PREFACE
What comes to a person's mind
when he/she hears the name "Mormon" uttered? What
kind of impression does the word connote? Most often the
name is associated with polygamy and an extremely negative
connotation while other responses mention, "The Mormon
Tabernacle Choir," while emitting a very positive feeling.
So between those two where is the real understanding of
the "Mormons" which is a nickname for "The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," which
name came about because of members belief in the "Book
of Mormon - Another Testament of Jesus Christ" which
tells the story of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas
written by scribes of that time to later be translated and
published by Joseph Smith in 1830.
Of course, when polygamy is mentioned,
the most common name associated with that practice was Brigham
Young, who is purported to have had 25 wives. Whether that
is the true number or not, one polygamist sympathetically
asked, "Isn't One Wife Enough?" while others have
jokingly implied that, "One wife is too many!"
The fact remains that the practice brought
great suffering and scorn among the practitioners who were
demonized in caricatures such as were the Jews, Catholics,
Blacks, Native Americans, Irish, Poles, Chinese, and others
who were negatively characterized because of their differences.
Concerning the "Mormons" and polygamy
a book, “The Mormon Graphic Image, 1834-1914, Cartoons,
Caricatures, and Illustrations,” by Gary L. Bunker and Davis
Bitton, gives examples of “the misunderstandings and misrepresentations
of the Mormons that resulted in stereotyping.”
“Many illustrations showed quarrelsome,
unhappy women and impersonal, exploitative Mormon men.”
Others carried the message that “Mormonism was a nefarious, stifling
system that led its victims into a life of suffering and
disillusionment.”
Samuel Clemens [Mark Twain] while visiting
briefly in Salt Lake City wrote his impressions in his book,
“Roughing It” published in 1872. “I was feverish to
plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here—until
I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was
wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly,
and pathetically ‘homely’ creatures, and as I turned to
hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, “No—the man
that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity
which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not
their harsh censure—and the man that marries sixty of them
has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that
the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship
in silence”
He further indicated, “This was a fairyland
to us . . . a land of enchantment, and goblins, and awful
mystery. We felt a curiosity to ask every child how many
mothers it had, and if it could tell them apart; and we
experienced a thrill every time a dwelling house door opened
and shut as we passed . . . for we longed to have a good
satisfying look at a Mormon family in all its comprehensive
ampleness. . . .”
Upon leaving the area Twain wrote, “we left
. . . Salt Lake City . . . not so very much wiser, as regards
the Mormon question, than we were when we arrived. . . .
We had a deal more ‘information’ than we had before, of
course, but we did not know what portion of it was reliable.
. . . All our ‘information’ had three sides to it, and so
I gave up the idea that I could settle the ‘Mormon question’
in two days. Still I have seen newspaper correspondents
do it in one.”
Another
humorist, Bill Nye’s description of “The unsightly Mormon
Woman” is considered to be the harshest. “I thought I had
seen homely women before, but today was reserved for me
a spectacle of Mormon hideousness that will haunt me always.
In my opinion, polygamy carries its own punishment along
with it. It is sufficient punishment for the men to stay
in the house with the warty creatures they call their wives.”
A sampling of a few of the 165 illustrations
from the book follows:
“The Family Bedstead.” Illustration from
Mark Twain’s Roughing It published in 1872.
“Brigham
Young the Great American
Family Man.” Wild Oats, 28 March 1872.
“Up-to-Date
Father Goose.” Drawn by Bart
for the Chicago Journal, March 1904.
The
text reads, “On 21 June 1905 Puck’s first twentieth-century
invention for Mormonism appeared--a very fat “Mormon
Case watch for the Utah Jewelry Trade.” (Fig. 121).
In its closed position it was like other watches except
for its unusual thickness. In its open position out came
the portraits of several wives, the last, of course, being
the youngest and most attractive. (Pages 139-140)
“The
Veiled Prophet of Polygamutah
Vanity Fair, 11 February 1860.
The above cartoon is indicative of the times where Brigham
Young, along with other Mormon men, is characterized as
having a cloven foot along with horns. The blindfold is
used as an illustration that he is blind as to what is going
on around him concerning the practice of polygamy.
“Ye
Popular Idea of Brigham Young and his
Followers.” Yankee Notions, April 1858.
“Mormonism in Utah--The Cave of Despair.”
