Before the Manifesto: The Life Writings of Mary Lois Walker Morris

Before the Manifesto: The Life Writings of Mary Lois Walker Morris
ISBN-10
0874216443
ISBN-13
9780874216448
Category
History (General)
Pages
639
Language
English
Published
2007-01-20
Publisher
Utah State University Press
Author
Mary Lois Walker Morris

Description

Mary Lois Walker Morris was a Mormon woman who challenged both American ideas about marriage and the U.S. legal system. Before the Manifesto provides a glimpse into her world as the polygamous wife of a prominent Salt Lake City businessman, during a time of great transition in Utah. This account of her life as a convert, milliner, active community member, mother, and wife begins in England, where her family joined the Mormon church, details her journey across the plains, and describes life in Utah in the 1880s. Her experiences were unusual as, following her first husband's deathbed request, she married his brother, as a plural wife, in the Old Testament tradition of levirate marriage.

Mary Morris's memoir frames her 1879 to 1887 diary with both reflections on earlier years and passages that parallel entries in the day book, giving readers a better understanding of how she retrospectively saw her life. The thoroughly annotated diary offers the daily experience of a woman who kept a largely self-sufficient household, had a wide social network, ran her own business, wrote poetry, and was intellectually curious. The years of "the Raid" (federal prosecution of polygamists) led Mary and Elias Morris to hide their marriage on "the underground," and her to perjury in court during Elias's trial for unlawful cohabitation. The book ends with Mary Lois's arrival at the Salt Lake Depot after three years in exile in Mexico with a polygamist colony.

Similar books

  • History of the British Standing Army.
    By Clifford Walton

    Clerk (or) Clark, Esqre.," held the appointment ; he was son to Sir Wm. Clarke, :1 sort of Secretary-at-War, and does not appear to have been bred up to the law. In Ireland the post was held from 1635 to 1637 by W. Clerke, J.C.B., E.

  • Running as a Woman: Gender and Power in American Politics
    By Karen M. Paget, Linda Witt, Glenna Matthews

    ... and, judging by the strange new media venues, "Saturday Night Live," "Donahue," and gossip columnist Lany King's radio and television call-in shows on which 1992's Losing 245.

  • Populist Nationalism: Republican Insurgency and American Foreign Policy Making, 1918-1925
    By Karen A. J. Miller

    His stature within the party leadership would suffer a significant blow at the Cleveland convention . Although both Lodge and Coolidge came from Massachusetts , they represented very different elements in their state's Republican party ...

  • 你一定爱读的极简世界史
    By , 李菲

    (英)玛丽奥特, 李菲. 疆域达到了最大,罗德岛、塞浦路斯和安纳托利亚西南岸上都是他们的地盘。迈锡尼人还将克里特文字变成了一种希腊文,翻译过来的文字显示,迈锡尼人也信仰一些古典希腊的神灵,如海神波塞冬、太阳神阿波罗和主神宙斯。

  • 原始富足
    By 詹姆斯.舒茲曼

    ★ 《人類大歷史》作者哈拉瑞盛讚:「深具啟發、精彩好看!」 ★ 2017年《華盛頓郵報》最佳非虛構類寫作圖書 ★ 2017年美國國家公共廣播平台(NPR)年度好書 ...

  • The American Journey: A History of the United States
    By David R. Goldfield, Virginia DeJohn Anderson, William L. Barney

    Anna J. Cooper , A Voice from the South , 1892 Anna Julia Cooper , A Voice from the South ( Xenia , Ohio : The Aldine Printing House , 1892 ) : 134-135 , 138–140 , 142–145 . The book may be accessed from the Internet ...

  • A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth. Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to...
    By Frank Hamilton Cushing

    This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The creators of this series are united by passion for literature and driven by the intention of making all public domain books available in printed format again - worldwide.

  • The Winning of the West
    By Theodore Roosevelt

    ... inhabitants are greatly Exposd . to the Saviges by whome our wives and Childring are daly Cruily murdered Notwithstanding our most Humble Petitions Canot Obtain Redress- By an other act we are Taxd . which in our 398 APPENDICES .

  • History of American Abolitionism; Its Four Great Epochs, Embracing Narratives of the Ordinance of 1787, Compromise of 1820, Annexation of...
    By F. G. 1832-1896 De Fontaine

    This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

  • The African-American Odyssey: To 1877
    By Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, Stanley Harrold

    Supreme Court Justices ( continued ) Name * Years on Court Appointing President John Marshall Harlan William J. Brennan , Jr. Charles E. Whittaker Potter Stewart Byron R. White Arthur J. Goldberg Abe Fortas Thurgood Marshall WARREN E.