Martha Hughes Canyon

Martha Hughes Canyon
(JULY 1, 1857-JULY 10, 1932)

Martha “Mattie” Hughes Cannon was a physician, suffragist, and the first female state senator in the United States. She was born July 1, 1857, Llandudno, Wales, to Peter Hughes (1824-1861) & Elizabeth (Evans) Hughes Paul (1833-1923).

The family emigrated from England in 1860, arriving in New York aboard the Ship Underwriter on May 1, 1860, before traveling to 1860 Florence, Nebraska. The Hughes Family then proceeded west with the Joseph Horne Company, leaving on July 11, 1861.

On September 13, 1861, Martha Hughes arrived in Salt Lake City with her family. They spent the first night on the grounds of the future City & County building where she would later serve in the Utah Legislature. Her father died 3 days after their arrival in Salt Lake City.

Martha worked as a typesetter for the Deseret News and the Woman’s Exponent. In 1878 she received a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Deseret, before continuing on to earn her medical degree from the University of Michigan in 1880 and a pharmaceutical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1882. Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon also earned a degree from the National School of Elocution and Oratory in Philadelphia. She returned to Utah in 1882 to begin a private medical practice before becoming the resident physician at Deseret Hospital and was married to Angus M. Cannon on October 6, 1884.

Utah Women began voting in 1870, but in 1887 the Edmunds-Tucker Act was passed, disenfranchising women of the Utah territory. Martha became a leader in the Utah Women’s Suffrage Association and was a speaker at the Women’s Congress of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago alongside notable women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Caddy Stanton.

In 1896 Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon became the first female state senator in the United States when she was elected to Utah State Senate and defeated her own husband. During her time in the Senate, she introduced notable bills including one prohibiting the sale of liquor to minors, The Pure Food Act, an appropriation for a Hospital for the Deaf, Dumb & Blind, a statewide sanitation bill, and the bill
creating the State Board of Health.

Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon spoke as part of the Seneca Falls 50th anniversary celebration and later addressed the House Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C. in 1898. The Governor appointed her a Member of the State Board of Health after she set up a commission that provided regulations and guidance on contagious disease. Later she became the Vice President of the American Congress for Tuberculosis.

In 1915 her husband, Angus Munn Cannon (1834-1915) died and Martha moved to Los Angeles California to join her children where she was active in the Southern California Medical Community. Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon died July 10, 1932, in Los Angeles, California, was buried in the Salt Lake Cemetery later that month.