Janika Isakson, Department of Communications
The fight for woman’s suffrage in the Utah Territory, where many citizens supported the practice of polygamy, was full of contradictions from the very beginning. Following the Civil War, various groups, including Congress in 1868, proposed woman’s suffrage as a possible solution for terminating polygamy in Utah.1 Following Wyoming’s lead in giving women the right to vote in 1869, the Utah Territorial government in 1871, with the support ofLDS Church President Brigham Young, also gave Utah women the right to vote.’ Brigham Young advised, “Now, sisters, I want you to vote also because women are the characters that rule the ballot box.”‘
The issue of woman’s suffrage in Utah leapt to the forefront of discussion among the Congress, national women’s organizations and both the Mormon and non-Mormon press. Many observers of the Utah situation could not believe that the “oppressive” practice of polygamy could coincide with the “liberal” movement of woman’s suffrage.
Edward Tullidge, writer for the Phrenological Journal, commented in 1870 on the paradox existing in Utah:
Utah is the land of marvels. She gives us, first, polygamy, which seems to be an outrage against “woman’s rights,” and then offers to the nation a “Female Suffrage Bill” … , Was there ever a greater anomaly known in the history of society?’
After years of active participation in the political process, Utah women lost the vote with Congress’ 1882 Edmunds Bill (disfranchising all polygamists) and the subsequent 1887 Edmunds-Tucker Act (disfranchising all women in Utah). In response to Congress’ laws prohibiting polygamy, LDS Church President Wilford Woodruff declared in his Manifesto of 1890, “We are not teaching polygamy or plural marriage, nor permitting any person to enter into its practice … “5 This pronouncement by President Woodruff paved the way for greater acceptance in mainstream United States politics.
The Enabling Act of 1892 empowered the Utah Territory to prepare a constitution and petition Congress for statehood. In 1895 Utahns debated about statehood and including a woman’s suffrage bill in the new state constitution. Due in part to the efforts of Utah woman’s rights activists and the press, all Utahns gained the right to vote with statehood in 1896.
The volatile struggle between the opponents and proponents of woman’s suffrage in Utah was fought on the editorial pages of various Utah newspapers. Not only was the struggle a political fight for enfranchisement, but it was also a deeply-rooted religious battle between the Mormons and antiMormons.
Newspapers such as the LDS Relief Society’s Woman’s Exponent, and the LDS Church-owned Deseret News, as well as the National Woman’s Suffrage Association advocated woman’s suffrage in Utah. At the same time, such newspapers as the Anti-Polygamy Standard and the Salt Lake Tribune emerged with opposing voices to the woman’s suffrage question in Utah.
In order to affect social change within their communities, the editors of these newspapers, Emmeline Wells (Woman’s Exponent) and Jennie Froiseth (Anti-Polygamy Standard), discussed the equality of the sexes, polygamy, politics and statehood. Both women, deeply involved in the woman’s suffrage debates, offered their own answers to the pressing questions at hand. In anticipation of upcoming statehood, Wells argued:
Utah has more resources and brighter prospects for future greatness than any of the territories in the West …. No truer patriots either men or women can be found than in the people of Utah. 6 While Froiseth, concerned about the consequences of female suffrage in Utah contended:
Female suffrage, illegally precipitated upon this people in its practical outcome, is one of the strongest defenses of priestly bestialism in Utah. No true friend of Republican institutions, friendly or otherwise to female suffrage can consistently hope for its sustenation.7
Although on different sides of the woman’s suffrage debate, both sought to convert the neutral masses to their ideologies, raise consciousness and reinforce “reformer” identities among those already involved. These purposes demanded the most skillful and persuasive rhetoric they could offer.
These newspapers provided a political, religious and moral platform for women whose voices would have otherwise been lost in the crowd. Wells and Froiseth used effective rhetoric in an effort to initiate change, and by doing so empowered the women of Utah to make a difference in Utah politics.
Endnotes
- Ralph Lorenzo Jack, “Woman Suffrage in Territorial Utah as an Issue in the Mormon and Non-Mormon Press of the Territory 1870-1887” (Masters thesis, Brigham Young University, 1954), 1.
- Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah, Acts. Resolutions & Memorials (Salt Lake City: Joseph Bull, Public Printer, 1870), 2.
- Brigham Young, Brigham Young Discourses (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News Press, 1924), 563.
- Edward W. Tullidge, “William W. Hooper-The Utah Delegate and Female Suffrage Advocate,” Phrenological Journal 40 (November 1870): 328.
- Wilford Woodruff, “Official Declaration-!,” The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1989), 291.
- Emmeline Wells, Woman’s Exponent, 1 August 1894, 172.
- Jennie Froiseth, “Woman Suffrage in Utah,” Anti Polygamy Standard, October 1882, 49.