ANNA PIERCEY
Charter Member
Anna Thomas Piercey was born on September 14, 1866 and raised in Salt Lake City. She was the daughter of Professor Charles J and Annie Chunn Thomas. Her father was a pioneer of 1861 credited with being one of the first conductors of the Tabernacle Choir and the first leader of the Salt Lake Theatre orchestra. Reared in a cultural environment, she realized the advantages of an education.
She graduated from Brigham Young Academy, the State University, and the Salt Lake Kindergarten Training School, becoming a teacher in the same city for five years. When her husband John died at the age of 39 in 1908, Anna was left to raise their three children on her own. Her education and experience were invaluable and she used both avoiding becoming dependent on anyone.
An ardent Democrat, she was a charter member of the Women's Democratic Club organized in 1896. Along with Elizabeth Hayward, she was a suffragette. Anna was also involved in many civic organizations in Salt Lake City, serving as assistant secretary to the Utah Council of Women, and as president and founding member of the Woman’s Woodrow Wilson Club in Salt Lake.
Anna was first elected to the State House of Representatives in 1918 on the Democratic ticket. The following year, when Utah’s legislature held a special session to ratify the 19th amendment to the federal constitution, Anna sat as chairperson of the house while the measure was voted upon. She felt a great honor and a deep personal sense of satisfaction as she participated in the momentous decision after her working many years for its passage.
In a 1920 edition of The Woman Citizen, Anna explained her reasons for wanting to serve in the legislature.
“My great desire in going to the legislature was to do something to better the conditions of women and children, especially women in industry. As I am a widow and a wage-earner, I felt like I understood conditions better than those who were not.”
While serving in the legislature, she authored the bill to establish an 8-hour work day for women which passed both the House and Senate. She also authored a bill giving women the right to sit on juries. She worked to pass a bill establishing a minimum wage for women, which passed in the House but was defeated in the Senate. She was also interested in securing a school for mentally disadvantaged children and was interested generally in women's and children's issues. Working in the Travelers' Aid Society, she befriended hundreds of young women who arrived in Salt Lake City with little or no funds and no relatives to meet them. Anna also served on the state board of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, as chaplain of the Utah Order of Women Legislators, and volunteered with the American Red Cross.
In 1936, she was a delegate to the National Committee Convention which nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt to his second term.
In her later years, she turned her talents to poetry and published a book entitled "Fragments of Thoughts". Molly Graham, the first president of the Order of Women Legislators, characterized her as a "poet with [a] grateful, loving disposition".
She passed away in Provo, Utah on February 22, 1953 and is buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. A Salt Lake Tribune editorial commended her for "throwing off the shackles with which tradition bound her sex."
Information from Better Days 2020: "Mrs. Elizabeth Hayward," Deseret Evening News, July 4, 1908, p. 5. "Mrs. Hayward Asks for Protection for Children Workers," Salt Lake Telegram, February 9, 1915, p.9. "Asks Congress for Law on Suffrage," Salt Lake Tribune, February 18, 1917, p.32. "Woman Presides Over Utah Senate," Salt Lake Herald-Republican, February 28, 1919, p. 10. "Suffrage Ratified by Senate of Utah," Salt Lake Telegram, September 29, 1919, p. 15.