More than Petticoats: Remarkable Utah Women

Book excerpt: Utah offers a paradox in women’s history—a state founded by polygamists who offered women early suffrage and encouraged career education in the nineteenth century. More than Petticoats: Remarkable Utah Women tells the stories of twelve strong and determined women who broke through the social, cultural, or political barriers of the day. The women in these pages include Emmeline B. Wells (1828–1921), president of the Mormon Women’s Relief Society, editor of Exponent, and president of the Woman Suffrage Association of Utah; and Reva Beck Bosone (1895–1983), Utah Congresswoman and the state’s first female judge, who voted against the formation of the CIA and was smeared in the anticommunism crusade of the 1950s. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in women’s studies, history, and the story of Utah.