Aileen H. Clyde 20th Century Women's Legacy Archive: Politics, Government, and Law

Collection subjects include:

City Planning; Civic Activism; Civil Procedures and Courts; Civil Rights; International Relations; Laws and Legislation; Military; Political Campaigns; Politics and Politicians; Public Finance; and Public Utilities

Marilyn R. Allen

Allen lived in Atlanta, Georgia, sometime before 1947. She then moved to Ohio, before settling in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is a political conservative, anti-communist, and anti-ethnic-minority author.

Sheryl Larsen Allen

Served as President of the Davis Board of Education, and was a member of the Utah House of Representatives.

Patrice M. Arent

Arent was a member of the Utah Senate, 2003-2006; and previously a Member of the Utah House of Representatives 1997-2000.  She was actively involved in the Utah Safe Haven Committee, the Utah Hospital Association Strategic Planning Committee, Rotary International, the Utah State Bar Association and many other non-profit groups.

Genevieve Atwood

Atwood is a geologist and Utah state legislator. She was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 1990. 

Algie Eggertsen Ballif

Ballif graduated from Brigham Young University in 1918. A member of the Provo Board of Education for twenty-three years, Ballif was named Utah "Man of the Year in Education" in 1958. She served in the Utah House of Representatives from 1959 to 1961, and was a member of the committee on education for John F. Kennedy's Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. She was active in many local and state organizations, including the Federated Women's Clubs, Women's Legislative Council, American Legion Auxiliary, and Sorosis.

Reva Beck Bosone

First woman sent to U.S. House of Representatives by the State of Utah and first woman to serve on the House Interior Committee.

Reva Beck Bosone

Annie Wells Cannon

Elizabeth Anne (Annie) Wells Cannon was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Daniel H. Wells and Ameslan B. Wells in 1859. She graduated from the University of Deseret in 1879 and was married to John Q. Cannon in 1880, with whom she had 12 children. She was an active member of the Relief Society Board of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1902-1910 and 1919-1942. Cannon was an activist for women's suffrage and was a member of the Utah State Legislature from 1913-1915 and again in 1921. Cannon was also chosen by Herbert Hoover to be Utah's chairman for the European Relief Drive, of which she was the only woman member.

Vervene "Vee" Carlisle

Carlisle was a Utah business woman, politician and activist for more than fifty years. She was also a significant contributor to Utah's historic preservation programs and women's rights.

Rebecca Chavez-Houck

Chavez-Houck was a Democratic member of the Utah House of Representatives, representing District 24 and serving from 2008 to 2018.

Carol L. Clark

Administrative assistant to Governor Bangerter. She was the first Consumer Education Specialist for the Utah Attorney General’s Office, and later became the director of Utah’s Department of Economic Development’s Women’s Bureau.

Deedee Corradini

Elected mayor of Salt Lake City in 1991 and served two consecutive terms. She was instrumental in bringing the 2002 Winter Olympic Games to Salt Lake City.

Edna Clark Ericksen

In 1932, she was elected to the Utah House of Representatives. In 1941, she was appointed to the State Senate, then elected the following year.

Karen Hale

Hale (b.1958) was a member of the Transportation and Public Safety Committee, Education Committee and the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee. Hale is a co-founder of the Coalition of Quality Public Education (CQPE), a non-partisan group of legislators, educators, parents, business and community leaders committed to finding solutions to the critical funding needs of Utah's education system. 

As a state senator, Hale was a passionate voice on Capitol Hill for public and higher education and the safety and health of Utah families. She was a strong advocate for arts education in the public schools and adequate funding for tobacco prevention programs.

Barbara Bailey Hales

Worked for the State of Utah in several capacities throughout her career, including the State Board of Education, and the Governor’s commission on Women and Families.

