Dr. Martha

Dr. Martha tells the fascinating story of Martha Hughes Cannon, the first woman elected to the Utah state senate—in 1896. She was a polygamist wife, a practicing physician, and an astute and pioneering politician. In compelling prose, author Mari Graña traces Cannon’s life from her birth in Wales to her emigration to Utah with her family in 1861, her career as a physician, her marriage, her exile in England, her subsequent return, and her election to the Utah state senate. Her husband was the Republican candidate she, a Democrat, defeated in that historic election.