Reva Beck Bosone papers

Collection

Identifier: MS 0127

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Essentially a political collection, the Reva Beck Bosone papers (1927-1977) contain very little personal material. However, the first part of the collection includes her autobiography and a number of biographical sketches, as well as personal memorabilia such as greeting cards, invitations, award certificates, and programs.

The bulk of the correspondence is contained in four boxes, filed by date. These letters are from congressional colleagues, constituents, and personal friends. Other correspondence related to specific subjects is interfiled throughout the collection where it is supportive or items on the same topic. In addition to the four boxes of speeches or statements filed by date, there are others filed under related subject headings where necessary to clarify the topic.

Comprising the central part of the collection are items directly related to Reva Beck Bosone's political life. Materials from her years as judge in the Salt Lake Traffic Court are in this portion. Campaign materials, voting records, and legislation are also included in this section, as well as materials related to her committee and subcommittee assignments, including two boxes on Utah water projects. Materials on issues in which she had a special interest, such as alcoholism, foreign affairs, and business, are filed alphabetically in four boxes.

General items on women and women's clubs (both Utah and national) and Utah are included together in one box. Two boxes on the Democratic and Republican parties contain miscellaneous political material. Following this is a volume containing the decisions made by Judge Bosone as a judicial officer for the United States Post Office Department.

The Subject Files are arranged alphabetically and contain such items as club rosters and pending military discharge cases in which Bosone had an interest. The six scrapbooks contain newspaper clippings, photographs, and other memorabilia. Addenda to the collection includes correspondence, tributes, essays, and miscellaneous materials.

Boxes 8-10 are digitized. Click here to view digitized items from the collection or the links below.

Dates

1917-1977

Creator

Bosone, Reva Beck (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Twenty-four hour advanced notice encouraged. Materials must be used on-site. Access to parts of this collection may be restricted under provisions of state or federal law.

Conditions Governing Use

The library does not claim to control copyright for all materials in the collection. An individual depicted in a reproduction has privacy rights as outlined in Title 45 CFR, part 46 (Protection of Human Subjects). For further information, please review the J. Willard Marriott Library’s Use Agreement and Reproduction Request forms.

Biographical Sketch

The first woman sent to the United States House of Representatives by the State of Utah was Reva Beck Bosone who represented the Second Congressional District for the 1949-1951 term. Bosone had set precedents before--when she became Democratic floor leader of the Utah State House of Representatives, in which she served from 1933 to 1936, and when she became Utah's first woman judge, a post she held until 1948.

Reva Beck Bosone was born in American Fork, Utah, the only daughter among the four children of Christian M. and Zilpha Chipman Beck. Her father was of Danish extraction, her mother a descendant of the 1847 Mormon pioneers and of the Mayflower pilgrims. Reva Beck attended grammar and high schools in American Fork, graduated from the Westminster Junior College in Salt Lake City, and in 1920 received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley. For the next seven years she taught in the high schools of her birthplace, in Delta, and in Ogden, Utah. At the latter, she was head of the Department of Public Speaking, Debating, and Dramatic Arts.

Inspired by the memory of her mother's admonition that "a country is no better than its laws--if you want to serve all of the people, go where the laws are made," Reva Beck resigned from her teaching post in 1927 to read law at the University of Utah. She received her law degree in 1930. The previous year, she was married to Joseph P. Bosone, a lawyer. They were divorced in 1940.

The Bosone family moved to the mining region of Carbon County where both Bosone and her husband practiced law under the firm name Bosone and Bosone until Mrs. Bosone became a candidate for the state legislature. Carrying her two-year-old daughter Zilpha, she conducted a door-to-door campaign that resulted in her election to the 1933 session of the Utah State House of Representatives with "the highest vote received by any candidate for an office in the county." In 1935 she was returned to office from Salt Lake County. In the 1935 session Mrs. Bosone was elected floor leader of the Democratic members and also became the first woman member of the important Sifting Committee, as well as its chairman. Her role in obtaining passage of a minimum wage-and-hour law for women and children and of the Utah child labor constitutional amendment, was commended by Frances Perkins and Eleanor Roosevelt.

In 1936, after several months of private law practice in Salt Lake City, Bosone was elected city judge, and was successively reelected to that office until 1948. Sitting in both police and traffic courts (all traffic violations in Salt Lake City were filed in her court), she instituted extraordinary traffic fines--a conviction for drunken driving cost $300, for reckless driving $200. During her first year in office the number of traffic cases filed was tripled, and only three appeals from her judgments were sustained.

