Seraph Young Ford

Seraph Young Ford (November 6, 1846June 22, 1938) was the first woman to cast a ballot under a law that made women citizens' voting rights equal to men's in the United States. She voted in Salt Lake City's municipal election on February 14, 1870, becoming the first woman to vote after the Utah Territory passed a women's equal suffrage law, just two days prior. Biography Seraph Cedenia Young was born on November 6, 1846 to Cedenia Clark and Brigham Hamilton Young in Winter Quarters, Nebraska. The Young family migrated to the Great Basin the next year along with other Mormon refugees, arriving in October 1847 and settling in Salt Lake City. Young, grandniece of Brigham Young, was the oldest of nine children and eventually became a teacher at the model school at the University of Deseret. She was twenty-three years old and teaching at the university at the time of her historic vote. Utah's territorial legislature unanimously passed a law extending voting rights to women citizens in February 1870. Acting territorial governor Stephen A. Mann signed the bill into law on February 12, 1870 and Salt Lake City's municipal election was held just two days later. Although Wyoming Territory had extended voting rights to women citizens before Utah Territory did, Utah held two elections the municipal election on February 14 and a territory-wide election on August 1 before Wyoming women first cast ballots on September 6. Seraph Young's historic vote was cast at Council Hall, which in 1870 served as the city hall for Salt Lake City and housed the territory's Legislative Assembly. The building was moved in 1961 to the grounds of the Utah State Capitol. No historical records survive that record Young's feelings about the issue of woman suffrage, but newspapers reported that she was the first woman to cast her vote on February 14, 1870, which made her the first American woman to vote under a law that gave women the same voting rights as men. Young's simple action made history. Young did not go on to become a leader in the women's rights movement, but Utah women remembered her even decades later as the first to vote.