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Minutes of “Great Indignation Meeting”
Great Indignation Meeting
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[00:00:00] Welcome to 132 Problems revisiting Mormon Polygamy, where we explore the scriptural and theological case for plural marriage. As always, I recommend listening to these episodes in order so you can understand what we have already covered before we get into these more specific episodes. My name is Michelle Stone, and this is episode 33, which will be the first part of a series looking at and considering the testimonies of women. This episode will focus on the restoration of the relief society and the great indignation meeting of 1870. Thank you for joining us as we take a deep dive into the murky waters of Mormon polygamy. I want to once again begin by thanking those who have so generously donated to this podcast and those who continue to donate. It means so much to me, and it is so extremely helpful to me. And, um, I would love to invite any of our new listeners or those who have joined who feel so inclined to, um, make whatever donations feel, um, doable and write to you. I really, really appreciate the help and support. And so now, moving on to our topic. The great indignation, probably most people don’t know what I’m talking about with that, but this has been a fun, um, deep dive into a topic that I actually didn’t even know existed. So I have learned so much and I’m excited to share. I hope it’s as interesting to you as it has been to me. So, um, I think the reason I landed on this topic is because this podcast has some very determined critics. I, I really appreciate them listening and engaging. I do find it interesting that generally they, well, almost never do they engage me on the points I’m actually making. I, my assumption has to be because the case is too solid because I’ve definitely invited engagement. But instead, they seem to take a different tack, and the main evidences they have relied on, at least to this point to try to prove the eternal truthfulness and God inspired idea of polygamy has been to look at the testimonies. Of women, the testimonies of women who were living polygamy. They quote quote statements made by polygamist women basically implying that those testimonies should trump everything else and should not only be the final but the only say in the matter. And so the, the assumption seems to be that if women living in poly polygamy defended it, believed in it and defended it, then nobody else should have a voice. They should be the only ones that get to speak on it. It reminds me of some other current issues that we’re dealing with. People like to make those claims, um, but so I, I have to admit I am personally conflicted by this entire discussion and line of reasoning because On the one hand, I love women’s voices being elevated. I love seeing what the women said and taking it seriously, so that’s really important to me. But in another sense, I find the assistance that we rely on these voices for for truth, for the ultimate source of truth. Um, I find that deeply troubling for many reasons and I’ve thought a lot about the statements and testimonies of these early LDS women and how we can and should interpret them, as well as how we can best honor the sacrifices of our foremothers. And so those are things I take really seriously, and I’m wanting to do a few episodes. This will be part one. We’ll do at least a part two. I want to do a few episodes talking about those testimonies, both their public statements and their private testimonies,
[00:03:44] um. Of these polygamist women and um I want to figure out the best way to interpret them to honor these women, both, both our foremothers and ourselves today. Um, so, and I, I honestly believe that. Interpreting them the way that my critics have done as the final say of ultimate truth actually does a great disservice to both those women and women today. So that’s what we’re going to go into in the next few episodes and um I hope it will be interesting. So, As I said, that, well, the reason we’re doing two episodes at least is because this is a big topic with a lot of ground to cover, and I’ve thought so much about it. I have a lot of thoughts that I want to share. And so, um, also there are different categories of women who spoke in different ways. So we’re going to, so I I. I think it’s a mistake to lump all women into one category, right? I mean, you can never do that. So I think there are some different basic um motivations we’re going to look at and some different things that might be going on that we’re going to consider. So for this episode, what we are starting with is The great indignation meeting of 1870. This is something that I have to admit I had not even heard of. I didn’t know about it until I, until I started to dig into these topics, but I’m so glad I know about it now because I think it is one of the most interesting stories of post-Civil War Utah. It is really fascinating. So here we go. OK. First some background. So we’re going to talk about the relief society. Um, those who have studied the history of relief society will recall that. It was established March 17, 1842 under the direction and support of Joseph Smith with the women themselves selecting Emma as their president, right? Um, oh, I forget her name who first came up with the idea of doing a benevolent society, a relief society, and Eliza Snow wrote the bylaws and the constitution for them and Um, gave it to Joseph Smith, who said, I’m going to give you something better, and I have to admit I love that, but I also have mixed feelings about it cause she went to the trouble of doing it, you, you know, I could just get into thinking how that would have affected me, but I love that Joseph Smith saw the value here. And sought revelation to um to incorporate the women into the church and then to say that it was never fully established or organized or restored until the women were um also organized under it. I love the history of relief societies, so that was the beginning, but what is maybe less known is that in only 3 years, just 3 years later. The relief society was disbanded and disallowed by Brigham Young. That was on on March 9, 1845. So once he emerged victorious after um the martyrdom of Joseph at Hyrum and then the succession crisis, Brigham, um, you know, had the, the greatest um following of saints.
[00:06:37] The most people followed him. And so on March 9, 1845, he said, so he’s, these are some of his quotes from that day. He said, When I want sisters or the wives of the members of this church to get up a relief society, I will summon them to my aid. But until that time, let them stay at home. And if you see females huddling together, veto the concern. And if they say Joseph started it, tell them it is a damned lie, for I know he never encouraged it. So isn’t that interesting? I just, I think it’s important to recognize um the tendency I think that Brigham had to speak very authoritatively on behalf of what Joseph said, but not always. He was often more authoritative than he was accurate because we know that Joseph Smith was centrally involved in the founding of the relief society, right? He lent his whole support to it, so. So anyway, that was the state of relief society. Another thing he said that same day, he pronounced a curse on any man who lets his wives or daughters meet again. So that’s the quote from him. So it was pretty intense and it was definitely like women were not allowed to officially congregate. I’m sure that they still talked to one another because we’re women, right? But not as um a recognized part of the church. And not in big meetings is my understanding. So, and I’m still, you know, I’m, I’m always looking for more information. So if anyone has more information to share, I am wide open to it. This is what I have been able to gather to this point. So, um, and I hate it because every time I I record an episode, then afterwards I learned something. I’m like, shoot, I wish I had included it then, so I’m just giving you the best I can right now. So, um, the relief society. She remained disallowed for over 2 decades. So it was, I think, 23 years that there was that women were not allowed to congregate to, we’ll talk about this later, but I think in what I have seen, I can find quotes. Eliza Snow seems to me to be the best known, like, like she was a brilliant poetess. She was just so good with ideas and with language. I love her writing. And um I can find things before 1945 or early 1945, and then I can find things after 1870, but I can’t find anything in that interim. So it seems that they were really silenced, it is how it looks to me, at least from having any kind of a platform or anything that could be preserved and handed down. Other than their personal diaries. So, um, so it was not until 1867, 1968, 20 years after coming into the valley, and well over 10 years after the harsh rhetoric of of the Reformation that we talked about,
[00:09:18] I think two episodes ago, that Brigham Young summoned the women to his aid, as he had said, and again encouraged them to establish the relief society. So, And as I’ve thought about this, um, I’m going to read just a couple of the quotes from the, um, Journal of Discourses when he summoned them to re-establish the relief society, but I have to wonder what influence the women in his life might have, um, had, you know, how they were using their influence to encourage the rebirth of relief society. I, I, of course, I have nothing at this point to show me, but I like to think about that because I’m, I feel quite certain that They were involved in, in, um, these ideas coming to fruition again. So, OK, so this is on April 6, 1868, the Journal of Discourses, volume 12 pages 193 and 194. Brigham says, I have asked the bishops to sew a little rye to make straw for hats and bonnets. A few have done so. I have asked them to do the same thing this spring that the sisters of their wards may have straw to manufacture. Then he tells the women, so this is a little while later, um, gather the straw and make your bonnets and hats and wear them when you come to this tabernacle and make hats for your husbands and sons to wear and for your brothers and your sisters, your daughters and your mothers, and let us all see and let us see all the sisters and all the brethren and all our children wearing hats and bonnets of material produced and manufactured by ourselves. I have been pleading for this for years and years. This is Leap Year. Let the ladies take the lead in this and every other species of home industry at which they can be employed. We have asked the sisters to organize themselves and to relief societies. I again ask the sisters in every ward of the territory to do so and get, um, and get women of good understanding to be your leaders, and then counsel and then get counsel from men of understanding and let your fashions proceed from yourselves and. Be acquainted with the those noble traits of character which belong to your sex. Now ladies, go to and organize yourselves into industrial societies and get your husbands to produce you some straw and commence and commence bonnet and hat making. If every ward would commence and continue this and other industrial pursuits, it would not be long before the females of the ward of the wards of our territory would have stores in words and means sufficient to send to get articles which they need that cannot yet be manufactured here and which they want to distribute. So, sorry, that was a lot to read, but that was fascinating to me. When Brigham Young wanted to start the Release this idea up, it was so the sisters could get together and make hats and bonnets. And so he really had his view of how he wanted them to help him. And um that that was the purpose of relief Society when he re-established it. And um you can find you searching the Journal of Discourses for relief Society or those keywords has been useful and that seems to be mainly what they were called to do. Now, I do have to point out just my little bit of spunkiness, forgive me, but it’s frustrating to me when we rewrite history and um I want to draw attention to the fact that the women were called to organize their own relief society. And told to us to choose their own leaders, which is exactly what they did, right? Um, the church website that talks about their history of relief society,
[00:12:34] the quote is, Brigham Young calls on bishops to re-establish the relief society in every ward. They say that that’s what he did in at this time period and, and it’s frustrating because he changes it, it changes it to say he told the bishops to start a relief society. So it was and that’s, we just read the quote, that’s not what it was. So anyway, just pointing that out that we need to pay attention to what the history actually is because these women had a ton of autonomy. It’s really amazing. That’s what we’re going to talk a little bit more about. So this must have been An exciting time for these women. Um, though they were initially only called on to make straw hats, right, we can guess what happened. These brilliant and ambitious women did not at all limit themselves to only that endeavor. Once they were let loose, watch out. Among many other accomplishments, with only a few years, they had established a young women’s organization that was in 1870. That this the quote I read was from 1868, so just two years later, they created and began publishing their own um their own periodical, The Women’s exponent, that was that was began in 1872. They established the primary in 1878. They established their own hospital in 1882. We had Saint Mark’s Hospital and a Holy Cross hospitals that had been sent in by the Episcopals and the Catholics, I think, and the women wanted. Um, an LDS hospital, and so even the hospitals and schools where they wanted, um, where, where people could go and feel comfortable in their own religion. So they on their own gathered all of the funds and they opened the hospital in 1882 and they themselves, the women ran it. It was run by the relief society and it was staffed mainly by female doctors who had traveled back east for medical training and degrees. That’s so amazing and cool. I love that. So seriously amazing things that these women accomplished once they were again allowed to officially organize and contribute. So, um, OK, so let’s see what I’m gonna say now. Um, yes, so though these opportunities were completely independent, they were allowed to operate independently. It was only possible with the blessing of the of the male leadership, the priesthood leadership, right? Like they had given them permission and set them loose, but they could shut them down every time, any time. They knew that the relief society had already once been disbanded. And so they very well knew that they needed to stay in the good graces of their church leaders who were often their husbands because women in authority and the in in high callings in the relief society were usually married to powerful men. So, um, if they wanted To to retain their newfound opportunities and organizations they needed to stay in line. So, um, let’s see, I already said that. So, um, talking about how women in authority were often married to men, Eliza Snow and Zaa Huntington, um, were both wives of Brigham Young. We’ll get into that later because that’s complicated, saying that um is definitely complicated, but um they both at least were connected to him and associated to him and sealed to him.
[00:15:49] So. So their institutional power was at least in part derived from their husband’s position and confidence in them. So, um, that, that I want to clarify that doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t speak their own truth. I think it’s just that we should assume that they were cautious and careful and um that they were motivated to be in line with authority, right? It’s it was necessary for them. So, um, but It also means that it also we have to acknowledge that the voices of anybody who disagreed with them, women who didn’t want to stay in life along with the party line, would not be elevated, would not be um listened to or allowed like women would experience objections and consequences if they didn’t stay um in favor with the church teaching. So, of course, that all makes sense, right? So, um, here’s where things here’s what I learned new that was so fascinating to me. So only a year or two after being called to organize themselves and to release societies, an opportunity to seriously prove their worth, um, to their community presented itself. So this is after the Civil War, so the Civil War had taken the focus. of the nation off of Utah, obviously, so nobody was focused on Utah and polygamy because they were engaged in the Civil War. But once it ended and slavery was abolished, the other twin relic of barbarism, polygamy again came to the forefront, right? And so several new bills were introduced in Congress to try to eradicate polygamy. Um, one of them called the Cullum Bill, so there were 3 right in a row. The Cullum Bill kind of culminated the bad aspects of all three of those. It, among other things, I think it, um, let’s see if I can remember, it required women to testify against their husbands, so the spousal protection was lost only in polygamy trials. It removed the right to vote for anyone who practiced or believed and believed in polygamy. It actually said that it would removed citizenship from them. And it allowed fines and imprisonments both for men and women participating in polygamy, but previously it had only been the men, so. Um, it also, it also, I think this was probably a sore spot. It gave power for the president to send army troops to Utah. It was a big number, was it 45,000 troops? It was something like that. So I’m sure that hit them hard too after the Utah War and everything they had experienced. So when the Culle bill passed the House, the women of the relief society rose to the occasion, and they began to organize indignation meetings throughout the territory. Um, so I want to put this in greater context again. This is the era of America’s women’s suffrage movement. Women were holding indignation moving meetings throughout the country as a means to make their voices heard. They voiced outrage against their lack of right. To vote against various government policies and programs and against social wrongs. So these were the kind of things that eventually led to um why can’t I remember what it was called when we made alcohol illegal. Oh my gosh, I’m going to watch this and go, oh please, because I know the name of that, but um. Anyway, whatever word that is that’s failing me, it was these indignation meetings that women started to really make their moral authority felt throughout the nation. So
[00:19:08] brilliantly, the women in Utah saw what was happening in the rest of the nation, and they organized the great indignation meeting. It was um and and they did it in objection to the Cullum bill, um, but I have to believe that these brilliant women who organized it. Also saw it as an opportunity to accomplish much more. So it was held at the Old Tabernacle in Salt Lake City on January 13, 1870. Prohibition, prohibition, that’s the word. Thank you. Sorry, now my whole brain can go back to what I’m trying to talk about. It was OK. It was so it was at the old Tabernacle that was still, I hope it’s still on um Temple Square. It was before the renovations. I haven’t been back since, but. Um, so it was held on January 13th, 1870. So right at the beginning of the year in this winter, it was held in a very, it was organized in a very similar similar style to other indignation meetings. No men were allowed to attend. Men were turned away at the door except for the press. Men in the press could attend. And it brought national attention to the women of Utah, um, but in a different way, not as the silent victims they had been seen as, but as powerful and articulate advocates of their community and religion. It, it was, I just can’t get over the incredible irony of this situation and these brilliant women. Who were so smart and so um I guess like silently subversive, like they were being both they were both promoting the party line and also objecting to it at the same time with this meeting, right? So it was, it’s really amazing. So the main res so they, they held this meeting and the women spoke out and the Language used is just, it’s perfectly what you would imagine in a 1800s indignation meeting, just like so emotive and flowery and poetic and filled with uh just every passionate um rhetorical tool they could possibly come up with. So it’s really, really neat to read through them. So. The main thrust of their speeches focused on the suffering and loss they had already endured and against future government encroachment. So it actually focused very little on polygamy. There were, but there were, there were obviously statements of polygamy, but it was a tiny portion of the meeting. So, um, I really did have a fascinating time digging. Into these speeches. And then I went on a, what I thought was a wild goose chase. I could, I was like, I can’t believe I’m spending so much time on this. What am I doing? But I went and studied each of these women and tried to find out who they were, the ones who spoke, cause I, I haven’t been able to. Maybe someone can, could have saved me time. I haven’t been able to find a book or anything on this. Meeting to tell, to tell me about it and it’s amazing. So I had like, I don’t know, 20 tabs open on family history search and um all kinds of biographies and journals I was looking up to try to find out who these women were cause this, this was just so amazing to me, the whole thing. I’m fascinated by it. So now I want to write a book on it cause it’s so cool. I just kept having like
[00:22:21] Like it, I, my mind just kept being blown again and again as I found out things. So maybe I’m a total geek and this is only interesting to me, but hopefully some of you will at least find it somewhat fascinating. So it seems to me that the women who were chosen to speak generally either held high position or um had social clout in some way, or they had endured extreme hardship. So it seems that the women were very strategic about who they asked to speak. So, Most of them, like the huge majority of them, were actually not polygamist wives. So they were speaking like the Colum Bill really was attacking the church because of polygamy, so the women stood up in defense of the church, but not necessarily in defense of polygamy. Does does that make sense? I think that’s what they were doing, so. Um, I, I’ve, I’m just gonna like kind of give a quick overview of each of the speakers and um and I just pulled some short excerpts from their much longer talks. I, and I pulled out every part where they did talk about polygamy. So what I’m going to tell you is everything they talked about polygamy in this very long meeting. Does that make sense? So the most of it, the huge majority of it was not at all about polygamy. So. Granger Kimball, she was elected to be the president of the meeting and the first speaker. She was the Relief Society president in her ward, and she was also called into the general presidency. She served as a counselor in the general presidency. She held both of those callings at the same time for the rest of her life. That’s, that’s fascinating to me. But she never lived in polygamy. I think when I read her name, I just assumed she was married to Hebrew C. Kimball or But she wasn’t. Her husband was was Hyrum S. Kimball, not Hebrewy Kimball or any other Kimball, and he never took a second wife. So he did die tragically serving a mission a few years before this meeting. So people might say that, but that he went for 20 years in the valley and never took a second life, even through that great reformation, right? And so He would have had plenty of time to, to live polygamy if either of them desired to. So, and once he died, Sarah never remarried. She didn’t remarry as a plural wife. She was, I, I, it just, it makes me wonder about her when Brigham Young in the Journal of Discourses said things about men being led by their wives. I mean, I don’t, I don’t know who her husband was, but she was a powerhouse, so. I really am like go Sarah Kimball anyway, so she was a serious women’s rights activist. She became the president of the Utah Women’s Suffrage Association, so she was serving as the War Relief Society president and in the presidency of the General Relief Society presidency and as the president of the Utah Women’s Suffrage Association all at the same time. She met with national leaders, including among others, Susan B. Anthony, and so she was, she was something, you know, and it’s really fascinating to me to see who women chose as their own leaders when they were allowed to choose them because I don’t think that Sarah Kimball was necessarily who Brigham Young would have chosen.
[00:25:31] I, I, I mean, I could be wrong, but you know, but she was who the women chose, so that’s really cool to me. So here’s what she said in her opening meeting, part of what she said. Why are we here today? We have been driven from place to place and why? Simply for believing in and practicing the counsels of God as contained in the Gospel of heaven. She goes on to say, we are not here to advocate women’s rights, but man’s rights. So she was drawing the important contrast between. Other indignation meetings where the women were voicing indignation against the male portion of their society, right? She’s saying that’s not what we’re doing here. The bill in question would not only deprive our fathers, husbands and brothers of enjoying the privileges bequeathed to citizens of the United States, but it would also deprive us as women the privilege of selecting our husbands, and against this we most unqualifiedly protest. So what’s fascinating here, I just, I can’t help but see. This brilliant and passionate woman who was passionate about women’s rights. I can’t help but see how strategic she was here. She really had no use for the right she was advocating for, for women to be able to select their own husband, which meant to marry someone else’s husband, right? And so, um, she didn’t seem eager to have another woman select her husband and she didn’t seem at all eager to select another husband, another woman’s husband after her first husband died, so. So, um, but I think what she was doing because what she said made perfect, she made the perfect rhetorical case for her situation. So that was really cool. Then the next speaker was Bathsheba W. Smith. She was the first of Apostle George A. Smith’s 11 wives. He had 11 wives, but only 20 children, so he has an interesting story, but Bathsheba’s story is fascinating. She married him monogamously. She was his first wife and married him. Believe, you know, I mean, it’s hard because we’ve, the history has been fudged a bit, but it looks like it was before polygamy was really a thing. So she married him monogamously at 19, and she had 4 children in 5 years. The youngest was born when she was still 24 before she turned 25 and before coming to Utah. So then her husband began to take other wives. So she was clearly fertile, but she never had another child. She didn’t have another child in Utah crossing the plains ever. So it’s easy to assume that at the time of this meeting, she was 47. She had not lived intimately with her husband for over 20 years. So It’s interesting. It feels to me like she was more a single woman than a polygamist wife, but um, I, I, she has an autobiography that I haven’t had a chance to read, so someone can correct me if I’m completely wrong. I do want to read her autobiography to gain more insight, but she had 4 children in those 1st 5 years and after 24, never had another child after her husband took another wife. So that’s interesting. So. Um, this is one sentence from, this is, oh, she has, she’s a good example of the flowery language they use. So this,
[00:28:35] this what I’m going to read is just one sentence. It’s all one sentence of her speech. And so she’s speaking of Joseph and Hiram. She said, it is from their lips that I heard taught the principle of celestial marriage. And when I saw their mangled forms, cold and, Having been slain for the testimony of Jesus by the hands of cruel bigots in defiance of law, justice, and executive pledges, and although this was a scene of barbarous cruelty which can never be erased from those who witnessed the heart-rending cries of widows and orphans and mingled their tears with those of thousands of witnesses of the mournful occasion, the memories of which I hardly feel willing to awaken, yet I realized that they had sealed their ministry with their blood and that their testimony was in force, so. Wow, um, before when I had read that, I had focused kind of on the language and the claims she was making, but when I read it this time, it really hit me hard. So, like she had experienced that and she put it into words and I can just imagine how this affected. The LDS women in the audience. This would have been a very powerful um meeting to have. But again, you can see that she’s not, she’s she’s drawing on what they have suffered to make their case, right? That’s, that’s where their moral authority comes from is you’ve already done horrible things to us, don’t do anymore. And so, um, so that was Bathsheba and then came Mrs. Levirider, R I T E R. And it’s her name is Rebecca. And so again, I just found all of these women. It was, it was kind of a challenge for me because I’m not great at it, but it was really fun to do. So I’m going to read her quote first and then I’ll tell you a little bit about her. We have not met here, my beloved sisters, as women of the other states and territories meet to complain of the wrongs and abuses inflicted upon us by our husbands, fathers, and sons. Um, so you can see that she’s making that same clarification. But we are happy and proud to state that we have no such afflictions and abuses to complain of. There is no spot on this wide earth where kindness and affection are more bestowed upon women and her rights so sacredly defended as Utah, so, um. That’s really interesting, right? Because I can hear what she’s saying, but if you read any of the speeches of early church leaders or read any of the diaries or letters of the early women, this was completely false, right? Even looking at our own history of how women We’re given away and we’re even when Brigham Young in the quotes I read um a few weeks ago where he said, I will set them at liberty, you know, he was saying, OK, I give you permission to divorce your husband if, you know, but only on this one day at this one time, and this is how you have to do it. So anyway, So it’s, it’s really interesting to hear that they, they were so in um they were so insistent on making their case that that they, you know, I know how that goes, that they weren’t necessarily being completely forthright and introspective of what the situation might really have been. So, um, she goes on to say we are here to express our love for
[00:31:28] each other and to exhibit to the world our devotion to God, our Heavenly Father, and to show our willingness to comply with the requirements of the gospel, and the law of celestial marriage is one of its requirements that we are resolved to honor, teach, and practice, which may God grant us strength to do so, um. So that was what she said. Here’s the interesting thing again, she was not then or ever a polygamist wife. So she gave this speech and she was the one that read the res resolutions that they made. She and her husband had 7 children together and never no other wives, so. Right, so she was testifying of polygamy but had never participated in it or lived it. So it’s really um interesting to read, right? So, OK, then the next was Amanda Barnes Smith. Now, uh, this one blew me away, this woman, um, first of all, the suffering that she endured is overwhelming. I can’t believe it, but also She’s amazing. Um, I was just, I was just crying as I read about her. So I had always heard this story, but I didn’t know her name. So hopefully some of you will recognize some of her story. So she and her husband lost everything in the bank crash in Kirtland. The Kirtland Bank crashed. So at that point when tons of people left the church, um, I believe, including many of the original apostles and the three witnesses, right? So, but she and her husband stayed with the church and made their poor way because they were penniless. They made their way to Hans Mill where her husband and one of her sons were killed. Another son was shot in the hip. This is the story. She was the one who prayed with her son’s hip gone. And received inspiration to use the ashes to make a lie and um rinse out the wound repeatedly and then um and then to pack it with an elm poultice she made and to have him lie still until until it healed. So she was doing this at Hans Mill with the mobs with the like. The corpses of, you know, she said they, they talk about how the sounds of the dead and dying was just unbearable, and she had to stay in her home. And when she found her son still alive, she went to went to work and started to heal him. And then the mobbers kept returning and she had all of her other children gathered around and protected them and faced down those mobbers at the door. Showed them her son and said, We are not moving. I can’t move him cause she had him lie still for, I think it was 6 weeks or something that she faced down those mobbers, individual mobbers who had stolen her horses. She went and took the horses back from them cause they were saying you have to leave or or we’ll kill you and she said, I can’t leave. You took my horses. And so they said we’ll buy them and she said, I can’t buy them, you took my money, you know, and so, um, anyway, I just, this woman. Ah, her inspiration, her power. She’s awesome. So she was one of the speakers and again I think that they had speakers who were renowned for what they had suffered as well,
[00:34:28] right? And so, um, So she was really powerful, but let’s see, um, there was more I was gonna say about her. Oh yes, again, there’s more about this woman that was amazing. So she was not a polygamist wife um at the time of this speech, so After, so apparently her first husband, her marriage to him wasn’t terribly happy. She didn’t feel loved by him, but after his death, she married a widower with his same name, another man named Warren Smith, and he was just awful. He was abusive, he was terrible. Um, when the ceiling power was restored, he pressured her seriously to be sealed to him instead of her first husband, which tormented her, right? The widow’s dilemma that I think was that episode 30 that we talked about. What happens to widows in this doctrine. And um and so, but she finally agreed to be sealed to him, and when she was, she found out that he had already impregnated their hired girl, their teenage girl that was hired to help them, and he later married that girl as a polygamist wife. And so when they got to the valley. She went to Brigham Young, who granted her a divorce and said, yes, you’re justified in divorcing him for all of the things she had endured at his hand. Um, but I don’t know if their ceiling was canceled. It’s hard to find those records, so I don’t think her ceiling was canceled because in any case, she never remarried. So he married that second husband married a few other wives, but they all divorced him. So it was a really hard story. And this woman once like she never actually She lived in polygamy. She lived with her first husband, then married her second husband, who cheated on her with the teenage girl that they had hired and then married her. That was her only experience with polygamy. She divorced him and never married again. So again, um, it’s really interesting, right? Um, she spoke, her talk was actually amazing to read because she did not use the effusive language. Um, she just spoke plainly. And kind of under an understatement about the horror she had witnessed and endured up until Hans Mill and she said nothing about polygamy. So that was her talk and um I’m excited to meet that woman because she’s she’s something else. So then, The next speaker was listed as Willmart East. I took me a long time to find her because her name is Will Mirth, Wilmorth Matilda, Margaret Greer. She went by Margaret. And so she was 48 at the time of this meeting, and I think she was another one who was chosen to speak because of what she had suffered because This was hard. Um, 5 of her 7 children died while crossing the plains. I couldn’t find anything to verify this other than the dates of the deaths of 5 of her 7 children. So her oldest daughter,
[00:37:22] who was, um, I think 14, she survived, and then her youngest were 2 year old twins, and one of her twin girls survived. But died just a few years later, so they must have suffered terribly. She lost a 12 year old boy, a 10-year-old girl, a 7-year-old girl, a 4-year-old boy, and one of her 2 year old twin girls all in those few months, um, that she was crossing the planes. So, uh, that’s one of those stories that, man, it’s hard for, you know, it’s hard for us moms to think about, right? So, 9 years after crossing the plane, her 50 year old husband Married 18 year old Emma Lundberg, and um the union did not last. Emma had one child with him, um, I think the child was born the year of this meeting, but then went back to live with her parents and Logan and there were no other plural wives. So Again, there was like a small foray into polygamy, but it failed. And so she gave this talk, I think she went on to have, I didn’t write it. Oh yeah, she went on to have 5 more children once they were in the valley, 2 of which died in infancy, and then her husband married a younger girl who um who left. So um this was what she said. I am thankful to today. That I have the privilege of living the religion of Jesus, our Savior. I am thankful today that I have the honored privilege of being the happy recipient of one of the greatest principles ever revealed to man for his redemption and exaltation in the kingdom of God, namely plurality of wives, and I am thankful to know, and I am thankful today that I know God is at the helm and will defend his people. So again, they, they made these statements, and I believe they were sincere, but Their um public statements were not, you know, did not correspond with their private lives and um and I think it’s hard not to recognize how much these people had sacrificed for their religion, right? So, I think her giving the being given the opportunity to speak was important, um, and then, you know, we have to figure out how to interpret what she said. So then, um, Sarah Kimball spoke again and said nothing about polygamy. Then the speaker was Mary McKin and I have McMinn McMinn, and I have not been able to find any info on her. I couldn’t find her genealogy. I couldn’t find anything. So it’s like maybe someone else will be able to. I You know, I could, I spent a few hours on it, then I had to stop. So she was obviously chosen to be to speak because she was able to refer to the American Revolution. She answered someone’s question and said she was nearly 85 years of age. So her speech isn’t quoted, it was just summed up. It said she could not refrain from expressing herself in unison with her sisters and her indignation at the bill. She was an American citizen.
[00:40:04] Her father. He had fought through the revolution with General Washington, and she claimed the exercise of the liberty for which she had fought. She was proud of being a latter-day saint. So um that’s how her speech was summed up. So as I looked into her based on just what she said her age was, she was born around 1785. So she and her husband would have been near or in their 60s in Navvo. She would have been 59 and he would have probably been in his 60s when they lived in Navvo. And they would have been near 70 or in their 70s when polygamy was acknowledged. So I think it’s safe to assume that she never lived as a polygamist wife either. Um, but man, just reading through this again, I love these women. I love what they organized. I love how brilliantly they did it and, and, uh, it’s just amazing. So. Then was Eliza Snow, right? She is brilliant and powerful and also so complex because she really was one of the most privileged women in Utah, and she really didn’t live as other Utah women did. And so, um, you know, she was very well provided for. She never had had children or it seems to me lived in actual marriage. So, you know, that’s a complicated topic that we can get into at some point, but um. But she’s she’s a complex figure, but I am always just, I love words and I love poetry and she does it so well that I just love. I, you know, I feel I, I, I really have a lot of admiration for Eliza Snow, as well as all of these women. So she gave an emotionally um an an extremely emotional and rousing talk encouraging the women to defend their brethren. So again, it’s interesting to read. To read her words through this lens to see how much um approval and favor her sentiments garnered for her from the power structure, right? She really said things very strategically, I think. So um here’s here’s part of what she said. Our enemies pretend that in Utah women is held in a state of vassage. That she does not act from choice but by coercion, that we would even prefer life elsewhere were it possible for us to make our escape. What nonsense! We all know that if we wished we could leave any time either to go singly or we could rise on mass, and there, and there is no power here that could or would ever wish to prevent us. So now that’s a really tricky claim because it’s just factually not true. The railroad had just been finished a few months before, I think it was in the middle of ’69 that the golden, the golden spike was done at Promontory Point. Those of you that know that your Utah history. So um so before before the railroad, there was no means of escape, right? They couldn’t, they couldn’t leave and um Even if, I mean both the doctrine held them there, but also the physical separation from the rest of the world definitely held them there. When, when the army first came to Utah before the Utah War and then went to California, many of the women begged to be taken with them because that was a means of their escape, right? And so this is complicated history, but um I, I get that Eliza is making her case to the broader audience, but um it’s not necessarily true that women were just You know, it could easily leave whenever they wanted to. Um, so,
[00:43:23] so that’s a tough claim. So then she goes on to say, I will now ask this intelligent assembly of ladies, do you know of any place on the face of the earth where a woman has more liberty and where she enjoys such high and glorious privileges as she does here as a latter-day saint? No, the very idea of women and women here in a state of slavery is a burlesque on good common sense. So it’s really interesting, right? Because You can see, you know, we can defend either argument, but she definitely was making her case, I think more than real than um communicating the reality of many of the women. So, um, and most of the women that would have been at that meeting would have also been those who lived in Salt Lake, were um provided for better, right? So, so, um, anyway, it’s an interesting thing to consider. So then the next speaker was Harriet Cook Young. She married 42-year-old Brigham Young as his fifth wife right before her 19th birthday. So, um, she had one child before coming west and then never had any others. So again, she married him when she, right before she turned 19, and she had one child, and then she never had any other children. So we can take from that what we will. Um, I looked it up and the best I could find, she lived in the lion house once. She had a room in the lion house. So, um. So she was part of, I guess, just part of that harem is, you know, I guess. So anyway, this is what she said about polygamy. She said, wherever monogamy reigns, adultery, prostitution, free love, and feet aide, I had to look that up. It is a word for abortion. feticide directly or indirectly are its concomitants. That means things that go along with it. The women of Utah comprehend this, and they see in the principle of a plurality of wives the only safeguard against adultery, prostitution, free love, and the reckless waste, reckless waste of prenatal life practiced practiced throughout the land. We accept in our heart of hearts what we know to be a divine commandment, and here and now boldly and publicly we do assert our right not only to believe in this holy commandment but to practice what we believe. So that was really interesting as well, right? I think that, I mean, I think these women really did sincerely, most of them believe what they were saying, but again, Here she’s she’s defending polygamy by creating a straw man out of monogamy, right, which is what I think that these women were taught. Well, we know that’s what the brethren were teaching them and what they were told to believe. So, um, we all know from our own experience in our lives that monogamy does not. Create prostitution and adultery and um abortion and right, I would say it’s like the lack of monogamy that does that, right? When people are married,
[00:46:13] those those things are far less of a problem when they’re married in monogamy. And so um anyway, so it’s it’s hard because they’re making these claims that they just probably believe because that’s what They were taught, but they had no experience to know otherwise. It’s the same as like behind the Iron Curtain people being taught of how horrible Americans were and how they would kill them or people raised in polygamy being taught that everyone outside wants to kill them and they’re not safe, right? You have to make false claims that can only be um shored up by isolation and lack of awareness. So anyway, so that was. Her claim on that, and again, I’m only reading the parts of these speeches that deal with polygamy. There was a lot more that they said, and they’re actually fabulous, so I hate reading them at all with a critical eye. So, OK, next was Hannah Topfield King. So she was a successful writer. I think that’s why she was included because she has had books published in the more in the broader community, so she, her name would have been somewhat known. She also was not a polygamist. She had 11 children. All but 4 died in infancy and 1 more daughter died at 23 emigrating to Utah. So she only had 3 children that lived, um, well 4 that lived to adulthood and 1 more that died. Her husband was never a member, so that’s fascinating that he emigrated with her, but he never joined the church. So she was never a polygamist. She was sealed for eternity only. To Brigham Young when she was 65 and that was two years before her husband’s death. So that’s an interesting story. She gave a rousing poetic speech that said nothing about polygamy, just about the trampling of rights, which, as I said, was the main focus of the meeting. Then Phoebe Woodruff, another super Complex figure. Uh, I’ve studied Phoebe Woodruff a ton this week, so there will be a lot more on her later, probably in the next episode. So she was the first wife of Wilfred Woodruff, and she sacrificed and suffered so much for the church. It’s amazing, and she hated polygamy. So we’ll talk more about that. Um, in, in another episode, but this is part of what she said. God has revealed unto us the law of the patriarchal order of marriage and commanded us to obey it. We are sealed to our husbands for time and eternity, that we may dwell with them and our children in the world to come, which guarantees unto us the greatest blessing for which we are created, so. We know from her own words that she felt forced to say things that she didn’t necessarily believe, but um and that she really, really suffered and struggled and hated polygamy. So that’s, that’s one example, and like I said, we’ll go into her a lot more next week. So um the next speaker was Mary Isabella Has Horn, so she was a legit polygamist wife. After 20 years of marriage and 13 children. Her husband married another woman also named Mary, um, who was, I think, oh, I didn’t write it down, but she was either 19 or 20. So
[00:49:13] one of those stories that I think as older mothers are like, oh, that’s awful, right? But this is what they did. So, um, she went on to have 2 more children after her husband’s second marriage, which was 15 total, and the second wife had 10 children, so there were 8 sets of twins between them and 25 children. So her speech also was only summarized in part, she said, she is one of the so-called oppressed women of Utah, is the wife of, she is the wife of a man who practices plurality of wives and expects to sustain him, to always sustain him. So that was her. Talk and then we’re getting close to the end. Um, Eleanor Jane McComb Pratt was next. She was the 12th and final wife of Parley P. Pratt, and you won’t believe this. It was her. She was the one who left her husband to join the church or her husband kicked her out. She joined the church and that ended her marriage, and it was her jealous estranged husband. Who killed Parley B Pratt, who stalked and hunted them down in Arkansas. It’s a fascinating story. He actually got a job with the mail service and so he could open the mail and find out where they were going to be, and then he shot and stabbed Parley Pratt, so scary, scary guys, scary story, but also. Like, it’s just, it’s all crazy. So she was the one that spoke. She also, she never remarried, so she also was never a polygamist wife, right? Because Parley married her as his 12th wife, but never around any of the other wives and then he was killed and she came to Utah and never remarried. So Um, so anyway, that’s, she, she didn’t say anything about polygamy, and then Eliza Snow closed and she said one more thing. My desire is that we, as we may as mothers and sisters in Israel defend truth and righteousness and sustain those who preach it. Every sister in this church should be a preacher of righteousness, and I think we all are. I believe it is our aim to be such. Anyway, sorry, I wanted to read that because I just loved it. So many of the things they said were just beautiful and profound and um. And I, I just, that was the end of the meeting. It was closed then I think by, um, oh, it was closed by Zaina Huntington, who was also, I think she was also a president of, um, well, she was a relief study president and if I’m remembering right, might have also been a president of the Utah Women’s Suffrage Association. I’ll have to look that up. Anyway, she was also a big Women’s rights advocate. So it’s really interesting. I am learning this. I love that these women held this meeting. I just, it was utterly brilliant.
[00:51:44] It served both the church leadership and community and allowed them to speak up in defense of their people. And it was at the same time suddenly subversive, right, because they were like kind of in their way throwing off the shackles of the priesthood and saying no, we are doing this, we are speaking, we are holding this meeting. So it was amazing. Um, the women organized it, advertised it, directed it, presided over it by themselves and did not even allow men to attend. So. It’s, it’s fascinating that anyway, just comparing that to how things work today, right, because Eliza Snow was the relief Society president and um that’s how they did it. So women before that had not even been been given a platform to speak or write for publication for decades. As I said, if, if anyone can find quotes from Eliza Snow from between the years of 1845 to 1870, I’d be very interested, or any women, I haven’t been able to find them because I think they were just silenced, they were just shut down. For that entire time, so, um, so when they finally had the opportunity, they came roaring to the forefront in such a powerful way to make themselves, their voices heard and make themselves seen. So, um, this meeting was the beginning of women regaining their voices. It’s really amazing. So. Their efforts in holding the meeting were extremely effective in both ways. The Cullum bill did not go forward. It didn’t, I don’t think it was even presented to the Senate after this, and so um that they they stayed off the persecution at least for a little while, but even I think more importantly, after proving their worth to their leaders in this way. Utah women did go forward just a month later, February 1870, Utah women were given the right to vote. They were only the second state to women in Wyoming, I think, had already granted the right to vote, which there were hardly any women in Wyoming, and then Utah was 2, which is amazing. However, Um, in a move that was unique to Utah, no other state did this. Women were given the right to vote, but excluded explicitly from the right to seek or hold office. So that was interesting. They weren’t fully incorporated. They were allowed to vote to sustain, but they could not officially lead, right, except they were allowed to lead other women. But um so that that’s an interesting, um, side note. It’s kind of a, you know, two steps forward, one step back, kind of a situation as things always are. So this meeting is a good example of strong Mormon women speaking out in defense of their religion and society. Um, even though polygamy was at the center of both. So I want to just take a few more minutes to really look at the varied motivations for this meeting. We’ve already spoken about some of them, right? But um, I think that there’s a lot we need to acknowledge here. So, although polygamy was the central focus of the bill they
[00:54:43] were opposing and the central reason for opposition to Mormonism, so polygamy really was what was being defended here. It was only mentioned in passing by most of the speakers, and the majority of the speakers were not, had never been polygamists and almost all of them were not living in polygamy now. I think only one of them was act actively living in polygamy. I guess a couple of them were married to husbands that they weren’t, so they were, they were not active polygamist wives, right? They were more kind of single, but um anyway, most of them were not polygamist wives. It’s really interesting. So But it is clear that they are that in um it’s clear that promoting the party line was their means to accomplishing their goal. It was the only way for these capable articulate women to gain and maintain influence, enfranchisement and opportunity. So I don’t think that they were at all being duplicitous or insincere. I don’t think that, but I do think that This this meeting and their speeches were not motivated out of a love for or commitment to polygamy. I think that we can clearly see that was not their primary motivation, right, even for just because they didn’t live it. And so, um, these women were powerful, smart, they were powerful, they were smart, inspired, energetic, ambitious. They wanted opportunities to utilize their talents and gifts. They wanted recognition as well. And their only avenue to have influence or opportunity or power or recognition came through the church structure. They could not oppose the church and maintain their positions and opportunities and influence, so they were strongly motivated to support the church leaders and promote the church leaders’ teachings. So those are just factual things and we can interpret them how we want to, but um we have to see the position they were in and where they were coming from. So, And then I do believe they also very sincerely wanted to do all they could to protect and defend their religion and community. They had sacrificed so much to be part, all of the saints had sacrificed so much. So I think they felt genuinely extremely protective and outraged that persecutions were threatening to start up again. I think that was just too much to bear. So, um I from it was likely that this entire community was still traumatized from everything that they had experienced and, you know, they had had peace in the valley for quite a few years, but, but not enough to, to, I mean, just, just enough to be like, no, you’re not doing this to us again. I think that that was very genuine in all of them, and that’s a big part of what they speak about in this meeting. So, um. Let’s see, I, I trying to see what I wanted to say what I wrote, but um, I really do love these women’s dedication to their people and their faith. I love their desire to protect and defend their home and their religion, and I so admire their gumption and creativity to come up with this brilliant idea and pull it off. It was just,
[00:57:48] it’s amazing um how they strategize this and how they accomplished it. So, I mean, Also how they started a hospital and kept it running for decades, right? But I do think it is a huge mistake to interpret this meeting or the sentiment set at at it as a testament of their dedication to or love for polygamy. Um, we’ve, we’ve already mentioned that only a few of them were living in polygamy, a few others were married in paper, on paper, but not actuality. Um, these women were not committed polygamists, but they were absolutely committed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of their religious community. And I think that’s what they were defending. So the, the like, as, as I’m trying to think of a way to explain this, the unspoken rule of no one beats up my brother but me comes to mind, right? Like, like, um. If someone picks on someone in my family, that’s not OK. I can say something to them, but no one else better. It’s kind of, kind of a sentiment, right? And I think that there is a lot of this going on here. They might not have loved polygamy. But the quickest way to galvanize and unite a community and encourage them to overlook the internal flaws is to make them feel threatened, right? To, to make them feel like you’re going to fight against them. So wise parents, for here’s another example, wise parents know that when their child is in a relationship with someone they don’t feel good about. The worst thing they can do is to try to break them up because what what will end up happening is that they will get much more bonded together in that us against the world vibe, right? And sometimes that anyway, that, that’s kind of what I think is happening when we try to fight against something. It galvanizes a community and makes it makes them more tightly bonded and makes things last a lot longer than they might otherwise have done. So I think that’s exactly what happened. With the persecutions against the early church, these women didn’t need to be committed polygamists in order to powerfully come to the defense of their homes, their people, their community, their religion, their freedom, and their peace, right? There’s some Captain Moroni sentiment going on here too. I strongly believe that those were the things that these women were wholeheartedly defending and Polygamy was just in the mix, right? But um I think it was, it was their homes and their people and their faith that they really were defending. So, um, and just I see this entire meeting as one of the ultimate ironies in church history that the threat against their church and society because of the powerlessness of the women. Presented these women with the perfect opportunity to gain power, right? I, I, I wish I could express that better, but their willingness and eagerness to step into the fray when Mormons were being attacked for keeping their women downtrodden resulted in them being elevated as they never had been before. That’s just so cool to me how they, how they utilized it’s like, is it in. Judo or whatever that you use the opponent’s weight against them. I think that’s what these women did.
[01:00:56] It was just brilliant and so the difficult question. That we do need to grapple with, I think, is whether it served their sisters well, right? Because in their efforts to defend their community and elevate their status within it within it, they did deny the genuine suffering that was occurring all around them, and even in their own lives for some of them. And so that’s kind of a tough thing because when there’s all of this pain and they’ve been sitting through those sermons and hearing what was said and seeing what was done. Then to stand up and say there’s no suffering of the women in Utah, and I, I get that they had to do it, and that was the sentiment, and that’s where all of them, I don’t think that they were intentionally denying it. I think that they were just so caught up in what they were doing that they failed to recognize what was really happening and that’s something that happened, so. So that’s something that I think we need to acknowledge at least, but um but at the same time, I think we should be very, very slow to fault them because most of these women, like all polygamist women, were denied fulfillment and influence in married life and up until now they had not been allowed a voice or given much opportunity in their society. So, Is it any, I think it’s no wonder that they sought fulfillment, opportunity, and influence and were willing to do what they needed to do to to gain it and maintain it. They, they were not in a position to spit in the wind, right? Many of them were completely dependent on um their husbands or, well, on the church, right, if they were married to Brigham Young even just on paper for their upkeep and their welfare, as well as their opportunity to have platforms and organizations. So They just, they had to do what they had to do. They were not in a position to oppose leadership, right, or they would lose everything that they had gained, and they knew again they knew too well what had happened to and been said about women who did oppose, um, oppose Brigham Young and his following. They had sat through those speeches and heard what was said about Emma, and they saw what had happened to her, and we’re going to do, that’s going to be a future episode is the. Um, the Emma question, so I hope you’ll tune in for that one. But anyway, if they hadn’t played it just like they did, we would not have this collection of women’s voices through their teachings, poems, writings and speeching speeches that they were able to produce and publish. We wouldn’t have the rich history of women in Utah with voting and the um hospital and the primary young women like all of the things that these women did and how much sort of gratification we find in the history of relief society, right? That was all enabled because these women were willing to do what they needed to do in this time period. So, um, I think for me a couple of comparisons are. People are often extremely critical of our founding fathers for um the northern founding fathers that were against slavery for agreeing to the 3/5 clause, right? And um they there’s a lot of um hatred against them for doing that, but we have to look at what they were trying to accomplish, right? They saw that passing the Constitution with the hope of eventually ending slavery would do much more good,
[01:04:08] and that was the situation they were in and that was the only way they could accomplish it. So I think it would be a huge mistake to recognize the founders that agreed to that as racists who supported polygamy, right? I think it was quite the opposite of what they were really trying to accomplish. And so at the same time, I think uh another example is um in the 60s and 70s and hopefully earlier for some members of the church that the priesthood ban, um people who stayed in the church were not necessarily doing it because they were in favor of the priesthood ban. I think many of them. Deeply mourned that it existed and really, really wanted to see it changed, right? And I think that they rejoiced when it was changed. So saying that members of the church were all racist because they stayed in the church when the church had a racist policy, I think is a mistake. And in the same way, I think that women Assuming that women who spoke in defense of their community and their religion and their rights as American citizens, seeing them as therefore supporters of polygamy, I think that’s a mistake as well. I think that we need to view these all the same way as seeing them doing the best they could and the huge complications that they faced in their time and their place in the world. And so, um, that’s how I think I I think that just as I think our founders rejoiced to see slavery overturned, right? Either from either side of the veil. I think that many members of the church rejoiced to see the priesthood ban overturned, and I think that many, probably most of our early mothers, our foremothers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, likely rejoiced on either side of the veil to see polygamy ended. Um, I think that We do them a great disservice to claim otherwise. So, um, that’s where we’re gonna leave it with this time just focusing on this one meeting and this one class of women who um supported polygamy, I think strategically to accomplish much higher aims. And so next time we’re. Going to look at some other and some other categories of testimonies of women and some other explanations and interpretations that may be a little bit more painful than this one. So I hope you’ll join us again and I hope you found this valuable again. Thank you so much, so much for being here. This is 132 problems.
