Mormon Polygamy
Mormon Polygamy: A History
Richard S. Van Wagoner
In this comprehensive survey of Mormon Polygamy, Richard Van Wagoner details, with precision and detachment, the tumultuous reaction among insiders and outsiders to plural marriage. In an honest, methodical way, he traces the origins, the peculiarities common to the midwestern and later Utah periods, and post-1890 new marriages. Drawing heavily on first-hand accounts, he outlines the theological underpinnings and the personal trauma associated with this lifestyle.
What emerges is a portrait that neither discounts nor exaggerates the historical evidence. He presents polygamy in context, neither condemning nor defending, while relevant contemporary accounts are treated sympathetically but interpreted critically. No period of Mormon history is emphasized over another. The result is a systematic view that is unavailable in studies of isolated periods or in the repetitions of folklore that only disguise the reality of what polygamy was.
Scattered throughout the western United States today are an estimated thirty thousand fundamentalist Mormons who still live “the principle.” They, too, are a part of Joseph Smith’s legacy and are included in this study.
paperback: $19.95 | ebook: $9.99
Richard S. Van Wagoner was the author of Mormon Polygamy: A History (1985, 1989), Lehi: Portraits of a Utah Town (1990), Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (1994), Pioneering Lehi City: A 150-Year Pictorial History (2002), editor of The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young, five volumes (2010), and coauthor of A Book of Mormons (1982). He published articles in BYU Studies, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Sunstone, Utah Historical Quarterly, and Utah Holiday. He received writing awards from the Dialogue Foundation, the John Whitmer Historical Association, the Mormon History Association, and the Utah State Historical Society. He earned an M.S. degree from Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah) in 1970. Trained as a clinical audiologist, he owned and operated Mountain West Hearing Center in Salt Lake City. He was a lifelong resident of Lehi, Utah; a founding member of the Lehi Historical Preservation Commission; and served as Lehi City’s Historical Archivist. He was a co-founder, a member of the Board of Directors, and a member of the Editorial Advisory Committee of Signature Books (Salt Lake City).
History
ISBN: 978-0-941214-79-7
