Her Quiet Revolution by Marianne Monson

This story of Martha Hughes Cannon largely takes place in the (1860s) Utah Territory before Utah becomes a state. “Mattie,” as Martha is called , transforms from a young girl to a doctor to a U.S. Senator in her lifetime.

The story covers Mattie’s decision to go alone to medical school across the country, return home to establish her own medical practice and start a nursing school in her Salt Lake City community. Somehow, however, this very independent and courageous young woman ends up in a polygamist marriage, spending years pining for a man she cannot really have.

If you never knew about the Latter Day Saints (LDS), this book could be a primer for you on the subject. The language is old fashioned/outdated to create a feeling of the times, but this reader felt the story was wordy to a fault, and, in parts, unnecessarily long.

Mattie Cannon certainly opened the door for women in her quest for women’s suffrage and equal opportunities in work and politics. I just couldn’t reconcile all this with being one of four wives (with three children of her own) to a man who denies her in the end.

Many thanks to #NetGalley and #ShadowMountain Publishers for an ARC for my review.

Martha Hughes Cannon (1857-1932) was a pioneer woman who knew what mattered to her and she pushed the limits to defy the odds. “Mattie” became one of the first female physicians and America’s first female state senator. She overcame tremendous odds.

Wyoming, 1861. Mattie’s family journeys first from Wales and now across the mountains to Salt Lake City. During this journey, they lose Mattie’s sister and father. This experience gives Mattie fire to become a healer.

1873. With her heart racing and “books clutched against her chest” she rushes for her evening courses in chemistry at the University of Deseret. Her diligence and perseverance earn her a place at medical school in Michigan. After completing her medical program in Michigan and Philadelphia, she heads back to Utah to fulfill the meaning of her life – saving lives.

She doesn’t want to bear a child after child as her mother did. She wants to save lives. Can polygamy be an answer to her life’s fulfillment?

With her gift for speaking, a logical mind and sharp reasoning, she wins the hearts of politicians who elect her as the first female state senator of Utah.

The story is so interesting and the writing is so beautiful that I wished the story were even longer and included her years as a senator.

Mattie is a very interesting character: talented, ambitious, driven, practical (clothes should perform a function, not look prettily and be useless), caring (which comes through when caring for her patients). She prefers laboratories over kitchen, which is still hard to grasp by some women. She is human, who makes mistakes and in the direst situation asks her mother for an advice. Something she never thought she’d be doing.

The relationship she has with her step-dad and his support is very endearing. It gives the read a very human touch. And the moments when she comes to those touching conclusions in regards to her mother.

The time period of a woman forging her way in a man’s world, where she often was the first woman or one of the very few, is vividly portrayed through her first steps of perseverance to make path to medical school, then through her schooling time at medical school, and doctoring as a female doctor. It is also presented through new breakthrough in medical field of its time, humors theory vs new intriguing ideas that “illness is not caused by vapors, but by microscopic, wiggling creatures too small to be seen with a human eye.” Acknowledging and giving credit to those in medical field who did not receive it in time to enjoy it.

Phenomenal writing of beautifully imagined story with vivid descriptions and engrossing protagonist and pace moving swiftly take a reader on an incredible journey of perseverance and defiance of odds.