Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1996 Susa Young Gates 1856-1933: Educator, Suffragist, Mormon Patricia A. Lynott Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Lynott, Patricia A., "Susa Young Gates 1856-1933: Educator, Suffragist, Mormon" (1996). Dissertations. 3608. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/3608 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1996 Patricia A. Lynott LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO SUSA YOUNG GATES 1856-1933: EDUCATOR, SUFFRAGIST, MORMON A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AN POLICY STUDIES BY PATRICIA A. LYNOTT CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MAY, 1996 Copyright by Patricia A. Lynott, 1996 All rights reserved. ' ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS · The following dissertation is the consequence of great effort and sacrifice on the part of a number of people to whom I am greatly indebted. I would like to acknowledge those individuals who contributed their time and energy to support this project. My deepest gratitude is extended to my dissertation committee chair, Fr. Michael Perko for his superior editorial expertise, scholarly advice, personal encouragement, and unlimited patience. I am also sincerely grateful to Dr. Gerald Gutek, and Dr. Janis Fine for their intellectual input, and valuable academic assistance. Dr. Walter E. Burdick, Jr. has played a significant role in helping to provide historical perspective, and identifying broader social and political themes pertinent to this study. I wish to express my deep appreciation for his solicited guidance, his unsolicited kindness, and his very special friendship. I am also deeply indebted to the scholarly assistance provided by Ron Watt, Senior Archivist at the Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City; Mark smith, Archivist at the Brigham Young University Archives in Provo, Utah, and; Robert Parson of the Special Collections and Archives at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. iii DEDICATION This effort is lovingly dedicated to Rod and Collin, and to the many special people who bless my life with their patience and unconditional love. PREFACE Chronicles of human achievement are satiated with biographies of men and women whose profound lives were exemplary, though often removed from common experience. The historical record frequently fails to nourish our understanding of less celebrated individuals whose personal and public demeanor shaped the direction of ordinary events. The following biography attempts to depict the life of an extraordinary woman, though widely unknown, who contributed to the development of education on the western frontier during a period in American history that is characterized by civic responsibility and social reform. Susa Young Gates was the forty-first child of Mormon leader Brigham Young. Her mother, Lucy Bigelow, was one of an estimated fifty-five plural wives who consented to a polygamous union with the second prophet of a burgeoning Mormon church. The plural household in which the extended family of Brigham Young lived was considered to be one of the most radical experiments in family living arrangements of the nineteenth century. Susa was born in Salt Lake City in 1856, and lived during a period of social and religious transition between the Victorian Age and the Progressive Era. When Susa iv was born, the Great Salt Lake Valley was part of the vast untamed frontier of the intermountain West, where the Mormons were largely, and deliberately, isolated from mainstream American society. The circumstances of frontier life, isolation from the greater society, and unorthodox family arrangements converged to produce a distinct influence on Mormon society and education. It was an influence that fashioned the character of Susa Young Gates, as well. Susa grew to become one of Brigham Young's 'favorite' children, serving for a short while as his personal secretary. She was regarded as a considerable force in the campaign for national women's suffrage, and by the turn of the century, she had gained international recognition as an advocate of women's rights. She held several international appointments and was closely acquainted with popular suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Additionally, Susa Young Gates was a skilled writer and editor, a gifted musician, a scholarly genealogist, and a persuasive public speaker. She also served as a missionary for several years. Though she was accomplished in many fields, and committed to many causes, Susa's contribution to education is often overlooked. This outspoken Mormon suffragist vigorously argued for female enrollment in colleges and high schools, and served as a trustee at both Brigham Young Academy, now Brigham Young University and the v Utah State Agricultural College, now Utah State University. She is referred to as the 'Mother' of Physical Education in Utah as a consequence of her many contributions to the study of physiology and family planning. Susa's professional accomplishments were models of precision, organization and fortitude. Her personal affairs, however, were often saturated in contradiction, controversy and tragedy. Against her parents wishes, Susa married impetuously at the age of sixteen, and would suffer the social and emotional consequences of divorce five years, later. She bore a total of thirteen children, losing eight of them to divorce, illness, or accident. Additionally, Susa endured six miscarriages. The following essay examines the social, religious, and political influences that fashioned the professional efforts and personal impulses of Susa Young Gates, and specifically analyzes those features that shaped her perspective towards education. Constructing this biography was often a challenging enterprise. It derives from a non-Mormon perspective which renders both objectivity and bias. It derives, as well, from a perspective imbued with feminism. Interpreting sources which originate from an era and culture largely dominated by overtly male structures, invites radical interpretation from those determined (or destined) to view them from a feminist viewpoint. People and events become disproportionately magnified, and there is a temptation to vi invent villains and heroines rather than depict the mortal attributes of average people who may mirror, too closely perhaps, our own humanness. Such was the handicap that encumbered this effort. Throughout her life Susa Young was both praised and criticized for being a contradiction in terms. She could be strong-willed yet submissive, and impatient yet tender, often exhibiting these behaviors in tandem. But to say that her life was a study in contrast fails to capture the complexity of her character. It is more accurate, perhaps, to define her life as an elaborate saga consisting of several episodes. It is a story that merits our time and attention because it provides not only a richer understanding of the interdependent relationship between education and Mormonism, but it reveals the underlying sets of tensions that would come to define the unique role of women in Mormon society during a period of social and religious transformation. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . iii PREFACE . iv CHAPTER 1. MORMONISM: THE 'KINGDOM OF GOD' AND THE DOMAIN OF SUSA YOUNG . 1 Tenets and Structure of the Mormon Church . .5 History of the Early Church . 15 Social Conflict and Anti-Mormon Hostility . 24 Notes. • . 35 2. EDUCATION IN THE 'KINGDOM OF GOD' .......... 41 Mormon Education: the Migration Years, 1830-1846. 44 Educational Efforts in Ohio . .... 48 Educational Efforts in Missouri. ... 52 Educational Efforts in Illinois . ... 55 Mormon Education in the State of Deseret, 1847-1869 . • . 60 The University of Deseret. 65 The Rise of Mormon Academies. • . .67 The Deseret Alphabet .............70 Public Education comes to Utah Territory, 1870-1896. 73 Creation of Denominational Schools . 73 Restrictive Secular Legislation. 75 Creation of Territorial Public School System ..............78 Notes. • . .....•...... 82 3. WOMEN AND MORMONISM: THE UNYIELDING PARADOX . .39 Suffrage • • . .93 Relief Society . • . • . .98 The Progressive Influence. • . 107 Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Association . 108 Notes. 115 4. EDUCATING THE 'THIRTEENTH' APOSTLE •••..•.•. 120 Life and Learning in the Lion House •..... 121 The Influence of Brigham Young. .137 The Influence of Karl Maeser ...••.....145 viii The Schooling of Susa Young . 148 Notes . 153 5. THE INFLUENCE OF SUSA YOUNG GATES ON EDUCATION IN UTAH. ... .159 Brigham Young University . .160 Utah State Agricultural College. .171 Influencing the Public at Large ....... 174 Notes. 182 6. THE PUBLIC MRS. GATES: SUFFRAGIST, WRITER, GENEALOGIST ... 186 Susa as Suffragist . 186 Author and Editor ..... 191 Systematizing Kinship in the Kingdom of God. .202 The Private Life of the Public Mrs. Gates. 205 Notes. 211 7 . THE LEGACY OF SUSA YOUNG GATES .. .214 Notes. 225 BIBLIOGRAPHY . .226 VITA . .. 244 ix CHAPTER I MORMONISM: THE KINGDOM OF GOD, AND