Reva Beck Bosone was born on 2 April 1895 to Christian Mateus Beck and ZilphaChipman Beck, who managed the Grant Hotel and the Pioneer Opera House inAmerican Fork, Utah. The tall redhead early manifested oratorical abilities andconsidered a career in the theater but instead turned to teaching. Afterreceiving her education at Westminister College and University of California atBerkeley, Reva married Harold G. Cutler in 1920. The marriage lasted only oneyear. She continued to teach high school in Delta and then Ogden until 1927when she entered the University of Utah law school. She married classmateJoseph P. Bosone in 1929. The couple had a daughter in 1930 and opened theirlaw offices the next year in Helper, Utah. They were divorced in 1939.

Bosone lost her first case defending, but she gained recognition when shesuccessfully defended two young men in a well-publicized case of attemptedrape. The resulting notoriety helped her secure a seat in the Utah House ofRepresentatives in the Democratic sweep of 1932. The Bosones moved their lawfirm to Salt Lake City and Reva became a member of the "progressive bloc" ofstate legislators who sponsored New Deal reform legislation including a minimumwage and hour law for women and children.

Bosone lost a bid for a seat on the Salt Lake City Commission but wasreelected in 1934 to the state house. She co-sponsored in Utah the Child LaborAmendment to the U.S. Constitution, which failed ratification. In 1936 she ranfor a city judgeship and became the first woman to be elected a judge in Utah.She served three terms and supported efforts to establish adult alcoholism andrehabilitation programs.

During World War II Bosone served on the Salt Lake County Welfare Commissionand was chair of the Civilian Advisory Committee of the 9th Service Command ofthe Women's Army Corps, which covered women in eleven western states. She wasappointed an official observer at the 1945 organizing conference of the UnitedNations.

In 1948 Judge Bosone was elected to the U.S. Congress. She served two terms,running in 1950 against Ivy Baker Priest, who later became the U.S. Treasurer.While in Congress, Bosone became the first woman to serve on the InteriorCommittee. Continuing to be outspoken and energetic, she became involved in twomajor issues - reclamation projects and American Indian policy.

Bosone worked behind the scenes for the Weber Basin Project and more covertlyfor the Small Water Projects program that included securing the terminalreservoir on Deer Creek. She sponsored a bill which called for an investigationof the possibilities of Indians managing their own affairs "without supervisionand control by the Federal Government." The bill did not pass but the momentumfor "termination" continued through the 1950s, resulting in a policy whicheventually proved disastrous to those Indian tribes, such as the SouthernPaiutes, who were involved.

Reva Bosone considered running for the Senate in 1952 against Arthur Watkins,but decided to try again for the House. The campaign was as intense and bitteras many across the country in these years of Republican resurgence and Cold Warparanoia. Bosone was smeared with false charges of receiving kickbacks andbeing a communist sympathizer. The latter was related to her courageous voteagainst funding for the CIA. One of only four in the House to do so, Bosoneexplained that she was not willing to fund an agency which refused to provideinformation about its use of the funds.

Her loss to William Dawson in the 1952 campaign left Bosone emotionally andfinancially drained. She went on to pursue her law practice and worked as anoffice assistant. With the return of a Democrat to the presidency in 1960 shebecame judicial officer of the Post Office, the highest ranking woman in thatdepartment.

Bosone retired in 1968 and spent the years until her death in 1983 enjoyingher family, maintaining a far flung correspondence, being a willing speaker atpolitical and community events, and encouraging women to "raise more hell."