Ulrich, Laurel - A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870

January 10, 2017

 

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Penguin Random House. January 10, 2017.
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A stunning and sure-to-be controversial book that pieces together, through more than two dozen nineteenth-century diaries, letters, albums, minute-books, and quilts left by first-generation Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, the never-before-told story of the earliest days of the women of Mormon “plural marriage,” whose right to vote in the state of Utah was given to them by a Mormon-dominated legislature as an outgrowth of polygamy in 1870, fifty years ahead of the vote nationally ratified by Congress, and who became political actors in spite of, or because of, their marital arrangements. Read more...

 

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

300th Anniversary University Professor

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is known for her books on early New England, but she is not a native of the region. She grew up among the potato farms and sagebrush of eastern Idaho in a town that was on the main highway to Yellowstone National Park. On clear days, which were common, you could see the Grand Tetons in the distance. Her western upbringing accounts for her Rocky Mountain accent and for her fascination with the way New England history came to dominate national culture. She remembers in second grade sitting cross-legged in a pseudo-Indian costume reciting lines from Longfellow’s Hiawatha, and she remembers driving through the lava-filled moonscape of southern Idaho singing “Over the River and Through the Woods to Grandmother’s House We Go.”

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