Meghan Zanolli Holbrook

She received an English degree from the University of Tennessee and moved to Utah in 1983 where she worked fundraising for and managing the affairs of several local Democratic gubernatorial, mayoral, and congressional campaigns. Holbrook was a member of the Clinton-Gore Steering Committee for the West, the Utah Delegate to the National Convention in 1996, and she was the fist woman elected to be the Utah Democratic Party Chair, a position she held for three terms from 1997 to 2003. Since then, she has been a member of the Utah Board of Regents, the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the chair of the Utah Air Travel Commission, and the bank's governmental affairs director of the Office of the President of Zions Bank.

Alice Merrill Horne

Alice Merrill Horne was born in Fillmore, Utah, in 1868. In 1890, she married George Henry Horne and had six children. She was elected to the Third Legislature of Utah in 1898 and served one term. Horne was noted for her sponsorship of a bill that gave Utah the distinction of being the first state in the union to establish an art institute to encourage fine arts in the state. In addition, she was chairman of the University Land Site Committee that established the University of Utah in its present location. She was also very active in community affairs. Horne died in 1948.

Florence Ivins Hyde

The Hyde family came from three well-known LDS church leaders, Orson Hyde, John Taylor, and Anthony Ivins. Gordon was a successful businessman and was involved in Democratic party politics in Utah.

Beth S. Jarman

Beth S. Jarman was born in Salt Lake City on 6 April 1941. She attended the University of Utah where she received a master's degree in American History in 1963. She received her Ph.D. in Cultural Foundations of Education in 1977. Jarman was a member of the National and Utah Councils for Social Studies, and personally introduced a community-based American government curriculum which directly involved students in governmental and political processes. She also helped design a course entitled "American Studies," created to motivate high school seniors and prepare them for college. Jarman, as a member of the Democratic Party, was vice chairwoman and chair of her legislative district. In 1973, she was elected to the Utah State House of Representatives where she was a member of the Womens' Political Caucus. During this time she joined others in encouraging women to run for office and worked for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. She became chair of the Committee to Study Discrimination in Utah's Laws and helped make many bills into laws which eliminated discrimination against women in Utah. Jarman's legislative term ended in 1977. She became chair of the Utah Housing Finance Committee on June 1st of the same year. One month later she was appointed the first woman Executive Director of the Department of Community Affairs by Utah Governor Scott M. Matheson. 

Patricia Maynetta King

Political materials relating to the presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson, John F. Kennedy, the assassination of John and Robert Kennedy, the resignation of Richard Nixon, as well as material relating to the Utah State Democratic Party.

League of Women Voters in Utah 

Founded in 1951 and consists of chapters in Cache, Davis, Grand, Washington, and Weber counties and Salt Lake City and Cedar City. The League has focused on local issues such as the Jordan River Parkway, City-County unification, Salt Lake County master plan, as well as hosting candidate debates and registering voters.

Alice Lovina Manning

Alice Lovina Manning was born on 6 July 1877 in Burr Oak, Iowa. In 1891 she moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, with her family. She graduated from the University of Utah in 1897 and was a teacher until 1906, when she took a job as secretary to the general attorney of the Oregon Short Line Railroad Company. After studying law for six years under the instruction of the general attorney for the Union Pacific, she became the chief clerk of the legal department for the Union Pacific system at Salt Lake City. She worked for the Union Pacific for a number of years before attaining her law degree. In 1923 Manning was honored as the fourth woman to be admitted into the Utah bar. She died in Chicago, Illinois, on 31 July 1944.

Beatrice Peterson Marchant

She was a Utah State Representative in the Utah State Legislature from 1969 to 1972. In 1979 she was the President of the ERA Coalition of Utah. She wrote numerous letters and articles to politicians and newspapers. She also wrote articles about Mormonism and the John Birch Society. She was a member of the Democratic Women’s Club for more than 50 years.

Norma W. Matheson

Norma W. Matheson was first lady of Utah from 1977 to 1985. She advocated for the Democratic Party in Utah, the Nature Conservancy, the University of Utah College of Nursing 33 Development Committee, the State Board of Aging. She was also the President of the League for Women Voters and helped organize the International Women’s Year conference in 1977. In 2014, she campaigned with the Count My Vote initiative.

