Description

In 1976, Claudia Bushman published her landmark collection Mormon Sisters. Lavina Fielding Anderson and Maureen Ursenbach followed with Sisters in Spirit a few years later. Despite the promise of these early works, Mormon women’s history has remained underdeveloped. Even current discussions of polygamy tend to center male voices. When a feminist historian urged scholars in an online forum to foreground women’s voices, the most common response was: How?

In this session, scholars will discuss the research methods and theoretical frameworks that allow them to foreground women’s voices, using their own research as examples. Dr. Hendrix-Komoto will present her research on Minerva Teichert and Annie Pike Greenwood, demonstrating how a close reading of their writing and art rewrites the history of water in the American West and offers a more complex history of the family and sexuality in rural spaces. John Dinger will use oral histories, correspondence, and diaries to explore how families misremembered and remade their experiences on the Underground as generations passed. Katie Montana will discuss how she used vital records, newspapers, and family histories to research the lives of Mormon women who had been committed to the Idaho Insane Asylum in the early 20th century. The panel will conclude with a discussion of why Mormon history has failed to fully integrate women’s history before opening for audience discussion.