The election of Bosone to the United States House of Representatives over Republican William A. Dawson took place in November 1948, when she was chosen to represent the Second Congressional District of Utah comprising the four counties of Davis, Salt Lake, Tooele, and Utah. Her concept of a legislator's duties was contained in a pre-election statement: "Office holders should do the job that should be done, whether the required course of action is popular or not...The biggest need in politics and government today is for people of integrity and courage, who will do what they believe is right and not worry about the political consequences to themselves."

She was the first woman to serve on the House Interior Committee. Judge Bosone continued to work on this committee when she was reelected to the House in 1950, defeating Ivy Baker Priest. During this second term she was a member of the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials. Judge Bosone also proposed legislation to remove the American Indians from government wardship and was much involved in sponsoring water projects for the West.

In 1952 and again in 1954 Reva Beck Bosone was defeated for election to the House by William A. Dawson. Following the 1954 defeat, she had a private law practice until 1958 when she became legal counsel for the Subcommittee of Safety and Compensation of the House Committee on Education. After serving over three years, Postmaster General J. Edward Day appointed her a judicial officer and chairman of the Contract Board of Appeals, for the United States Post Office Department, a position she held until her formal retirement in 1968.

The problems of juvenile delinquency and alcoholism were of special interest to Judge Bosone. She was appointed director of the Utah State Board for Education in Alcoholism, and served in that capacity between 1947 and 1948. For her work in this area, as well as that of juvenile delinquency, Judge Bosone was elected to Utah's Hall of Fame in 1943. During World War II, in her capacity as chairman of the Civilian Advisory WAC Committee of the Ninth Service Command, she toured eleven Western States to confer with their governors. She was an active member of the United War Fund Committee of Utah and of the Veterans Central Welfare Committee. (In the fall of 1948 she taught a refresher course for veterans at the University of Utah Law School.) The Utah congress woman was an officer of such organizations as the Italian-American Civic League (1934-46), the Housewives' Council of Salt Lake City (1934-35), and the Consumers' Welfare League of Utah (1934-37). She was a member of Phi Delta Delta and the Society of Mayflower Descendants.

The keynote address at the 1947 convention of the General Federation of Women's Clubs was delivered by Judge Bosone, who was also a principal speaker at the general session of the National Safety Conference in 1948. For several months radio station KDYL of NBC carried a fifteen minute weekly program by Judge Bosone, entitled "Her Honor--The Judge." In July and again in September of 1948 she appeared on "America's Town Meeting of the Air," speaking on international law and alcoholism. After her election defeat in 1952, Reva Beck Bosone was moderator of the Salt Lake City program "It's a Woman's World" on KDYL, four times weekly. In 1953 the program won the Zenith Television Award for excellence in local programming. A special KUTV documentary, "Her Honor, the Judge," was shown in 1977 on Reva Beck Bosone's varied and colorful career.

In 1946, Judge Bosone was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, and in 1965 was considered for an appointment to that body with the resignation of Justice Arthur J. Goldberg. There followed honors from the three schools she had attended. In 1970 the University of California, Berkeley, gave her a Distinguished Service in Government award. Westminster College awarded her an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree (L.H.D.) in 1973 at a ceremony where she was the commencement speaker. Finally, in 1977 she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Utah. Judge Bosone was also given, with two other women, the first annual Susa Young Gates Award, in 1973, for her work in raising the status of women in Utah.

Reva Beck Bosone died in 1983.

Extent

19.5 Linear Feet (38 boxes and 1 oversize box)

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

The Reva Beck Bosone papers (1927-1977) mainly contain the political papers of Bosone (b. 1895), the first woman sent to the United States House of Representatives by the state of Utah. Included are correspondence, campaign materials, voting records, legislation, subject files, and some personal materials.

Related Materials

Forms part of the Aileen H. Clyde 20th Century Women's Legacy Archives.

Separated Materials

See also the Reva Beck Bosone photograph collection (P0127) and audio-visual materials (A0127) in the Multimedia Division of Special Collections.

Processing Information

Processed by Debra von Khrum and others in 1977-1998.

Box 39 processed by Kristina Barksdale in 2024.

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