STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
In the 1840s Mormon men were issued a curious directive that they were to take on additional wives to earn eternal salvation.
Some were even coerced.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has woven this odyssey, which happened primarily between 1835 and 1870, into the book, “A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism.”
And she will present some of her findings during a free lecture at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 27, at Ketchum’s Community Library.
Ulrich, a professor at Harvard University, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991 for “A Midwife’s Tale,” which focuses on the prosaic dairy of an 18th century New England midwife.
The Sugar City, Idaho, native pieced together her latest book through 19th century diaries written by both men and women, as well as letters, albums, minute-books and quilts left by first-generation Latter-day Saints to tell the never-before-told story of the earliest days of Mormon polygamy.
The diaries and letters, tucked away in tin bread boxes and log cabin walls, describe the reaction of women to the new directive. They paint the portraits of women who espoused “sex radicalism,” the idea that a woman should choose when and with whom to bear children.
They paint the picture of some women who embraced polygamy as a means of escaping from abusive marriages or a way to share domestic labor
And they paint the portrait of Wilford Woodruff, an apostle of the church, who somewhat reluctantly sealed himself to two teenage girls despite his devotion to his wife.