Mary Elizabeth Woolley Chamberlain (January 31, 1870 – August 20, 1953) was an American politician who served as the mayor of Kanab, Utah, from 1911 to 1913. She presided over an all-women town council, and had earlier been elected as Utah's first female county clerk in 1896. She used the pseudonym Mary Howard during her time on the council.
Early life
Mary Elizabeth Woolley was born on January 31, 1870, in St. George, Utah. She was the second child of Edwin Dilworth Woolley Jr. and Emma Geneva Bentley. She was named after both of her grandmothers. She grew up in Kane County, Utah in Kanab, just north of the Utah/Arizona border. Her father was stake president of the Kanab Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for more than 20 years.
Career
Mary Chamberlain attended LDS College in Salt Lake City in fall of 1890. She gave the commencement address in June 1891 on "woman's mission". When she returned home, she worked at her father's mercantile store Bowman & Company. She was elected as the first woman county clerk in Utah in 1896. In 1911, she was elected to be president of an all-women board of council in Kanab; this position was equivalent to mayor. She was elected under the name Mary W. Howard, as she had married Thomas Chamberlain as his sixth wife when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was ending the practice of plural marriage. Chamberlain wrote in 1936 that they were not actively seeking office and their candidacy was a practical joke as their ticket was formed on the day of the elections, as nobody in the town was concerned with who was elected in the positions. They were visited by Susa Young Gates who was excited about their work and wanted to learn more about what they were doing. Mary's letter to Gates, who called her "Mayor", was published in the July 1914 Improvement Era. When her husband Thomas Chamberlain died, she had to support herself and her children by selling homemade goods to travelers and offering up her home as a board house. She also carried a line of ladies' hats to make ends meet.
In 1923, she obtained a job as a traveling sales representative selling silk ladies clothes throughout Utah, Arizona, Idaho, and Wyoming; she maintained that job for 10 years. She remained active in church callings and in the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, moving frequently and living in Provo and Salt Lake City. She died on August 20, 1953, at the age of 84 from blood clot in Pocatello, Idaho, while visiting her granddaughter. She was buried in the Kanab cemetery.
Council in Kanab
Mary Chamberlain was elected to be chairman of an all-women town council in 1911; the council served for two years. At the time they incorrectly supposed that this was the first all-woman town council in history. In reality, a newspaper cites Mary D. Lowman as a recently elected female mayor with an all-woman council in Oskaloosa, Kansas in 1888, 23 years before the election of Mary Chamberlain. She was, however, the first female mayor of Kanab, Utah. The council in Kanab consisted of five women: Vinnie Jepson, Tamar Hamblin, Blanche Hamblin, Luella McAllister, and Mary Chamberlain (then Howard) as president. Chamberlain and her council took office on January 2, 1912, and reportedly had meetings in their own homes rather than at the courthouse. During a time when women were expected to stay at home and raise a family rather than work, all five newly elected politicians had families ranging from two to seven children, and were expected to simultaneously tend to their individual housework and church duties while in office.
In fact, because of the circumstances of the election, the women were actually taken more seriously than they would have been. Seeking election on a feminist platform would have likely created a more hostile attitude towards the councilwomen, making it more difficult for them to have accomplished everything they were able to accomplish. They passed eight ordinances and initiated other measures focused on cleaning up the town of Kanab.