Dorothy Mortensen

Mortensen was the Managing Editor of Publications at the Utah State Historical Society. From 1970 to 1976, she worked in the correspondence section of the White House staff and as the writer and editor for the President's Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

Alberta Hunt Nicholson

Nicholson (1914-2002) was one of the first women test pilots to fly for the United States Air Force. She was a member of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II, from 1943 until the group was disbanded in 1944.

Michelle Parish

Executive Director of the ACLU of Utah from 1989 to 1992, overseeing the period when the ACLU of Utah began to make a big impact on civil liberty issues, including capital punishment, employment discrimination, AIDS, and polygamy, as well as the examination of abuse in the Utah State Penitentiary and county jail, banning prayer from public schools, and battling restrictions on abortion.

Ivy Baker Priest

A Utah native, Priest (1905-1975) was active in Republican party activities, was an unsuccessful Utah congressional candidate in 1934 and 1950, and served on Utah's Women's Legislative Council.

Lucybeth Cardon Rampton

Lucy Beth Rampton was a community leader and wife of Calvin Rampton. Rampton was governor of Utah, 1964-1976.

Karen Shepherd 

In 1992, she was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Following her term in Congress, she taught at the Institute of Politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and was appointed U.S. Executive Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1996.                                                           

      

Jean M. Westwood

Committee chairman in 1972 of the Democratic National Committee in 1967, becoming the first woman to head a major American political party.

Utah Federation of Women's Republican Clubs

The Women's Republican Club of Salt Lake was organized on 16 March 1899 and incorporated in 1901. It wasn't until 1941 that women from all parts of Utah assembled to form the Utah Federation of Women's Republican Clubs. The purpose of the organization is to support the Republican Party, promote legislation, and involve women in local political activities.

Utah Order of Women Legislators

The Utah Order of Women Legislators was chartered on 4 April 1936. The idea for the organization was initiated by Julia M. Emery of the Connecticut Order of Women Legislators who wrote a letter to Elise Musser of Utah suggesting the formation. In May 1938, it was decided that the group would also become members of Utah's Legislative Council of Women, as well as the Salt Lake Council of Women. Since its conception, the organization has passed resolutions pertaining to women, served in a World War II bond drive, and held various functions designed to promote friendship among women who have common interests and problems.

Utah Women's Democratic Club

 The Utah Women's Democratic Club was organized under Ellen B. Ferguson in 1896. It was originally organized as an auxiliary to the Country Democratic Committee, but withdrew with its own charter in 1899. The major purpose of the organization is to support the Democratic Party. It also promotes legislation of special interest to women and involves them in the political process.

Utah Women's Political Caucus

The state affiliate of the National Women’s Political Caucus. Founded in 1972 and worked on the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and supported the election of pro-choice, feminist movement to local and national office.

Arendje Aerie Visser 

Visser (b. 1912) was born in the Netherlands. She was involved with many political and social causes, and stood for peace and human rights. During World War II, Visser was involved with the resistance movement against the German invasion of Holland. She was also a volunteer worker for the Red Cross. In 1983 she was awarded a Resistance Movement Cross by the Dutch government, the same award that was posthumously awarded to the Netherlands' Queen Wilhelmina. At age forty-four, Visser immigrated to North America, living in Ontario, Canada. She joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and settled in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her only son was drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. Eventually she left the LDS Church. Visser occupied her time during her elderly years clipping items of life from local newspapers in Utah.

Women's State Legislative Council of Utah

Purpose of the council is to investigate and study subjects of state and national interest for the purpose of influencing and bringing to fruition beneficial legislation for the state of Utah.

Luretta Young

Schoolteacher, a worker for the U.S. Census Bureau, and Salt Lake County Assessor’s office.

  • Last Updated: Apr 15, 2025 1:55 PM
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