and worthwhile conclusions. T h e book reads easily, and the a u t h o r does not dwell extensively on any issue. T h e r e are, however, weaknesses in this approach that limit the book's usefulness.

For instance, Peterson has a sublime grasp of the obvious, which anyone w h o has spent any time in western mining history will realize instantly. Some of the ideas he apparently believes are new are not. H e is also forced into the corner by making some sweeping generalizations with too few examples to support them. Does, for example, w h a t he has to say about the extraordinary few hold true for other mine owners? Even among the bonanza kings, is the sampling valid?

His reliance on secondary sources means that he prospects rather than digs directly on the vein, a concept that in itself is not a bad idea. This leaves the author, though, at the mercy of his sources, some of which may be questioned as self-serving or unreliable, a trap into which he stumbles. O t h e r books have been published recently that

Book Reviews and Notices discuss in depth some of the ideas of this volume. They throw sharper insight on the questions than Peterson does.

The Bonanza Kings raises a host of questions and, for that reason if no other, deserves to be read. It is suggestive, rather than definitive. Peterson un-

209 doubtedly intended no more. The interested buff or student could make a fair start with this volume, but he should then go on to test the ideas.

D U A N E A. SMITH

Fort Lewis College Durango, Colorado

The Wetherills of the Mesa Verde: Autobiography of Benjamin Alfred Wetherill.

Edited by MAURINE S. FLETCHER. (Rutherford, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1977. 333 pp. $18.00.)

In 1880-81 the family of Benjamin Kite Wetherill arrived to establish a homestead, the Alamo ranch on the Mancos River near the Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado. In addition to ranching and mining activities, Ben's sons, John, Richard and Benjamin Alfred (Al), and son-in-law Charles C. Mason began exploring the archaeological ruins of the Mesa Verde — Cliff Palace, Spruce Tree House, and others — as well as other ruins in the Four Corners area. They established an artifact museum at the ranch and for a number of years guided many tourists — including archaeologists Jesse Walter Fewkes, Gustof Nordenskiold, T. Mitchell Prudden, members of the F. E. Hyde Expedition, and botanist Alice Eastwood —• to the Mesa Verde ruins and throughout the Four Corners region. In 1902 Al Wetherill and his wife abandoned the heavily mortgaged Alamo ranch and moved away. The other brothers had earlier left to become Indian traders or follow other pursuits.

The role played by the Wetherill family in the discovery and excavation of the Mesa Verde ruins, especially the spectacular Cliff Palace, has long been a matter of controversy. In 1948, rankled and deeply hurt by what he considered unfair allegations of "pot-hunting" —• i.e., unsystematic excavation, selling of artifacts for large sums, and misinformation as to the chronology of discovery of Mesa Verde sites — Al

Wetherill, then eighty-two years old, pulled together notes and materials written by him over a period of nearly fifty years to "set the record straight." The result, carefully edited and annotated

by M. S. Fletcher, forms the present work. It provides a graphic and colorful narrative of the Wetherills' trials and good times as ranchers, Indian traders, guides, packers, explorers, and nascent archaeologists. Al's language is picturesque, his character portrayals incisive and, at times, puckishly sardonic. His discussions of the archaeological material cultures and ruins of the area and the methods they used indicate that he and his brothers were probably not much better, or worse, than the professional archaeologists of the time whom they guided to the ruins and for whom they worked. Methods of stratigraphy and artifact seriation were not applied in southwestern archaeology until after 1915 in the work of Nels Nelson, A. V. Kidder, Neil Judd, and others. Even J. W. Fewkes's stabilization and reconstruction of the Mesa Verde ruins, done after Mesa Verde became a national park, is questionable in many instances.

Al Wetherill's Autobiography is a useful document toward a history of southwestern archaeology, together with Neil Judd's Men Met along the Trail (1968), the Listers' biography, Earl Morris and Southwestern Archaeology (1968), and Frank McNitt's biography of Al's brother, Richard Wetherill:

210 Anasazi ( 1 9 5 7 ) . But, the work is also a delightfully informal sketch of a m a n , his family, the region they loved, a n d the characters who inhabited, or passed through, the region â&#x20AC;&#x201D; in sum, a worth-

Utah Historical

Quarterly

while addition to the literature on the Colorado Plateau.

DON

D.

FOWLER

Desert Research

Frontier America, 1800-1840: A Comparative Demographic Analysis of the ment Process. By J A M E S E. DAVIS. (Glendale, Calif.: T h e A r t h u r H .

Company, 1977. 220 pp. $15.50.)

M r . Davis takes on the ambitious task of studying the demographic characteristics of the northern and southern frontiers during the early period of westw a r d expansion, 1800-1840. Davis's work, virtually the only one of its kind, provides useful insights into this process through a comparison of the two frontiers and their respective settled areas.

H e attempts to analyze the interrelationships between westward migration a n d the demographic traits of the frontier.

