Katherine Kitterman: Utah Women Working For the Vote, an exhibit at the Utah State Capitol) (Season 1, Ep. 8 - Part 2):

**Brad Westwood** (0:04)
Hello, this is Brad Westwood.
Welcome to the podcast Speak Your Piece. This is a podcast about Utah's history. My name is Brad Westwood. I'm Senior Public Historian at the Utah Dept. of Heritage and Arts.
Speak Your Piece is a podcast where writers, historians, archaeologists, curators, anyone who contributes to Utah's history, it can be shared here, those insights and those discoveries. My guest today is Katherine Kitterman, Historical Director for Better Days 2020 Katherine, once more, thank you for being here.

**Katherine Kitterman** (0:36)
Thanks for having me.

**Brad Westwood** (0:39)
The story of women's suffrage in Utah territory has a very unique historical context, many differing and counter aspects. Now, we've already talked a little bit about it, but can you share more about some of those deeper stories about the context of women's rights in Utah?

**Katherine Kitterman** (0:55)
Yeah. I think there are really three reasons why Utah suffrage story was so unique.
We'll touch on each of those quickly. First of all, it was happening really early. This was playing out in some cases almost 50 years ahead of the time when most women across the United States would first be able to go to the polls.
So there were different dynamics nationally and locally than there would be in other places and at other times. So that's something to remember, that this is really, I don't want to overemphasize this, but it was really groundbreaking. It was a path-breaking step to take, and it was really something that drew national attention and scrutiny for Utah women to be casting ballots, both here in Utah and in Wyoming.

**Brad Westwood** (1:34)
And it has an influence on Wyoming, doesn't it?

**Katherine Kitterman** (1:36)
It does, right.

**Brad Westwood** (1:36)
Utah dialogue.

**Katherine Kitterman** (1:37)
Right, and because there were about, we're not exactly sure because citizenship numbers and census counts weren't exact at the time, but it seems like there were about 18,000 women in Utah in 1870 who would have been eligible to cast ballots at that time. And so really for the next 17 years, Utah women were the most substantial population of voting women in the United States. And as people were looking, there were stories about women going to Wyoming to live in Wyoming for a while, so they would be able to cast a ballot. And there were also lots of stories about what Utah women were doing with the vote. And they actually drew Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton out here in 1871 to get a feel for the situation and see how things were happening.
So that's one thing is because Utah women were so early, their story really got drawn up into national discussions.
Another thing that was unique about Utah's suffrage story is that generally speaking, here on the ground in Utah, they faced or they enjoyed public support for their voting rights. Not from every single person and every single time, but generally speaking, the Latter-day Saint Church hierarchy, local community members, neighbors, people were generally in favor of women voting, both in 1870 and then again in 1895 when there were those discussions happening about regaining the right to vote.

**Brad Westwood** (2:51)
Why?

**Katherine Kitterman** (2:53)
Several reasons. I think part of it again was this 1870 discussion of we're going to show people that polygamy isn't horrible, that women can vote without tearing our whole system down.
Partially, as people have discussed in the West in general, there were some more egalitarian ideals or this idea that women had sacrificed and contributed so much to building up this society, quote unquote, laboring in the desert, all of these things that they deserved a voice in political affairs.

**Brad Westwood** (3:20)
Well, and then you have the Protestant, the broader Protestant America, that didn't see this just as a minor issue. I mean, this was, in some ways, polygamy was going to, like slavery, take down the great American experiment.

**Katherine Kitterman** (3:34)
Right, and so that's really the third reason why Utah Suffrage story was so unique is that it was entangled in this debate over polygamy from the very beginning until the end and even beyond. And because of those national debates about polygamy, because of reformers' attention and congressional attention and things, that really changed the dynamic for women in Utah as they in some ways took sides in the 1870s and 80s over whether or not they would support women's voting rights. And then again, when women were working to regain the vote, starting in 1888, Utah Women formed the Utah Women's Suffrage Association.
And the person that they allied with and the suffragists that they worked most closely with was Susan B. Anthony. And that's because she was the more radical of the national suffrage leaders, and she was the one who was willing to work with polygamous women.