Digging Into Diaries

This morning, at Concordia, I went to hear Dr. Laurel Urlich give a seminar to graduate students “Digging into Diaries”. 

Dr. Ulrich was explaining what she had found in some of her research for her newest book, A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870. 

A heavy title.

Provocative as well.

The main point of the lecture was that we can read primary documents and discover much about women’s lives.

For example, diaries are better than retrospective memoirs. Dated letters are good; dated poetry works as well (see the works by Eliza R Snow). Information can be gleaned from minutes books (a prized one from church history coming from the Nauvoo period). And autographed albums work as primary documents.

Professor Elrich used a paragraph from a diary she had studied, giving it to us as a test case. We broke into groups We came back with our best analyses. And then the fun began, parsing out timing, the people being spoken of, the day of the week, the mode of transportation, and the relative importance of the morning, afternoon and evening activities. The diarist ended her day receiving a reduction of alcohol from her husband which gave her a good sleep and relieved her of her weariness. I think that reduction would help me some nights.

In the early beginnings of Mormonism there is plenty of evidence that women gave blessings to their husbands, other women and to their children. As well the controlled their own money and choose their charitable initiatives. They spoke in tongues, testified, but did not give sermons. We live in a modern world where this has been reversed. At least if we can believe the evidence we find when reading old Mormon diaries.

I wanted to post a picture of Bathsheba Smith before 1844 by Maudsley Sutcliffe that is in the Pioneer Memorial Museum in Utah. I couldn’t find one on the internet. What was touching to me is that we have a profile view of her, and extending down to her knees. She is standing beside a table on which there is a pen and paper. I try not to, but I sometimes forget how important a pen, some ink and paper are.

For these early Mormon women, access to the press stimulated their writing, in retrospect, a gift for all of us.

Arta