In the effort he defines w h a t constitutes the frontier and demonstrates conclusively that the household was the basic unit in this migration and the subsequent survival of the early settlers. T h e analysis covers a wide range of variables from sex and age to the occupation a n d household size of the pioneers and their families.

Davis's most useful findings a p p e a r in his comparative analysis of the northern and southern frontiers. H e discovered that both frontiers had young populations, few single persons, and common household forms of two adults and one or two children. Yet, important differences existed. Based on his research, Davis argues that the patterns of migration differed between the two frontiers.

I n the northern wilderness group migration was dominant. This pattern a n d innovations in transportation such as the canal encouraged the presence of m a r ginal persons like the elderly, single women, and children. In contrast, households or extended families constituted the primary units of migration in the

Institute Reno

SettleClark

southern frontier. Moreover, the south never developed transportation comparable to the northern frontier which further undermined the basis for group migration. Davis also suggests that a reliance solely on family for labor promoted larger households and the presence of Blacks, usually as slaves, in the southern frontier.

T h e presence of slaves and large households, Davis asserts, underscores the backward nature of the southern frontier. While commercial activity and nascent manufacturing emerged in the northern frontier, its southern counterpart remained overwhelmingly agrarian.

Southern settlers with less education, less income, and less desire for agricultural improvement than northern pioneers reflected this backwardness. Davis also points out that the occupational structure of the southern frontier was considerably less fluid and diverse than in the northern wilderness.

Although Davis has provided us with a unique macro-study of the frontier, his analysis suffers from several prevailing inconsistencies. For example, he spends several pages describing why large families were found in great numbers on the northern frontier, and he suggests that early and continuous marriage of women and a scarcity of labor promoted these large families. H e then claims that the average and model size of families was smaller than in the northern settled area and concludes that the frontier was not a place of large households. These inconsistencies are further compounded

Book Reviews and Notices by the absence of a single conceptual framework for the book. Each chapter typically begins with a list of hypotheses, often as many as sixteen. Without a framework to tie all of these together for the reader, the book becomes misleading and hard to follow at times. A n unclear writing style also adds to t h e confusion.

Last, Davis fails to link the householdbased migration into t h e southern frontier with t h e agricultural system of the settled area. Plantation owners and their slaves along with white subsistence farmers dominated the rural southeast.

T h e plantation owner was marketoriented while t h e subsistence farmer was not. Inevitably, the potential for the highly profitable cotton growing drew the plantation owner and his property, t h e Blacks, to the frontier. T h e

Upstairs

to a Aline.

211 white subsistence farmer w h o practiced extensive farming techniques moved to the frontier for n e w land. I n neither case was group migration necessary or desired. Moreover, t h e a b u n d a n c e of rivers a n d t h e presence of one crop, cotton, m a d e sophisticated transportation such as t h e railroad expendable.

Despite these problems, Davis does make a substantial contribution t o the study of t h e frontier. Unlike Curti, Owsley, a n d other scholars w h o confined their works to specific areas, Davis has presented a systematic overall view of the frontier in change. I n the process, he h a s laid t h e groundwork for future studies that rely on his ideas a n d evidence.

EDWARD J. D A V I E S I I

University

By V I O L E T B O Y C E a n d M A B E L

HARMER.

of Utah

L o g a n : U t a h State

University Press, 1976. 189 p p . $6.95.)

T h e title of this engaging little book is intriguing a n d surprisingly a p t . But what kind of book is it?

It is not a novel, although it begins like one, introducing t h e narrator, V i , in action in a way to enlist both sympathy a n d interest. She is subtly there throughout the book, too, a gamine with all five senses wide open a n d a heart tuned to the d r a m a t i c in everyday life and full of love for her hometown a n d everything that dwells a n d goes on therein. Even while participating in some of the little dramas, she often exhibits a healthy a n d childlike sort of skepticism. T h e stage is set immediately, both physically a n d emotionally, as we watch t h e destruction of the Apex mine a n d are allowed a place at the deathbed of Vi's other old friend, the town of Bingham itself.

Neither is the book pure reminiscence, although reminiscence is its charm.

Reminiscences rollick from page to page, tumbling from Vi's nostalgic

memory and jostling each other in a bid for attention, yet, somehow, m a n a g e t o give the impression of being marshalled into a semblance of order that keeps t h e m flowing logically a n d smoothly one into t h e other. T h e stories are told in a chatty, often gossipy style, recounted with humor, pathos, a n d pure enjoyment.

But the reminiscences a r e held firmly in balance a r o u n d a backbone of solid research in the best tradition of oral history. Facts are sandwiched in here a n d there to provide background or to e n h a n c e action. Never too long a n d never tedious, always interestingly presented, history fonns the w a r p with which the tints and shades of the weft of reminiscences are deftly woven to create a lively tapestry of life in a mining town against the background of mountain, canyon, a n d sky.

I N E Z S. C O O P E R

Southern

Utah State

College

Utah Historical

212

Children

of God: An American

Epic.

By VARDIS F I S H E R . (Boise, I d . : O p a l

Laurel Plolmes, Publisher, n.d. X x + 769 p p . $12.95.)

