Rudger Clawson (1857–1943) was the first Mormon convicted of being in violation of the Edmund–Tucker Act, which outlawed polygamy. Born into a polygamous family, Clawson married Florence Dinwoodey in August 1882, Lydia Spencer is March 1883, and eventually entered into a “post-Manifesto union” with Pearl Udall in 1904.Clawson, a prominent member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, served in the LDS Church as missionary, stake president, apostle, president of the Quor...

In September 1857, a wagon train passing through Utah laden with gold was attacked. Approximately 140 people were slaughtered; only 17 children under the age of eight were spared. This incident in an open field called Mountain Meadows has ever since been the focus of passionate debate: Is it possible that official Mormon dignitaries were responsible for the massacre? In her riveting book, Sally Denton makes a fiercely convincing argument that they were.The author–herself of Mormon ...

This landmark study offers a rogues' gallery of women—from the Colonial Era to the 20th century—who answered abuse and oppression with murder: "A classic" ( Gloria Steinem).Women rarely resort to murder. But when they do, they are likely to kill their intimates: husbands, lovers, or children. In Women Who Kill, journalist Ann Jones explores these homicidal patters and what they reflect about women and our culture. She considers notorious cases suc...

A gripping account of the mob killing of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism“American Crucifixion paints a brilliant picture of religious experimentation, public intolerance, and the making of a martyr.”—Chicago TribuneOn June 27, 1844, in the dusty frontier town of Carthage, Illinois, Joseph Smith and three of his associates waited anxiously in a jail cell. The dynamic founding prophet of Mormonism no longer had a congregation to p...

In the early 1820s a young boy named Joseph Smith claimed that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him and told him to found a new church. Thus began Mormonism, a faith that has grown to thirteen million members worldwide. The Mormon Contradiction: In Their Own Words offers the reader an insight into what the Mormon Church is really all about, including: Where the Book of Mormon really came from Joseph Smiths personal history and use of Occultism and Freemasonry The original accoun...

In "Jukes-Edwards: A Study in Education and Heredity," Albert E. Winship presents a groundbreaking exploration of the intricate interplay between nature and nurture, using the infamous Jukes family as a case study to discuss broader societal implications of heredity on social morality and educational outcomes. Written in the early 20th century, Winship employs a meticulous blend of statistical analysis, anecdotal evidence, and socio-political commentary to analyze the impact of familial le...

The Mormon handcart tragedy of 1856 is the worst disaster in the history of the Western migrations, and yet it remains virtually unknown today outside Mormon circles.Following the death of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, its second Prophet and new leader, Brigham Young, determined to move the faithful out of the Midwest, where they had been constantly persecuted by their neighbors, to found a new Zion in the wilderness. In 1846-47, the Mormons made their way west, gener...

The labors of those who have edited these volumes are not only finished as far as this work extends, but if three-score years and ten be the usual limit of human life, all our earthly endeavors must end in the near future. After faithfully collecting material for several years, and making the best selections our judgment has dictated, we are painfully conscious of many imperfections the critical reader will perceive. But since stereotype plates will not reflect our growing sense of perfect...

From the author of A Midwife's Tale, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize for History,and The Age of Homespun--a revelatory, nuanced, and deeply intimate look at the world of early Mormon women whose seemingly ordinary lives belied an astonishingly revolutionary spirit, drive, and determination.A stunning and sure-to-be controversial book that pieces together, through more than two dozen nineteenth-century diaries, letters, albums, ...

This small pamphlet was published shortly after the Carthage murder of Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother - and Mormon Patriarch - Hyrum Smith. It describes the events leading up to the assassination by several eyewitnesses of those times.

In The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, C.A. Tripp offers a full examination of Lincoln's inner life and relationships that, as Dr. Jean Baker argues in the Introduction, "will define the issue for years to come."The late C. A. Tripp, a highly regarded sex researcher and colleague of Alfred Kinsey, and author of the runaway bestseller The Homosexual Matrix, devoted the last ten years of his life to an exhaustive study of Abraham Lincoln's writin...