C. V. Waite

Catharine Van Valkenburg Waite (30 January 1829, Dumfries, Ontario, Canada – 9 November 1913, Chicago, Illinois) was an American writer, lawyer, businesswoman, and women's suffrage activist.

Biography

Born in British North America, Van Valkenburg moved with her family to Denmark, Iowa Territory at age 17.

She moved to Illinois in 1850 to study at Knox College. After transferring to Oberlin College in 1852, she tutored students in elocution and helped found a literary society. She graduated with honors in 1853 and married Charles Burlingame Waite the next year. They had eight children.

She was a graduate of the Union College of Law and a member of the Illinois bar. She made a practice of donating legal services to women who could not afford lawyers.

In 1859, after moving to Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, she established the Hyde Park Seminary for young women. The Waite family relocated to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1862 after her husband Charles was appointed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Utah Territory by President Lincoln. There, the family was threatened by Mormons with violence after Congress passed laws against polygamy. Waite was the only non-Mormon in town and learned how to use a six-shooter. After finding the laws could not be enforced, Charles resigned his position and the family left the area. They were living in Idaho City when their first son was born.

She headed the publishing firm of C. V. Waite and Co., and wrote The Mormon Prophet and His Harem, based on what she had learned of the cruelties inflicted upon Mormon women under the leadership of Brigham Young.