Hopi Bibliography.

Quarterly

By W . DAVID LAIRD.

( T u c s o n : T h e University of Arizona Press, 1977. Xviii 4- 735 p p . Cloth, $13.50; paper, $7.95.)

Originally published by H a r p e r a n d Brothers in 1939, this prizewinning novel of Mormonism's early years has continued to delight, anger, entertain, a n d provoke readers to the present time.

L o n g out of print, it has been reissued

by O p a l Laurel Holmes, Fisher's widow, with an enlightening introduction by Joseph M . Flora.

Holmes, w h o perceives a "steadily growing revival of interest in Vardis Fisher," has reissued three of Fisher's works to date a n d plans to reissue t h e m all. Marketing arrangements have been m a d e with Baker & Taylor. P O B 350.

Momence, I L 60954.

T h e bibliographer has taken ten years to produce this thorough work on the Hopi. N o matter how comprehensive, however, a bibliography's m a i n strength comes from its indexes: in this work there are title a n d subject indexes.

Nevertheless, in this area the book contains numerous problems. Some of the entries which should come u n d e r U t a h do, in fact, come u n d e r M o r m o n . T h e Dominguez-Escalante expedition is indexed only u n d e r Escalante, not Dominguez or any other subject heading, while Hillers's diary of the Powell expedition could be found only u n d e r the title in that indexâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;not u n d e r Hillers or Powell or photography.

Black Sunshine:

Mexico's Miguel Caldera: The of America's First Frontier

The Story of Coal. By

O L I V E W. B U R T . ( N e w Y o r k : J u l i a n

Messner. 1977.64 p p . $6.64.)

Olive Burt, prolific U t a h writer, tells the story of coal to a junior high audience. She details how the fossilized fuel is formed, the history of its use, the j o b of coal miners in the past a n d present, and the health problems, strikes, a n d dangers inherent in mining. T h e story takes the reader to the present with a discussion of how coal is transported a n d its current uses. T h e interesting a n d factual narrative, well illustrated by photographs, concludes with a helpful glossary a n d index.

1597.)

By

PHILIP

WAYNE

Training (1548POWELL.

( T u c s o n : T h e University of Arizona Press, 1977. X i + 322 p p . Cloth, $14.95; paper, $7.95.)

Miguel Caldera's father was a Spanish explorer, participant in Mexico's silver strike era of the late 1500s. His mother was of the Chichimecas, native to Mexico. T h e notable mixed-blood frontiersman was first a soldier, next a peacemaker, a n d finally rose to almost m a g n a t e status with his discovery of one of the richest of the silver lodes in Mexico at that time.

UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY Department of Development Services Division of State History BOARD O F STATE H I S T O R Y M I L T O N C. A B R A M S , Smithfield, 1981

President D E L L O G. D A Y T O N , O g d e n , 1979

Vice President M E L V I N T . S M I T H , Salt Lake City Secretary MRS.

E L I Z A B E T H G R I F F I T H , O g d e n , 1981

W A Y N E K . H I N T O N , C e d a r City, 1981 T H E R O N L U K E , P r o v o , 1979

DAVID S. M O N S O N , Secretary of S t a t e

Ex officio M R S . E L I Z A B E T H M O N T A G U E , Salt Lake City, 1979 MRS.

M A B E L J . O L I V E R , O r e m , 1980

M R S . H E L E N Z. P A P A N I K O L A S , Salt L a k e City, 1981 H O W A R D C. P R I C E , J R . , Price, 1979

T E D J . W A R N E R , Provo, 1981

ADMINISTRATION MELVIN T. S M I T H ,

Director

STANFORD J. L A Y T O N , Managing Editor J A Y M . H A Y M O N D , Librarian DAVID B. M A D S E N , State Archaeologist

A. K E N T P O W E L L , Historic Preservation W I L S O N G. M A R T I N , Historic Preservation

Research Development

T h e U t a h State Historical Society was organized in 1897 by public-spirited U t a h n s to collect, preserve, a n d publish U t a h and related history. Today, u n d e r state sponsorship, the Society fulfills its obligations by publishing the Utah Historical Quarterly a n d other historical materials; locating, documenting, a n d preserving historic a n d prehistoric buildings a n d sites; a n d m a i n t a i n i n g a specialized research library. Donations a n d gifts to the Society's programs or its library are encouraged, for only through such means can it live u p to its responsibility of preserving the record of U t a h ' s past.

MEMBERSHIP Membership in the U t a h State Historical Society is open to all individuals a n d institutions interested in U t a h history.

Membership applications a n d change of address notices should be sent to the membership secretary.

A n n u a l dues a r e : Individual, $ 7 . 5 0 ; institution, $ 1 0 . 0 0 ; student, $5.00 (with teacher's statement) ; contributing, $ 1 5 . 0 0 ; sustaining, $ 2 5 . 0 0 ; p a t r o n , $ 5 0 . 0 0 ; life member, $150.00. Y o u r interest a n d support are most welcome.

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