Jane Manning: Stories of Utah Women

Jane Manning has been immortalized in the lore of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She was born African American in Connecticut in the early 1820’s. Her mother was enslaved, but was emancipated by the time Jane was born. Her father died when she was very young. She gave birth to her first son in 1839 but the

On February 14, 1870 Seraph Young marked her ballot for the Salt Lake City municipal election and dropped it in the box. She was the first woman in the United States to vote. Seraph arrived in Utah in 1847, when she was less than a year old. The Pioneer Jubilee book lists Seraph Young (Ford) as one of the first

Alberta Hill was born in Louisiana in 1920, where her parents worked as sharecroppers. As African Americans, they were discriminated against in Louisiana. When she was three, her family moved to Kansas where they hoped for a better racial climate and educational opportunities for their children.  When Alberta was a teenager she was in a car accident. A piece of

Olene Walker was born in Ogden, UT in 1930. Her parents were both educators and her father was the Ogden School Superintendent for 25 years. Olene was elected to her first position in the student government during junior high. She later earned a debate scholarship to Weber College, but transferred to Brigham Young University after her first year. After earning

The year 2020 marks the 100-year anniversary of the 19th Amendment being passed! It was ratified in August of 1920 by the thirty-six states needed to add it to the Constitution, and then white women had the right to vote nationwide. It took several more decades for this right to be extended to minorities. We will start celebrating this anniversary

It was in March that the landmark anti-polygamy Edmunds-Tucker Act took effect 132 years ago in 1887. A note in the divorce record for the Tooele County Probate Court highlights the far-reaching extent of the legislation. After the final divorce record from February 1887, the court clerk made a simple note explaining the abrupt end to the record. He noted