BYU Studies

Volume 59:3 (2020) - February 14, 1870, was election day in Salt Lake City. Citizens might have gathered with more than the usual excitement that day to cast their ballots because this was the first election in which Utah women citizens could vote. Seraph Young (later Ford), a twenty-three-year-old schoolteacher and grandniece of Brigham Young, was the first to exercise her new right and became the first woman in the United States to cast a ballot under a women’s equal suffrage law.

It makes sense that Seraph would arrive early at the polls—she had a long workday ahead of her at the University of Deseret, where she taught in the primary school. So, like many voters today, she would have gone to City Hall before work to cast her ballot. However, unlike voters today, she would have had to navigate her way through stump speeches and the Tenth Ward Brass Band to do so. Seraph’s historic vote made local and national news, but then her life went on quietly. She never ran for public office or led an organization, but she made history by simply fulfilling her civic duty.

Seraph’s role in history faded from public memory, but her vote paved the way for women’s voting rights to spread across the United States from west to east. The national women’s movement was already under way, but it would take fifty years after Seraph’s historic vote to pass a women’s suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Volume 59:3 (2020) - In 1909, Susa Young Gates listed Emmeline B. Wells, along with Elmina S. Taylor and Eliza R. Snow, as one of the three greatest women The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had produced. Biographer Carol Cornwall Madsen attests to the spread and durability of Emmeline’s influence, reminding us that “she was the most widely known Mormon woman of her time, in and outside” the Church and Utah. She was bright, observant, and articulate, with a keen memory. She was an outspoken representative of her people, meeting with presidents and national suffrage leaders, and she left a voluminous record of noteworthy events, Relief Society business, and her interactions with and impressions of prominent members of her community.

Volume 59:3 (2020) - When Bethany’s daughter Simone was almost three, she and Bethany were reading a popular LDS children’s book of scripture stories. At the end of it, Simone turned to her mom and demanded, “Where are the girls? I want to read about the girls!” Not unfamiliar with this question herself, Bethany was still surprised. She picked up the book, flipped through, and found the authors had not chosen to tell the story of even a single woman.

Children ask lots of questions, which means parents answer a gazillion questions a day. But Simone’s question, and Bethany’s search for answers, would spark a decade of pivotal books. For many people, this exchange would have been the end, but Bethany’s talent is not only to spot holes—she also dives in and fixes them. (It must have been a genetic trait for Simone to spot the hole too!)

In this case, she called me—she knows I think stories matter.

Volume 59:3 (2020) - I was saddened but not surprised by the recent passing of Armand L. Mauss, an esteemed scholar, BYU Studies editorial board member, and a kind mentor to me. When I saw him last, he neither expected nor particularly wanted to live much longer. He had long since tempered his expectations for this life. His sights were set on the next one, especially after Ruth’s passing in 2018.

There are few mentors and advisors I admire as much as Armand. To me he was a consummate combination of intellectual and spiritual, academic and advocate. Several fitting tributes have already been published. Much attention has been appropriately paid in them to his seminal books. I’m inclined, therefore, to draw a little attention to two of his lesser-known articles that have also profoundly shaped my thinking.