McHugh, Olivia

Olivia McHugh was the Socialist party candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction for Utah in 1914 and 1916.  She did not win either of the races. McHugh  was educated at Kentucky State University and the Sargeant School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She later taught at Randolph Macon Women's College. In 1910 McHugh moved to Utah with her husband and both became involved with the local Socialist party in the town of Murray. In a 1971 interview McHugh stated that she ran as a protest vote and that friends and colleagues in the party and nearby women's clubs voted for her. McHugh later helped to organize the Utah branch of the Woman's Peace Party as a protest against U.S. involvement in World War I.