Susa Young Gates wrote nine books, including the first Mormon novel by a Mormon and a major biography of her father, Brigham Young. Also active in politics and women's organizations, Susa helped organize the National Household Economics Organization, served as a delegate and speaker to five Congresses of the International Council of Women, served as a delegate and officer of the National Council of Women, and was the Utah organizer of Daughters of the American Revolution, Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, and National Woman's Press Club. She attended several Republican National Conventions, served as an officer of the Relief Society and Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association, and was a member of the Board of Regents of Brigham Young University and Utah State Agricultural College. In Utah she entertained such prominent American women as Ella Wheeler Wilcox, May Wright Sewall, Clara Barton, and Susan B. Anthony; carried on correspondence with Tolstoy, William Dean Howells, and other literary figures; published several woman suffrage pamphlets; and left many shelves of unpublished dramas, novels, short stories, and biographies. She also wrote the first Mormon genealogical treatises. She founded and edited
College Lantern, said to be the first Western college paper, and later the
Young Woman's Journal. She was the mother of thirteen children. [adapted from
Leonard Arrington]
Included in
75 Significant Mormon Poets