Founding of Cache Valley Woman Suffrage Association

The Cache Valley Woman Suffrage Association (CVWSA) was established in the Logan Tabernacle on December 10, 1889. The CVWSA was a local division of the Utah Woman Suffrage Association and the National Woman Suffrage Association. Many other counties in Utah were also forming Woman Suffrage Associations at this time. The CVWSA was established to regain the voting rights Utah women had been stripped of in 1887. Utah women felt strongly about their right to vote, as can be seen in the Logan Journal article about the CVWSA founding meeting. The writer of the article even went so far as to call those that succeeded in stripping women’s right to vote in 1887 “Utah Carpet Bag Liberals.” Carpet Baggers was a term most commonly used in the Reconstruction South to describe someone perceived as politically disruptive or taking advantage of a situation for political or financial gain. In this context, “Utah Carpet Bag Liberals” is clearly an insult toward those who helped remove women’s suffrage. The women of Cache Valley, just like many women in Utah, were determined to regain the right to vote.

On December 10, 1889, at 10 am, the founding meeting was held for the CVWSA. Many prominent women in the community and in politics were there. Adeline Barber and Jane Hyde Molen, two local Relief Society Presidents, the women's organization in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, were officers of the association. Jane Hyde Molen, a prominent leader of the Democratic Party of Cache County and a member of the Cache County School Board, was named secretary. Women such as Adeline Barber and Jane Hyde Molen who had both political and religious leadership could easily spread information about the association. All officers elected to the CVWSA were women, though men were also in attendance in the meeting. Seventy-eight women joined the association that founding day. Over the years, the Logan Tabernacle was used to house many CVWSA meetings.

The 1895 Constitutional Convention of Utah was very concerned with the issue of women’s suffrage. Delegates from Cache County presented eight petitions on April 18th, signed by men and women, in favor of equal suffrage in the Utah Constitution. As a result of the hard work of men and women in Cache County and throughout the state, women’s right to vote was reinstated. A banquet was held in the Logan Tabernacle in January 1896 to celebrate the reinstatement of Utah women’s right to vote.

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