More than one-and-a-quarter centuries after Martha Hughes Cannon became the first woman to be elected to a state senate, a statue of the Utahn — flanked by the state’s highest-ranking woman elected officials — was unveiled at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.
Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, who previously was state senator, too, recalled during the ceremony, “Several years ago, a mother brought her young daughter to visit the Utah State Capitol building. She showed her a framed portrait of all the senators hanging on the wall outside the Senate chamber. After studying the picture for a few moments, the exasperated daughter said, ‘No fair. Where are the girls?’
“To that little girl, I say, we’re right here, and so are you,” Henderson continued.
With Johnny Cash representing Arkansas on her right-hand, Cannon is now the fourteenth woman selected to be portrayed in National Statuary Hall. The other figure representing Utah is Brigham Young — the state’s first governor while it was still a territory and the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The Utah Legislature voted nearly seven years ago to replace a statue of Philo Farnsworth, a Utah inventor who is often credited with developing the electronic TV, with one of Cannon amid conversations about how to improve women’s standing in the state. Utah has ranked last in the nation for women’s equality multiple times over the last several years.
(Mark Schiefelbein | AP) Blaine Brady, left, the great-great grandson of Martha Hughes Cannon of Utah, and Arline Arnold Brady, center, the great-granddaughter of Cannon, talk with Utah Lt. Gov Deidre Henderson, right, after the unveiling a statue of Cannon during a ceremony on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Washington.
Last month, Utahns elected a record-breaking number of women to the Utah Legislature, but over a hundred years after Cannon beat her husband for a seat in the Senate, men will still have a supermajority.
“I didn’t do a lot to get her here, but she did a lot to get me here,” U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy, the only woman currently representing Utah in Congress, told a crowd gathered for Cannon’s unveiling.
Then Maloy urged onlookers — which included the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint’s Relief Society, one of the oldest and largest women’s organizations in the world — to not view Cannon, who was also a doctor and traveled across oceans fleeing religious persecution multiple times, as one-dimensional.
“Let her be her and respect all of the things she represents, because there’s something in there that speaks to everybody here,” Maloy said.
(Mark Schiefelbein | AP) Arline Arnold Brady, left, the great-granddaughter of Martha Hughes Cannon of Utah, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Mass., second from left, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, fourth from left, and House Speaker Mike Johnson of La. applaud after the unveiling a statue of Cannon during a ceremony on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Washington.
(Mark Schiefelbein | AP) Rep. Celeste Maloy, R-Utah, speaks during a ceremony to unveil a statue of Martha Hughes Cannon of Utah on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Washington.
Correction, Dec. 12, 10 a.m.⋅ This story was corrected to update the state that placed a statue of Johnny Cash.
