Susa Gates (née Young, formerly Dunford; March 18, 1856 – May 27, 1933) was an American writer, periodical editor, president of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, and women's rights advocate.

Gates was born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, to Lucy Bigelow, Brigham Young's twenty-second wife.

[7] When Gates was fourteen, she became the associate editor of "The College Lantern," a literary magazine published by the University of Deseret where she was a student.

In the early 1900s, Gates was nominated as the sole delegate from the United States to attend another convention of the International Council of Women in Copenhagen.

Gates also wrote plays, short stories, essays, eulogies, editorials, poetry, newspaper articles, and music lyrics.

Tait explains that during the time when Gates was publishing, the church was encouraged to manufacture items by themselves in order to avoid spending money at "Gentile" establishments.

Tait argues that Gates selected the pen name of Homespun as a tribute to that council and as a way to show that she was also dedicated to supporting Mormon products and industry and living separately from the world.

For example, one of her first short stories that was published in a church magazine ends with the main character saying, "Young folks like something bright and gay to read.

[4]: 68–69  In her romance stories, the young couple often had to overcome challenges that many Mormons were then facing, such as the abandonment of the practice of polygamy and Utah on its path to statehood.

Tait further argues that this simplistic take on characters was essential for the success of Gates' stories in a Mormon audience of that time because the religion was just beginning to read fiction.

[11]: 85–89  Tait says that this work is different from Gates' other stories because it included a much larger cast of characters and focused on relationships with non-Mormon groups of people.

In his thesis, Cracroft argues that one of the reasons that Gates wrote was to preserve the ideals and morals for future generations that she felt were crucial for a successful life.

[12]: 4  As was common for Mormon writers at the time, Gates was influenced by the desire to ensure that her targeted audience of fellow Latter-day Saints remained faithful.

In response to these criticisms Gates said, "It may be suggested that this intimate picture of Brigham Young contains no character shadows, but it is concerned only with the high lights of his virtues and kingly powers.

This statement might be answered in his own way by allowing that his enemies have been so busy magnifying his faults that there is small need of his friends painting any personal shadows into the picture.

[4] In 1889, after returning from their first mission, Gates founded the Young Woman's Journal, a periodical targeted to adolescent Latter-day Saint women.

[3] Throughout her life, Gates had writings published in multiple, non-Mormon journals such as North American Review, Juvenile Instructor, and Godey's Lady's Book.

Gates' cantata was performed on June 4, 1890, at the Provo Opera House as part of celebratory events commemorating Brigham Young's birthday.

[2]: 67 During the last fifteen years of her life, Gates worked on two writing projects that were never published: The History of Women and Lucy Bigelow Young.

[2]: 10  Despite polygamy being practice in the church and Susa's idyllic recollections of growing up in a polygamist household, Gates reported that she was opposed to Jacob from taking another wife.

In her thesis, Kathryn H. Shirts writes that "[Susa Young Gates and her daughter, Leah Dunford Widtsoe] fashioned a model for gender roles that has persisted among Mormons well into the twenty-first century.

Gates used examples from her life, and particularly her childhood in Brigham Young's house, that she believed proved that polygamy was not an inherently harmful practice.

[6]: 339  She argued that children from polygamous families in Utah had many opportunities for education,[6]: 340  including her own experience studying music and theatre.

It is a well-known fact here in Utah that there are fewer physical defects and greater intelligence in plural homes than in the same grade or class in monogamy.

Shirts reports that Gates and her daughter were on the "cutting edge of the national movement to make scientific homemaking an acceptable academic profession under the name home economics.

[9]: 109  Shirts argued that Gates' belief that women were divinely appointed to work in the home came from the Bible and that this idea was common in nineteenth-century America.

Gates later wrote about some of her interactions with Smith and how they affected her conclusions about the status of women in the church and the female relationship to the priesthood.

Bailey had strained relations with other members of his family due to unpaid debts and his struggles with alcohol abuse which greatly concerned Gates.

Knowing she had a "sharp tongue and occasional tendency to gossip," Susa also clashed with native Hawaiians and non-natives which cased disagreements.

[4]: 412  Two days after her death, Gates' funeral was held at the Assembly Hall on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.