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Elise Furer Musser (7 December 1877 - 30 August 1967) was a prominent figure in Utah political and social life from the 1930s until her death. A poor Swiss immigrant convert to Mormonism she found her place of leadership after marrying Salt Lake City attorney Burton W. Musser, a member of one of Utah's most important families. Mrs. Musser worked at Neighborhood House an establishment designed to aid the poor and the foreign-born in Salt Lake City and she led the way toward passage of child labor legislation in Utah. She served as a Utah State Senator and Democratic National Committeewoman, but her greatest political achievement, perhaps, was her appointment by President Roosevelt in the 1930s as the United States Delegate (and only woman participant) to international peace conferences in Buenos Aires and Lima.
Elise Furer was born in Les Loges, Canton of Neuchatel, Switzerland, the fourth of five children. Her father died when she was three and although her mother remarried when she was seven the family was very poor. Elise spent four years unhappily in the home of a childless aunt, but eventually returned to her mother. She was a bright student and although her education was sporadic she graduated from high school at a younger age than usual.
A major turning point came in 1894 when she was baptized into the Mormon Church in response to the message of missionaries. Her conversion, while no doubt sincere, had an economic component as well, for she saw in the Mormon Church an opportunity to emigrate to America to improve her condition in life. She arrived in Salt Lake City in 1897 and accepted a menial housekeeping job for a few weeks while she added English to the French and German languages which she already spoke (she eventually would become fluent in Spanish and Italian as well).
Salt Lake City, however, seemed not to contain the kind of opportunity she sought and when an opportunity came for her to move to one of the Mormon colonies in Mexico she accepted. The Mexican colonies, of course, were refuges for polygamists who had found themselves rejected by both church and state in Utah. Elise was unaware of the purpose of the colonies when she went there. She found a good home with one of the families though once again she was unable to locate work that would provide her with more than a modest income. She did manage to accumulate a certain amount of savings, and that, together with her unwillingness to enter a polygamous marriage which would be expected of her if she remained in Mexico, induced her to return to Salt Lake City.
It proved to be another fortuitous move. Shortly after she attended a party in the Second Ward and became friends with Blanche Musser, she met Blanche's brother, Burton, who was to become her husband. They were married in 1911 and moved to New York City while Burton attended law school at Columbia University. Elise also attended college in New York City and the years there were happy ones for her.
Two events of great significance occurred while the couple was in the East. They had been Republicans, but they became very impressed with Woodrow Wilson and joined the Democratic party, the party in which both were to become very influential. Also, they had a baby boy, Bernard, in 1914. Burton had typhoid part of the time she was carrying Bernard and she was worried about suffering a miscarriage if she contracted the disease. Thus the birth of her son had special significance for the couple and her letters later in life, even while engaged in the most intricate and momentous political processes, show an unfailing concern for Bernard's well-being, his travels and his education.
Mrs. Musser's entrance into politics came through her involvement with Neighborhood House where she put her linguistic skills and her social compassion to good use. It was while engaged at Neighborhood House that she attracted the attention of the wife of Governor George Dern who asked her to serve as State Chairman of Democratic Women. That first post led eventually to diplomatic missions in Latin America and service as the Utah State Senator. For the remainder of her life Mrs. Musser was a figure to be reckoned with in Utah Democratic politics.
During the last decades of her life, Mrs. Musser was active in a wide variety of social and political organizations and served as mentor to many younger women who wanted careers outside the home. For reasons that remain relatively obscure she drifted away from and she joined the Unitarian Church in 1940. It was in that church that her funeral services were held in 1967.
Box 1 of the Elise Furer Musser Collection contains her autobiography which she spent a large portion of her time writing during the 1940s. The manuscript at the time of her death was in rough draft form and covered only the period of her life before the end of the Second World War. Sometime after the war she had made the acquaintance of Juanita Brooks, one of Utah's foremost historians and biographers, perhaps because of their mutual activities in the Democratic party. After her death, a niece approached Mrs. Brooks about editing and completing the autobiography and Mrs. Brooks worked on the project for some time, revising and seeking a publisher. Her quest was not successful, however, until 1978, when she and Janet G. Butler published a drastically abridged version of Mrs. Musser's manuscript in the
The autobiography manuscript is preceded in the box by a folder of notes used in preparing the account. It includes tributes that contain autobiographical data and other pertinent information that is particularly useful regarding her later life after the autobiography ends.
Perhaps the most important material in Box 2 is the seven folders of correspondence and post cards. That collection begins with a long letter written to her infant son Bernard in 1916. It is in the form of a diary which records each step in the maturation of a baby. It is a translation of a book written in French, which is not in the collection. Letters to Bernard dominate the collection and she did indeed use French frequently, though few letters are written entirely in that language.
The bulk of the correspondence covers the years 1933-1939, though there are some letters from the 1950s and 1960s and some correspondence among those who worked on the autobiography manuscript until 1977. The collection is family correspondence rather than just letters of Mrs. Musser; both Burton and Bernard are represented in the correspondence.
Folder 8 contains diaries kept by Mrs. Musser during her travels and also contain poignant observations regarding famous people she met and famous sites visited. A couple of diaries are kept in shorthand and have not been transcribed.
The remainder of the collection consists of miscellaneous papers left from a busy life. They include funeral tributes offered for both Burton and Elise Musser, numerous notes taken by her during her foreign tours, certificates indicating her deep involvement in community and political affairs, including her certificate of appointment to the 1938 Peace Conference at Lima, signed by both President Roosevelt and Cordell Hull and a large folder of clippings that document her long life in the public eye.
Elise Furer Musser Papers, 1916-1977, Utah State Historical Society.
Received from Juanita Brooks
The Elise Furer Musser Papers are the physical property of the Utah Historical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah. Literary rights, including copyright, may belong to the authors or their heirs and assigns. Please contact the Historical Society for information regarding specific use of this collection.
Photographs have been removed to