Martha Hughes Cannon (1857–1932) may best be known as the first female state senator in the United States, elected in Utah in 1896, nearly a quarter century before most women in the country could vote. She was also a suffragist, physician, gifted speaker, plural wife, faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and mother of three. This short biography examines what drove Cannon to accomplish so much. Following two periods of self-imposed exile to avoid prosecution for polygamy, and a subsequent career in partisan politics, she died in California, surrounded by her children and grandchildren but virtually forgotten by the larger world. She had much to say during her lifetime and has much to say to us today about persevering in spite of adversity. Constance Lieber chronicles the important story of one of the American West’s and Mormonism’s most intriguing characters.

Constance L. Lieber was born in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and has lived in Germany, Switzerland, and China. She holds a BA in history from the University of Utah, an MA in Germanic and Slavic Literature from Brigham Young University, and a PhD in Languages and Literature from the University of Utah. She has taught German at the University of Utah and at Brigham Young University, and currently job coaches Chinese speakers in writing English emails. She co-edited, with John Sillito, Letters from Exile: The Correspondence of Martha Hughes Cannon and Angus M. Cannon, 1886-1889. Besides Cannon, Lieber’s interests are Polish poetry, reading murder mysteries, and playing bassoon and piano, and—especially—her five children.