Mormon Women Suffrage

Several bills were created to stop the Mormons from living in polygamy.  Many national government leaders clearly wanted to rid themselves of the Mormons and their strange ways, particularly in the area of polygamy.  It was believed women were being forced against their will, and therefore, weak and helpless in their marriages.

By 1870,the Mormon women were hearing that some of these bills, against them, were passing; they knew they needed to get together to make a stand.  Sarah Kimball (the same sister who formed the original sewing circle in Nauvoo) said that sisters would be “unworthy of the names we bear and of the blood in our veins, should we longer remain silent”.  Eliza R. Snow said it was “high time” to “rise up in the dignity of our calling and speak for ourselves.  We are not inferior to the Ladies of the World, and we do not want to appear so.”

Shortly after, three thousand women gathered in the old tabernacle on Temple Square to organize.  Many newspapers across the US were in attendance to report this remarkable gathering.  The New York Herald said that “in logic and in rhetoric the so called degraded ladies of Mormondom are quite equal to the woman’s rights women of the East”.  The Journal of Commerce compared the Mormon speakers with Ellizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and other suffragists. 

Thus began the Mormon Women suffragette movement.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton visited Utah in 1871, and many times after, creating a very long connection with the Mormon women.  A petition of 13,000 names of Utah women, pledging support to suffrage, was handed over to the Eastern women.  Emmeline B. Wells and Zina Young Williams were asked multiple times to speak at the National Woman Suffrage Association in Washington, D.C.  In the 1880’s, our Relief Society and Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association were both asked to become charter members of the International Council of Women and National Council of Women.  The latter group would elect Belle Spafford to serve as its president in 1968, while concurrently serving as President of the General Relief Society.

On November 5, 1895, Utah, after accepting 24,801 signatures, gave women the right to vote; the first state to allow women to do so.  Sarah Kimball was one of the first women to cast her ballot.  You can see this moment depicted in a mural at the Utah Capitol Building.  It wasn’t long before women began running for office and became heavily involved in Utah politics.  Because of their fight for suffrage, they were well prepared.

                                                                             (this information was gathered from Women of Covenant)