SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A Utah woman who defeated her polygamist husband to become the nation’s first female state senator could soon be headed to the U.S. Capitol.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports the Utah Senate approved a proposal Monday to send a statute of Martha Hughes Cannon to Washington D.C. in a 21-7 vote they said honors women’s achievements. The bill now moves to the Utah House for consideration.
If it becomes law, Cannon’s statue would replace that of Utah-born inventor Philo T. Farnsworth, who created key television technology. Some Utah senators want to keep him.
Cannon was a Mormon suffragette who earned a medical degree from the University of Michigan and won her state Senate seat in 1896. Her statute would stand in the U.S. Capitol’s National Statuary Hall Collection, which houses two from each state.
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