Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Elizabeth Ann Pugsley Hayward, 1854-1942
By Ann Engar, Professor/Lecturer, University of Utah, Honors College and LEAP Program.
Utah State senator, member of Utah House of Representatives, civic and religious leader.
Elizabeth Ann Pugsley Hayward was born in 1854 in Salt Lake City to two recent immigrants from Bristol, England, Philip and Martha Roach Pugsley. As the eldest daughter of a large family with two sets of twins, Elizabeth had little time for an education. On her 21st birthday in 1875, she married Henry John Hayward, whose parents had also immigrated from England. She and Henry experienced much tragedy in their family: their first two children died of diphtheria at ages 3 and 1, the next five died at ages 1-10, and one of the next four died as a teenager. Only three of nine lived to maturity. She and her husband, a general contractor, became active in the Democratic Party in the 1890's. In 1899, she became assistant secretary of the Women's Democratic and Civic Club of Salt Lake City. For ten years she served as that organization's president (1902-1905 and 1907-1915).
Hayward engaged in much public service. From 1901 to 1903, she was the president of the Mother's Club of Washington school and was a member of the Public Library Board from 1903 to 1905. From her presidency in the Utah Suffrage Council, Hayward worked her way through the Democratic party to serve as a delegate to the 1908 National Convention in Denver, one of the first women of either major party to serve as a national delegate. She later attended the 1916 Convention in St. Louis and the 1920 Convention in San Francisco. In 1915, she was elected representative for the Eighth District (Salt Lake City) in the Utah House of Representatives, where she served on the Art, Public Health, and State Library Committees. She introduced bills on arts education and child welfare. She was re-elected to the House in 1917 and then was elected as the only female State Senator in 1919 and 1921.
As Senator, Hayward worked on committees on health and education. Her bill stipulating an eight-hour workday for women was defeated, but the Senate did pass her bills on changing the age of protection for girls to 18 and on equal pay for equal work. Hayward's son John served in France in World War I, and she wrote bills on homecoming celebrations and honorary certificates for war veterans. She promoted employment for children being put under the state industrial commission rather than the juvenile courts. Still another set of bills led to irrigation studies and a state memorial for irrigation. Her primary achievement was introducing the bill to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Utah State Senate, which passed unanimously by both Houses within thirty minutes.
At the same time, Hayward was active in the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, serving as registrar, corresponding secretary, counselor to the president, and president from 1917 to 1921. A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, she was in the presidencies of Relief Societies in the Salt Lake and then Liberty Stakes. She was a charter member of the League of Women Voters that replaced the Suffrage Council in 1919, and a charter member as well as officer in the Service Star Legion, an organization for mothers of soldiers.
Henry died in 1927. In 1938 Hayward was among eight active women leaders selected for the Salt Lake Council's Women's Hall of Fame. She died in 1942. At her funeral, a friend praised Hayward's "strength and deliberation" and her ability "to work and associate with people in all walks of life."
SOURCES:
"16 Local News First Woman Senator Dies," Salt Lake Telegram, 27 Jan. 1942.
Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. "Presidents of the DUP," An Enduring Legacy 1:236-238. Salt Lake City: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, 1978.
"The Democrats Hold Primaries," Deseret Evening News, 20 Feb. 1900.
Harper, Ida Husted. History of Women Suffrage: 1900-1920. 6:646-649. Salem, NH: Ayer Co. Publishers. [LINK]
"Hayward, Elizabeth Pugsley, Autobiographical Sketch," Susa Young Gates Papers, Utah State Historical Society, MSS B 95, Box 12 Folder 5.
Salt Lake Herald, 2 June 1896; 9 June 1896; 18 March 1919.
Salt Lake Telegram, 29 Jan. 1942.
Salt Lake Tribune, 25 Feb. 1900.
"Women in Utah Legislature Do Some Good Work," Ogden Standard Examiner, 1 April 1919.
"Women's Democratic Club of Salt Lake City," Deseret Evening News, 7 Dec. 1899.