Comments on: Report: Ben Bennion and Tom Carter, “Twelve Mormon Homes: Touring Utah with Elizabeth & Thomas Kane in 1872-73″

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:30:43 +0000

Ben reminds me of another important point in his talk that I forgot to include here: Noting that the numbers of men and women in Utah Territory were virtually even, only a small minority of Mormon men could have entered into polygamous marriages. As it was, men who wanted plural wives after the earliest days of the practice could find them only by marrying much younger women, and some — like the one he mentioned who had been seeking a second wife unsuccessfully for 12 years — found the pool of available women of any age too small to enter the practice.

By: Joe Geisner

Joe Geisner — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 02:39:55 +0000

Ardis,

Thank you for this wonderful summary. Your summary is quite informative and I look forward to the publication of the book.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 22:20:02 +0000

Ben Bennion just gave me a copy of a handout distributed at the lecture that I somehow missed. This includes information that the Kanes stayed with families in two towns (Payson and Fillmore) who were — at least at that time — monogamists.

This handout also identifies the families with whom the Kanes stayed, and the dates of each visit.

By: Ben

Ben — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:51:28 +0000

Thanks for this, Ardis. To be honest, I was in the same building when this lecture was given, but forgot completely about it.

By: Jami

Jami — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:49:23 +0000

Thanks Ardis (and Justin). Very interesting. I’d say truly fascinating, but that was already taken.

By: Ray

Ray — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:23:13 +0000

Truly fascinating, Ardis. Thanks.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:37:38 +0000

Ah, the blessings of proximity. What a great write-up; and it appears that the presentations were excellent. Thanks for this.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:45:19 +0000

Hunter, I know that Ben has examined many other communities besides those where the Kanes stayed overnight (one of his maps showed literally dozens of Utah towns represented by circles of different sizes indicative of their population, with a pie-shaped wedge in each circle indicating the proportion of plural households), and for another project he and Kathy Daynes have studied in depth at least one community in each of Utah’s counties. Since he looks at the entire community in each case, not just the family that hosted the Kanes, he seems to me to be in a good position to speak for Mormon Utah as a whole. His interpretations and coverage are as open to debate as anyone else’s; I’m impressed, though, by both the breadth and depth of his data-gathering.

Justin, let’s just make this official: I should run every post by you first, and you can insert the links that add so much value. I didn’t know all those Tanner books were online. Great addition!

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:34:09 +0000

Thank you for the report. As an aside, the Tanner reprints of Kane's books are also available here.

By: Hunter

Hunter — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:32:03 +0000

Cool, thanks. I just got thinking about whether the Kanes’ visits were purposefully focused on polygamous households (probably so, else why the bother?) in light of Ben Bennion’s discussion about how all of Utah society was polygamous. If so, and although I don’t disagree with Bennion’s statement at all, I wondered about whether using the Kanes’ narrative as a case study isn’t a little inapt? Will do some more digging myself. Thanks.