1/14 I’m proud to live in the state whose women were the first in the modern nation to walk up to a ballot box, as legally recognized voters, and make their voices heard. #firsttovote #betterdaysforwomen #trailblazers

2/14 The all-male territorial legislature had recently stunned the nation by legalizing women’s suffrage within the territory — a full 50 years before 19th amendment became the law of the nation.

3/14 And Utah was the third state to include women’s suffrage in its constitution.

4/14 Throughout the decades-long fight for national women’s suffrage, Utah women organized and traveled — evangelizing women’s suffrage throughout the western territories.

5/14 Susan B. Anthony recognized that the women’s suffrage movement wouldn’t have existed without a little newspaper out west. That newspaper was the Women’s Exponent and the editor of that paper was Emmeline B Wells, the president of the Utah-based Mormon Relief Society.

6/14 Utah and the west were the foothold of the women’s suffrage movement when it was utterly stalled in the Eastern states.

7/14 And these tidbits of Utah’s woman suffrage history are the tip of the iceberg. There is no question that Utah was at the forefront of the movement that brought about the recognition of women’s right to vote in this country.

8/14 After UT became the 3rd state to include women’s voting rights in its constitution, Anna Howard Shaw, one of the country’s great woman suffrage leaders, welcomed the Utah women who served as delegates to the National American Women’s Suffrage Association with these words:

9/14 “We expected it of the men of Utah. No man could have stood by the side of his mother and heard her tell of all that the pioneers endured, and then have refused to grant her the same right of liberty he wanted for himself, without being unworthy of such a mother.

10/14“They are the crown jewel of our Union, those three States [Wyoming, Colorado and Utah] on the crest of the Rockies, above all the others.

11/14 “In the name of the NAWSA we extend our welcome, our thanks, and our congratulations to Utah as one of the three so dear to the heart of every women who loves liberty in these United States.” (Battle for the Ballot, p. 193)

12/14 I celebrate Utah’s proud history every time I cast my own ballot. And I strive to cast an informed, well-researched vote.

13/14 To me, casting an informed vote means being able to express the best arguments of every candidate and best arguments of both side of every ballot issue so that all candidates and issue proponents would agree without reservation that I represented their POV fully and fairly.

14/14 IMO, that’s the only reasonable standard by which to determine whether I’m an informed voter. I’m not perfect at this, but that’s always my goal. In this way, I hope to live up to my heritage as a Utah woman.