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 4 February 1882.
Woodcut from Eber D. Howe’s
Mormonism Unvailed pulished in 1834.
One story asserted that a toad, hiding in the hillside repsository
of the plates that contained the ancient religious record
of Mormon, was transformed into a devil which proceeded
to assault the young Joseph. A variant account described
Joseph Smith running from Satan with the plates, finally
being overtaken, and the devil’s kick lifting “him
three or four feet from the ground.”
“A
Mormon Family out for a Walk.” Illustration from John
D. Sherwood’s The Comic History of the united States
published in 1870.
“Uncle
Sam: Now There’s a Merger that Will Stand Looking Into.”
Pen-and-ink drawing by F. T. Richards for Philadelphia North
American, 28 August 1907.
“A
pleasant Surprise for the Girl Who Marries a Utah Widower.”
Life 4 May 1899.
Frontispiece.
Jonas Ives. Life, 22 November 1906.
“Portrait
of a Latter Day Saint.”
Drawn by Charles Dana Gibson for
Colliers Weekly, 26 March 1904.
In
spite of all the persecution, negativity and misunderstanding
“Mormon” families held to the sacredness of the marriage
covenant whether as to plural or monogamous relationships.
The sacredness
of the marriage covenant.
Each of the five periods of time described
as “days” in the creation of the earth was described as
“Good.” while the sixth and final period was announced as
“Very good.” What made the difference between the fifth
and sixth “days?” On that very special sixth period of time,
“God created man in his own image, in the image of God created
he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed
them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
. . . And God saw
every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.
And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.” (See
Genesis Chapter 1.)
The seventh “day” was also very special,
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the
host of them.
“And on the seventh day God ended his work
which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from
all his work which he had made.
“And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified
it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which
God created and made.” (Genesis 2:1-3)
The Apostle Paul to the Corinthians indicated,
“Neither is the man without the women, neither the women
without the man, in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 11:11) “And
they twain shall be one flesh,” according to Matthew. (Mathew
19:5)
“And all this that the earth might answer
the end of its creation; And that it might be filled with
the measure of man, according to his creation before the
world was made.” (D&C 49:16-17)
So it is that the man and the woman “shall
be one flesh” in a partnership with God while carrying out
the divine purposes of the earth’s creation--to be proved
and tested to see whether or not we would keep the commandments
of God that would bring great blessings in this life while
leading to eternal joy and happiness in the life to come.
Was the practice of polygamy, then a part of that
great plan to populate the earth as practiced by people
in ancient times—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—among others,
along with the “Mormons” for a period of time in the 1800’s?
Let the reader decide!
Brigham Young’s hope
that the church would become better understood.
A certain president’s visit in the Territory of Utah proved
very beneficial to the citizens. “In 1875 the President
of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, visited the territory.
On his arrival in Salt Lake City he was driven [by Brigham
Young] through the streets of the city thronged with people.
He had accepted as true the falsehoods concerning the Mormons
which were still circulated in the East, and while passing
long lines of rosy-cheeked children who were waving and
cheering, he turned to the governor who was his host and
asked, ‘Whose children are these, Governor?’
“‘Those are Mormon children,’ the governor replied. To this
the President remarked, ‘Governor, I have been deceived.’
“Brigham Young by this time was a man seventy-four years of
age. He was in good health, but the trial of the years was
telling on him. Life had been a constant struggle from the
time he had joined the Church in 1833. In summing up the
results of that struggle he wrote an article for the editor
of a New York paper in response to a request for a summary
of his labors:
“I thank you for the privilege of presenting facts as they are.
I will furnish them gladly at any time you make the request.
The result of my labors for the past 26 years briefly summed
up are: The peopling of this territory by the Latter-day
Saints of about 100,000 souls; the founding of over 200
cities, town and villages inhabited by our people, the establishment
of schools, factories, mills and other institutions calculated
to improve and benefit our communities.
“My whole life is devoted to the Almighty’s service, and while
I regret that my mission is not better understood by the
world, the time will come when I will be understood, and
I leave to fu-turity the judgment of my labors and their
result as they shall become manifest.”
Monument
to Brigham Young on Main Street of Salt Lake City, Utah.
It is the author’s hope, because of his treasured heritage as
a descendant of polygamous grandparents, that the readers
of the following will have a better understanding of The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of those times
past as well as of the present.
