Shortly after being elected to the Utah state Senate in 1896, Latter-day Saint physician Martha Hughes Cannon was asked by a local newspaper how it felt to be the first female state senator in the United States.
“The first woman senator — I hadn’t thought of it in that light,” she responded. “I do seem to be a sort of milestone, don’t I? Well, I will have to try to live up to my privileges.”
Another article in the Salt Lake Herald-Republican dated Nov. 11, 1896, stated: “Nothing that has transpired in Utah shows greater advancement in civilization than the election of women to the legislature.”
Nov. 3 marks 125 years since Utah women first appeared on the ballot and Martha Hughes Cannon was elected to the state Senate — defeating her husband, Angus M. Cannon, and others in the race. She wasn’t the only woman to win office that day.
“In addition to Martha being elected that day, there were two women elected to the state House of Representatives, and there were 11 women elected to county positions throughout the state,” said Tiffany Bowles, associate curator of education at the Church History Museum. “So it was a pretty good day for women here in Utah.”
The Church History Museum’s “Sisters for Suffrage” exhibit — open until Dec. 31 — honors the 150th anniversary of Utah women being the first in the nation to vote. It also highlights the pioneering role of the Relief Society in the local and national women’s suffrage movements.
On Wednesday, Nov. 3, to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Martha Hughes Cannon being elected, the Church History Museum will have suffrage activities available for visitors, including pennant making, yellow rose making and suffrage scrapbooks. Docents dressed up as suffragists Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Merrill Horne will make appearances throughout the day to share their stories.
Among the items on display in the “Sisters for Suffrage” exhibit is a secretary desk Martha Hughes Cannon used, on loan from her descendants.
On Feb. 14, 1870, female citizens in Utah Territory became the first to legally vote in a U.S. election under an equal suffrage law. Wyoming was actually the first territory to grant the right to women, but elections in Utah were held before Wyoming’s elections.
For 17 years, Utah women claimed the right to vote, until they were disenfranchised by federal anti-polygamy laws. When Utah became a state in 1896, Utah women won the right to vote for a second time. With full suffrage in place for the 1896 state election, more women ran for office, including Martha Hughes Cannon, who ran for the state Senate as a Democrat while her husband ran as a Republican.
Timeline: What Latter-day Saints can learn from the history of Utah women voting
Martha Hughes Cannon was born in Wales in 1857 and immigrated to Utah in 1861. She graduated with a medical degree from the University of Michigan on her 23rd birthday. In 1882 she received an advanced medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania — the only woman in a class of 75 — plus a degree in oration from the National School of Elocution and Oratory.
After returning to Utah at age 25 and opening a private practice, Martha Hughes Cannon served as second resident at Deseret Hospital. She founded Utah’s first training school for nurses in 1888. In her political work, she wrote Utah sanitation laws and was a founder and member of Utah’s first state Board of Health. She was a plural wife of Angus M. Cannon and a mother of three children.
Sister Sharon Eubank, first counselor in the Relief Society general presidency and president of Latter-day Saint Charities, highlighted the leadership characteristics of Martha Hughes Cannon and other early Utah women during Utah Women’s Leadership Speaker and Dialogue Series in February 2020.
Those leadership characteristics are simple, Sister Eubank said. First, don’t wait for others to do what needs to be done. “Be the change you seek.” Second, build personal and lasting relationships. And third, don’t let issues destroy those relationships. Finding common ground leads to progress on shared goals.
Bowles added: “I think what we can learn today from [Martha Hughes Cannon’s] example is that when we see a need we shouldn’t be afraid to take a new path, if it means that the changes can happen that would be better for society.”
In 2018, the Utah Legislature voted to honor Martha Hughes Cannon by sending a statue of her to Washington, D.C., to represent Utah in Statuary Hall. It is temporarily installed on the third floor of the Utah Capitol.
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