Martha Hughes Cannon

The religion of Mormonism was founded by Joseph Smith in 1830, who made polygamy a tenet of Mormon doctrine in 1843. After the assasination of Smith in 1844, Brigham Young became the leader of the Mormons and the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints until his death in 1877, during which time he married 55 women. Young arrived with 143 others to begin the Mormon settlement in Salt Lake City, and became governor of the Utah Territory in 1851. 

[Image courtesy of F. H. Lieb]

Martha Hughes was born in Wales on July 1, 1857, and was the second daughter of Peter Hughes and Elizabeth Evans. 

[Image courtesy of The Relief Society Magazine]

On July 11, 1861, Hughes’ family traveled west by train and wagon with the Joseph Horne Company, a group of about 600 people who were emigrating to Mormon settlements in Utah. Along their long journey, Hughes’ younger sister died of typhoid. 

[Image courtesy of Hulton Archive/Getty Images]

The Hughes family arrived in Salt Lake City on September 13, 1861. Her father died three days later, likely of typhoid. Her mother was left with two young children, and met a man named James Patten Paul, who had four sons. They remarried and had five more children together. Paul was very supportive of Hughes’ dream to become a doctor, and encouraged her to attend medical school. 

[Image courtesy of Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah]

Utah Territory’s legislature unanimously passed a law in February 1870 that extended voting rights to women. At that time, Wyoming was the only other territory in which women could vote. Women in Utah would lose this right, however, when anti-polygamy legislation was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1888.

[Image courtesy of Utah State Archives and Records Service]

At age 15, Hughes became a typesetter for The Woman’s Exponent, a newspaper printed by women members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The newspaper included articles on a range of topics, from domestic life, to theology, to the biographies of prominent Mormon women. While working for the newspaper, Hughes learned about current affairs, including news that the University of Michigan had opened its medical school to women, and she made plans to attend. 

[Image courtesy of L. Tom Perry Special Collection, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University]

With the blessing and encouragement of the Church, Hughes went to medical school at the University of Michigan, which had opened its doors to women in 1870. However, she had to sit in separate classes from the men in her cohort. Hughes took extra classes in pharmacology as well as bacteriology, which was an emerging field, as the medical field was just beginning to understand how bacteria caused diseases and infections. During her studies, Hughes also worked as a maid and a secretary, and she became passionate about women’s suffrage.

[Image courtesy of University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library]

The Deseret Hospital was established by Mormon women activists in 1882, and trained nurses and midwives. Hughes instructed students in obstetrics and nursing.

[Image courtesy of Utah State Historical Society]

At the Deseret Hospital, Hughes met Angus Cannon, who served on the board of the hospital. He was a prominent church leader, and 23 years older than Hughes. 

[Image courtesy of Angus M. Cannon Family Association]

In 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Edmunds Act, which outlawed and criminalized polygamy, making it punishable by five years in prison and a fine of $500. This led to an era referred to as “the raid.” Federal marshals tried to catch and arrest people for cohabitation and polygamous marriages, and even bribed people and children to identify them. Many Mormons went into hiding into what became known as the Mormon Underground; some fled into exile abroad.

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With the 1882 Edmunds Act, polygamy had been outlawed, so when Hughes Cannon learned she was pregnant, she went into hiding via “the Mormon Underground” to avoid testifying against her husband, and the fathers whose babies she had delivered. She lived in hiding for two years in England, among other Mormons in exile. To conceal her identity, she went by the name “Maria Munn.”

[Image courtesy of New York Public Library]

Hughes returned to Utah and established Utah’s first nurse’s training school.

[Image courtesy of The Connecticut Historical Society]

Hughes became a leader in the Woman’s Suffrage Association, and spoke at suffrage conferences across the country, alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In the photo pictured here, Hughes is standing on the far left in the back row; Susan B. Anthony is seated in the center front.

[Image courtesy of Utah State Historical Society]

Angus Cannon, who maintained illegal polygamous marriages with six women, was arrested for “unlawful cohabitation.” Hughes, who was five months pregnant, was summoned to testify. To avoid having to testify against her husband in federal court, she fled to Grantsville, Utah.

[Image courtesy of Family Search]

The Manifesto of 1890 or the “Mormon Manifesto” required all churches of Latter-day Saints to uphold anti-polygamy laws, with a penalty of confiscation of their temples and the revocation of basic civil rights for all Mormons. For four decades, Congress refused the Utah Territory’s applications for statehood, until the church renounced polygamy with this manifesto.

[Image courtesy of Mormonthink.com]

The World’s Columbian Exposition was a fair held in 1893 in Chicago, Illinois, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s voyage to America. The Women’s Congress used the Exposition as a platform to advocate for women’s suffrage. In response to her speech, The Chicago Record noted: “Mrs. Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon is considered one of the brightest exponents of woman’s cause in the United States.” 

[Image courtesy of the Library of Congress]

Hughes Cannon campaigned as a Democrat, and husband ran as a Republican on the ticket for Utah’s first elected senate. 

[Image courtesy of Utah State Historical Society]

Democrats won the most votes, and so on November 3, 1896, Martha Hughes Cannon defeated her husband, and became the country’s first female state senator.

[Image courtesy of Utah State Historical Society]

While in office, Hughes focused on legislation to improve Utah’s public health. She established Utah’s first board of health and Utah’s first school for the deaf and blind (pictured here). She also created laws to certify doctors, restrict the spread of epidemics, control water and air pollution, and ensure safer work environments for women and girls. While serving both as a senator and on the board of health, she continued treating patients at her private practice. 

[Image courtesy of  APH Callhan Museum]

Hughes joined members of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association, and spoke at the Seneca Falls 50th year celebration in Washington, D.C. She advocated for women’s right to vote based on equality, arguing that “one of the principal reasons why women should vote—is that all men and women are created free and equal.” Hughes Cannon also testified before the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary about the positive effects of women having the vote in Utah.

[Image courtesy of the ACLU]

After Angus Cannon died, Hughes Cannon moved to Los Angeles to live with her daughter. There, she worked for the UCLA medical program.

[Image courtesy of C. C. Pierce Photographic Collection, Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA]

After decades of protest and activism for suffrage rights, on August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote nationally. However, this right was only guaranteed for white women; African American women and other women of color were restricted from voting through racist tactics such as poll taxes and literacy tests, as well as violence. 

When Mia B. Love, who is also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was elected as a U.S. Representative for Utah’s 4th congressional district in 2014, she became the first and only Black female Republican elected to Congress. She served until 2018. 

According to Represent Women, a non-profit organization that aims to help women achieve gender parity in public office, women currently make up only 25% of the U.S. Senate, and 23% of the U.S. House of Representatives, though they make up 51% of the population. However, women are currently running for elected office in record numbers in the 2020 elections. In 2019, record numbers of women were elected to state legislatures nationwide. 

[Image of the women in the U.S. senate in 2019 courtesy of John Shinkle/U.S. Senate Photographic Studio]