When the Socialist party of America was founded in 1901, it built a strong following among trade unionists, reformers, populist farmers, and immigrant communities. At its high point over the next 20 years, the SPA published newspapers, ran columns in local papers, and influenced American politics. It twice supported presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, elected two members of Congress — socialist journalist Victor Berger and labor lawyer Meyer London — and helped more than 1,000 candidates into state and local office.
From the onset in Utah, chapters opened in cities from Logan, Ogden and Salt Lake to Bingham, Sandy, Manti and Eureka. Since the national organization supported women's right to vote, the movement attracted Utah women.
Sympathetic to the "plight of the working class," many women Socialists hoped to achieve "economic democracy" and equal rights with men. They wanted lessons on leadership and policy. And they were willing to work within the largely male-dominated party that, despite the platform's stance on suffrage, maintained a Victorian bias against women.
Others chose to support the organization through separate but allied association. According to historian Mari J. Buhl, they would then relinquish "political decision-making and participation to their husbands."
When the party pledged full equity and created a Woman's National Committee, membership among Socialist women — housewives, mothers, teachers, journalists, professionals and poets — increased.
"They played roles in the development of the party in Utah," historian John R. Sillito wrote in the 1981 Utah Historical Quarterly. Former Populist Kate S. Hilliard and professional organizer Ida Crouch-Hazlett served as delegates in the 1901 state organizing convention. Lucy Hoving joined the fray.
A newcomer to Utah in 1888, Hoving converted to the Mormon faith, taught in Ogden's public school system and opened a free kindergarten and instructional school for teachers. After completing a correspondence course offered by the International School of Social Economy, she evolved into a Socialist orator — and apostate.
"Hoving believed Mormon theology taught men they were superior to women, and any opposition to priesthood authority by church members was blasphemy," Sillito wrote. "The tone of her attack on 'priesthood sexism' seems to suggest [she saw] the Socialist party as the true champion of women's equality."
Called an "ardent worker and state organizer," the Aug. 8, 1902, Ogden Standard, reported her untimely death. Crossing the street close to her home, Hoving was "struck by the shaft of a low-wheeled 'bike' carriage [and] instantly killed." Her funeral took place at the home of Socialist friend Hilliard.
In 1908, Hilliard addressed Ogden's First Congregational Church. In her critique, "Why I Belong to No Church," printed in the March 23 Ogden Standard, the prominent leader claimed any church "as a whole is either silent or against efforts of the working class to free itself from wage slavery."
The majority of Utah's Socialist women, however, represented a broad spectrum of religious, economic and cultural diversity offering few if any impediments to working with one another or moving forward.
Eureka's eclectic Socialist Ladies Club organized soirees for cards, conversations and repasts. They advocated education, espoused electoral politics, pursued the votes of women, and were influential in the women's auxiliary of the miners' union. They supported a series of lectures. In one, Mother Jones spoke about unionizing miners; in another, Coloradan Luella Twining delivered on the perils of capitalism and the emancipation of the working class.
In 1910 and 1914, Socialist Olivia McHugh of Murray ran for superintendent of public instruction, a position considered the "bastion" of men. Fully qualified, she lost the vote but not her zeal. In 1915, McHugh helped create the Utah Women's Peace Party and shared her views.
She wasn't alone. Committed to equal rights and opposed to capital punishment, Virginia Snow Stephen, the daughter of LDS president, Lorenzo Snow, advocated for labor activist and songwriter Joe Hill, accused of murder. Convinced of his innocence throughout his trial and martyrdom, the true Socialist spoke in his defense.
Historian Eileen Hallet Stone, author of "Hidden History of Utah," a compilation of her Salt Lake Tribune columns, may be reached at ehswriter@aol.com Sources: John R. Sillito's Women and the Socialist Party in Utah, 1900-1920; Mari Jo Buhle's Women and the Socialist Party; Salt Lake Tribune, July 21, 1914.