The State of Deseret was a proposed state of the United States, proposed in 1849 by settlers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City. The provisional state existed for slightly over two years, but was never recognized by the United States government. The name derives from the word for "honeybee" in the Book of Mormon.
The Nauvoo Legion was a state-authorized militia of the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, United States. With growing antagonism from surrounding settlements it came to have as its main function the defense of Nauvoo, and surrounding Latter Day Saint areas of settlement.
George Quayle Cannon was an early member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and served in the First Presidency under four successive presidents of the church: Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow. He was the church's chief political strategist, and was dubbed "the Mormon premier" and "the Mormon Richelieu" by the press. He was also a five-time Utah territorial delegate to the U.S. Congress.
Charles William Penrose was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1904 to 1911. Penrose was also a member of the First Presidency, serving as a counselor to church presidents Joseph F. Smith and Heber J. Grant from 1911 until his death.
The Liberal Party was a political party established in the latter half of the 1800s in Utah Territory before the national Democrats and Republicans established themselves in Utah in the early 1890s.
William Samuel Godbe was a British convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is remembered for leading a Mormon faction called the Church of Zion, better known as the "Godbeites".
The Godbeites were members of the Godbeite Church, officially called the Church of Zion, organized in 1870 by William S. Godbe. This dissident offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was aimed toward embracing all belief systems. Known for embracing spiritualism and mysticism, the church died out by the 1880s.
The Utah Territorial Statehouse, officially Territorial Statehouse State Park Museum, is a state park in Fillmore, Utah, preserving the original seat of government for the Utah Territory. Built from 1852 to 1855, the statehouse was initially intended as a larger structure, but only the south wing was completed before the project was abandoned due to lack of federal funding, and the Utah Territorial Legislature met in the building only once before the capital was moved to Salt Lake City in 1856.
Frank Jenne Cannon was the first United States Senator from Utah, who served from 1896 to 1899.
The Utah State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Utah. It is a bicameral body, comprising the Utah House of Representatives, with 75 state representatives, and the Utah Senate, with 29 state senators. There are no term limits for either chamber.
John Milton Bernhisel was an American physician, politician, and early member of the Latter Day Saint movement. He was a close friend and companion to both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Bernhisel was the original delegate of the Utah Territory in the United States House of Representatives and acted as a member of the Council of Fifty of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
John Riggs Murdock was the leader of the most Mormon pioneer down-and-back companies in Latter-day Saint history, leading ox-drawn wagon trains that carried both merchandise and passengers "down and back" from Missouri to Utah.
Women's suffrage in Utah was first granted in 1870, in the pre-federal period, decades before statehood. Among all U.S. states, only Wyoming granted suffrage to women earlier than Utah. Because Utah held two elections before Wyoming, Utah women were the first women to cast ballots in the United States after the start of the suffrage movement. However, in 1887 the Edmunds–Tucker Act was passed by Congress in an effort to curtail Mormon influence in the territorial government, disallowing the enfranchisement of the women residents within Utah Territory. Women regained the vote upon Utah statehood in 1896, when lawmakers included the right in the state constitution.
John Sharp was a 19th-century leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah Territory. Sharp was the LDS Church's representative in negotiations regarding the construction of the First transcontinental railroad through Utah Territory. He represented the LDS Church and its president, Brigham Young, at the driving of the final golden spike of the railroad on 10 May 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory.
Franklin Snyder Richards was the general counsel for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the late-19th and early-20th century. He was closely connected with the defense against charges of polygamy of many leading LDS Church figures.
William Wallace Cluff was an American Latter-day Saint missionary and leader in the 19th century, and a member of the Utah Territorial Legislature.
Early in its history, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a series of negative encounters with the federal government of the United States. This led to decades of mistrust, armed conflict, and the eventual disincorporation of the church by an act of the United States Congress. The relationship between the church and the government eventually improved, and in recent times LDS Church members have served in leadership positions in Congress and held other important political offices. The LDS Church becomes involved in political matters if it perceives that there is a moral issue at stake and wields considerable influence on a national level with over a dozen members of Congress having membership in the church in the early 2000s, and about 80% of Utah state lawmakers identifying as LDS.
The 1900 United States presidential election in Utah took place on November 6, 1900, as part of the 1900 United States presidential election held in each of the forty-five contemporary states. State voters chose three representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Charlotte Ives Cobb Kirby was an influential and radical women's rights activist and temperance advocate in the state of Utah as well as a well-known national figure. Charlotte was born in Massachusetts and at seven years of age moved to Nauvoo, Illinois with her mother, an early member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There, without divorcing father Henry Cobb, her mother became Brigham Young's second plural wife. They then moved to Utah in 1848. Charlotte, previously a plural wife herself, spoke out against polygamy and gained much opposition from polygamous women suffragists because of it. Her first marriage was to William S. Godbe, the leader of the Godbeite offshoot from the LDS Church. After divorcing Godbe, Kirby married John Kirby, a non-LDS man, and they were together until Charlotte's death in 1908. Charlotte was a leading figure of the Utah Territory Woman Suffrage Association, and served as a correspondent to the government and other suffragist organizations, including the National Women's Suffrage Association. Charlotte often traveled to the East Coast to deliver lectures regarding women's rights and temperance, the first Utah woman and the first woman with voting rights to speak to national suffragist audiences. Charlotte Ives Cobb Kirby died on January 24, 1908, at age 71 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The Utah Constitutional Convention was held from March 4, 1895 to May 8, 1895. The 1895 convention was the Utah territory’s seventh and final attempt to be admitted to the United States as a state. The Constitution of Utah was accepted by Congress and the President, leading to Utah’s admittance into the union as the 45th state on January 4, 1896.
