Bosone, Reva Beck

Reva Beck Bosone was born 2 April 1895 in American Fork, Utah. She graduated from Westminister College and the University of California, Berkeley, before teaching high school in Utah. She married Harold G. Cutler in 1920, but they divorced a year later. She married her second husband, Joseph P. Bosone, in 1929 while they were both law students at the University of Utah. After graduating the couple opened a law office together in Helper, Utah. Reva and Joseph had a daughter in 1930, but divorced in 1939. She gained a seat in the Utah House of Representatives in the Democratic sweep of 1932, and was reelected in 1934. In 1936 she became the first woman to be elected a judge in Utah. During World War II Bosone served on the Salt Lake County Welfare Commission. In 1945 she was appointed an official observer at the organizing conference of the United Nations. In 1948 Judge Bosone was elected to the United States Congress. She served two terms, and became the first woman to serve on the Interior Committee. Her reelection campaign of 1952 failed due to accusations of being a communist sympathizer. She retired to pursue her law practice and worked as an office assistant. She died 21 July 1983.

From the description of Reva Beck Bosone papers, 1896-1980. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122699330

City justice, state representative, U.S. Congressman, judicial officer for the U.S. Post Office Department.

From the description of Papers, 1927-1977. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 154298485

The only woman ever 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.

From the guide to the Reva Beck Bosone papers, 1927-1977, (J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah)

Reva Beck Bosone was born 2 April 1895 in American Fork, Utah. She graduated from Westminister College and the University of California, Berkeley, before teaching high school in Utah. She married Harold G. Cutler in 1920, but they divorced a year later. She married her second husband, Joseph P. Bosone, in 1929 while they were both law students at the University of Utah. After graduating the couple opened a law office together in Helper, Utah. Reva and Joseph had a daughter in 1930, but divorced in 1939. She gained a seat in the Utah House of Representatives in the Democratic sweep of 1932, and was reelected in 1934. In 1936 she became the first woman to be elected a judge in Utah. During World War II Bosone served on the Salt Lake County Welfare Commission. In 1945 she was appointed an official observer at the organizing conference of the United Nations. In 1948 Judge Bosone was elected to the United States Congress. She served two terms, and became the first woman to serve on the Interior Committee. Her reelection campaign of 1952 failed due to accusations of being a communist sympathizer. She retired to pursue her law practice and worked as an office assistant. She died 21 July 1983.

From the guide to the Reva Beck Bosone papers, 1896-1980, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections)