Mormon History Association

Recommended Books
	General Mormon History
	New York Beginnings
	Kirtland Period
	Missouri Period
	Nauvoo Period
	Utah Period
	Utah War
	Economic LDS History
	Mormon Battalion (Mexican War)
	Mormon Polygamy
	Mountain Meadows Massacre
	Biographies
	Other
	Bibliography
	Extensive Works

Recommended Books - Mormon Polygamy

Mormon Polygamy: A History

Van Wagoner, Richard S., Signature Books, Salt Lake City, UT.

Book Description:

In this, the first comprehensive survey of Mormon polygamy—from nineteenth-century Ohio to twentieth-century Utah—Richard S. Van Wagoner details with precision and detachment the tumultuous reaction among Mormons and non-Mormons to plural marriage. Drawing heavily on first-hand accounts and recent scholarly research, the author carefully outlines the philosophical underpinnings of the practice, the institutional administration of policies regulating polygamy, the opposition from within and without the church, and the personal trauma often associated with plural marriage.

Buy it now!

Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage
*Hardy, B. Carmon, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL.
Book Description: In his famous Manifesto of 1890, Mormon church president Wilford Woodruff called for an end to the more than fifty-year practice of polygamy. Although polygamy was never a way of life for the majority of Latter-day Saints in the nineteenth century, Hardy contends that plural marriage enjoyed a more important place in the Saints’ restorationist vision than most historians have allowed. Buy it now! Received MHA's Best Book Award -- 1992

The Mormon Question: Polygamy,
and Constitutional Conflict in
Nineteenth-Century America

Gordon, Sarah Barringer, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC.

Online Book Review:

While numerous studies have examined life in plural marriage, this is the first to explore how the Mormon practice of polygamy transformed the U.S. legal system. Gordon, a professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania, deftly handles complicated issues of religion, states' rights, constitutional theory and the separation of church and state. When Mormons fled to Utah in the 1840s, they brought with them a deep suspicion of "local sovereignty," feeling that individual states had persecuted them terribly while a weak federal government did nothing to protect them. In Utah, however, they turned this local sovereignty principle to their own advantage, publicly revealing their polygamous society in 1852 and taking measures to ensure the seamless fusion of church and state. Anti-polygamist legislators, novelists and activists were galvanized to subdue both the Mormons' political power and their polygamous unions even if this meant reversing longstanding constitutional precedent by centralizing power in the federal government rather than the states. Gordon does an outstanding job of clarifying complex legal issues and demonstrating change over time. At no point was the anti-polygamists' eventual victory a foregone conclusion; as this study shows, the Mormons had powerful legal precedent on their side, and they proved to be tenacious opponents until they abandoned the struggle in 1890. Gordon is a fine scholar whose penetrating research and interdisciplinary approach break new ground in the fields of Mormon studies and legal history. --Publishers Weekly

Buy it now!

Received MHA's Best Book Award -- 2002

Mormon Polygamous Families: Life in the Principle
Embry, Jessie L., University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, UT.
Book description: Mormons and non-Mormons all have their views about how polygamy was practiced in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Embry has examined the participants themselves in order to understand how men and women living a nineteenth century Victorian lifestyle adapted to polygamy. Based on records and interviews with husbands, wives, and children who lived in Mormon polygamous households, this study explores the diverse experiences of individual families as an antidote to oversimplified conclusions and stereotypes about polygamy. Buy it now!

In Sacred Loneliness:
The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith

Compton, Todd, Signature Books, Salt Lake City, UT.

Book Description:

Formerly at UCLA and now the editor of Mormonism and Early Christianity, Compton has compiled a meticulously researched and masterly study of Mormon Joseph Smith's 33 wives. The women are presented individually, with many of their own documents cited. Compton contends that "Mormon polygamy was characterized by a tragic ambiguity": infinite dominion in the next life vs. a social system that did not work, thus resulting in acute neglect of the wives. These "key women have been comparatively forgotten," surprisingly so considering the reverence Mormons hold for their founding prophet and how important polygamy was to Smith. The "sacred loneliness" refers to Smith's promise of salvation combined with the solitude of the forsaken multiple wives. A plenary reference and bibliography and a collection of the wives' photographs fill out this tome, making it a fascinating work. Valuable for both lay readers and scholars, this is recommended for public and academic libraries with good collections in history and women's studies. Kay Meredith Dusheck, Anamosa, IA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --From Library Journal.

Buy it now!

Received MHA's Best Book Award -- 1997