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Episode 165: The Peak of Mormon Polygamy

In this episode, Lindsay and Bryan dive into the 1860s, the decade when Mormon polygamy reached its statistical and cultural peak. Drawing on census data, diaries, oral histories, and the sharp observations of British explorer Richard Francis Burton, they examine how plural marriage became woven into Utah’s theology, politics, economics, and daily life. From Brigham Young’s vast household to ordinary families struggling to survive the “principle,” this episode looks beyond caricature to ask what polygamy meant, who benefited, who paid the price, and why the height of the practice was also the beginning of its unraveling.

SHOWNOTES:

  • Burton, Richard Francis. The City of the Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to California. Ed. Fawn M. Brodie. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963. Originally published 1861.
  • Dalton, Lucinda Lee. Autobiography. Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. PF 20.
  • Heywood, Martha Spence. Journal. In Juanita Brooks, ed., Not By Bread Alone: The Journal of Martha Spence Heywood, 1850–56. Salt Lake City: Utah Historical Society, 1978.
  • Kimball Whitney, Helen Mar. Plural Marriage as Taught by the Prophet Joseph: A Reply to Joseph Smith, Editor of the Lamoni Iowa “Herald.” Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1882.
  • Kimball Whitney, Helen Mar. Why We Practice Plural Marriage. Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1884.
  • Maughan, Mary Ann Weston. Journal. In Kate B. Carter, ed., Our Pioneer Heritage. 20 vols. Salt Lake City, 1959. Vol. 2.
  • Partridge Young, Emily Dow. Autobiography and Diary. Typescript. LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City.
  • Pratt, Belinda Marden. “Defense of Polygamy by a Lady in Utah, in a Letter to her Sister in New Hampshire, Salt Lake City, January 12, 1854.” Reprinted in Burton, City of the Saints, 489–90.
  • Richards, Jane Snyder. “The Inner Facts of Social Life in Utah,” 1880. Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. PF 2.
  • Tanner, Annie Clark. A Mormon Mother: An Autobiography. 1941. Salt Lake City: Tanner Trust Fund, University of Utah Library, 1973.
  • Whitney, Helen Mar. “Why We Practice Plural Marriage, by a Mormon Wife and Mother.” Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1884.
  • Woman’s Exponent. Salt Lake City, 1872–1914. Various issues cited throughout.
  • Young, Emily D. to Brigham Young, 24 February 1853. Brigham Young Family Correspondence. LDS Church Archives.
  • Bennion, Lowell C. “Ben.” “The Incidence of Mormon Polygamy in 1880: ‘Dixie’ versus Davis Stake.” Journal of Mormon History 11 (1984): 27–42.
  • Bennion, Lowell C. “Ben.” “Mapping the Extent of Plural Marriage in St. George, 1861–1880.” BYU Studies 51, no. 4 (2012): 27–55.
  • Bitton, Davis. “Mormon Polygamy: A Review Article.” Journal of Mormon History 4 (1977): 101–18.
  • Bitton, Davis, and Val Lambson. “Demographic Limits of Nineteenth-Century Mormon Polygyny.” BYU Studies 51, no. 4 (2012): 7–26.
  • Brodie, Fawn M. “Sir Richard F. Burton: Exceptional Observer of the Mormon Scene.” Utah Historical Quarterly 38, no. 4 (1970): 295–312.
  • Brodie, Fawn M. The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton. New York: Norton, 1967.
  • Bushman, Richard Lyman. Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  • Bivona, Daniel. “Richard F. Burton, Polygamy, and the Worlding of the American West.” Comparative Critical Studies 9, no. 1 (2012): 73–97.
  • Compton, Todd. In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997.
  • Cornwall, Marie, Camela Courtright, and Laga Van Beek. “How Common the Principle? Women as Plural Wives in 1860.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26, no. 2 (1993): 139–53.
  • Daynes, Kathryn M. More Wives Than One: Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840–1910. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001. [Pages 95–98 on age distribution of plural wives cited specifically.]
  • Derr, Jill Mulvay. “Woman’s Place in Brigham Young’s World.” BYU Studies 18, no. 3 (1978): 377–95.
  • Dunfey, Julie. “‘Living the Principle’ of Plural Marriage: Mormon Women, Utopia, and Female Sexuality in the Nineteenth Century.” Feminist Studies 10, no. 3 (Fall 1984): 523–36.
  • Embry, Jessie L. “Effects of Polygamy on Mormon Women.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 7, no. 3 (1984): 56–61.
  • Foster, Lawrence. “A Little-Known Defense of Polygamy from the Mormon Press in 1842.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 9, no. 4 (Winter 1974): 21–35.
  • Larson, Gustive O. The ‘Americanization’ of Utah for Statehood. San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1971.
  • Logue, Larry M. A Sermon in the Desert: Belief and Behavior in Early St. George, Utah. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
  • Madsen, Carol Cornwall. “‘At Their Peril’: Utah Law and the Case of Plural Wives, 1850–1900.” Western Historical Quarterly 21, no. 4 (November 1990): 425–43.
  • Quinn, D. Michael. “The Mormon Hierarchy, 1832–1932: An American Elite.” PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1976.
  • Smith, James E., and Phillip R. Kunz. “Polygyny and Fertility in Nineteenth-Century America.” Population Studies 30 (1976): 465–80.
  • Snow, Edwina Jo. “British Travelers View the Saints, 1847–1877.” BYU Studies 31, no. 2 (1991): 63–81.
  • Sorel, Nancy Caldwell. “When Brigham Young Met Richard Burton.” The Independent, 15 September 1995.
  • Taylor, Samuel W. “A Mirror for Mormons: Richard F. Burton, The City of the Saints.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3, no. 3 (Autumn 1968): 106–9.
  • Young, Kimball. Isn’t One Wife Enough? New York: Henry Holt, 1954.