Give It All Up and Follow Your Lord : Mormon Female Religiosity, 1831 1843 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History Brigham Young University June 2001 by Janiece Lyn Johnson
Dissertations in Latter-day Saint History Produced by BYU Studies Also in the Series: A Study of the Origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the States of New York and Pennsylvania, by Larry C. Porter A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri, by Alexander L. Baugh A History of the Latter-day Saints in Northern Missouri from 1836 to 1839, by Leland Homer Gentry To Make True Latter-day Saints : Mormon Recreation in the Progressive Era, by Richard Ian Kimball The Mormon Ideology of Place: Cosmic Symbolism of the Symbolism of Zion 1830 1846, by Steven L. Olsen Alexander Schreiner: Mormon Tabernacle Organist, by Daniel Frederick Berghout The Japanese Missionary Journals of Elder Alma O. Taylor, 1901 1910, by Reid L. Nielsen The Mormon Reformation, by Paul H. Peterson The Historical Development of the Doctrine and Covenants, by Robert J. Woodford Sister Wives and Suffragists: Polygamy and the Politics of Woman Suffrage 1870 1896, by Lola Van Wagenen Early Mormon Pamphleteering, by David J. Whittaker Celebrating Zion: Pioneers in Mormon Popular Historical Expression, by Eric A. Eliason The Emergence of Brigham Young and the Twelve to Mormon Leadership, 1830 1841, by Ronald K. Esplin 2008 Janiece Lyn Johnson. All rights reserved. cover design by Catharine Verhaaren This thesis was approved in June 2001. Opinions expressed in this publication are the opinions of the author and his views should not necessarily be attributed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brigham Young University, or BYU Studies. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, digital, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording or in an information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing. Prepared for publication by BYU Studies. To contact BYU Studies, write to 403 CB, Brigham Young University, PO Box 24098, Provo, Utah 84602, or visit http://byustudies.byu.edu. ISBN 978-0-8425-2711-8 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dissertations in LDS History Over the years, graduate students have written many important dissertations on LDS topics. Unfor tu nately, they have typically been unavailable or unknown to lay readers. All too often, good copies of dissertations reside only at the institution at which they were written or on a few researchers book shelves. BYU Studies and the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History hope to fill this gap by producing and distributing selected dissertations of interest to Latter-day Saints, making them available to a larger audience. The works in this series have been reformatted from the originals. Nevertheless, these dissertations have undergone only minimal editing. For example, some typographical errors have been corrected. Original page numbers are referenced by superscripted italicized numerals in brackets (e.g., [3] ). Occasionally, the author has included additional information to update old material. Those additions have been placed in brackets and italicized to distinguish them from the original text.
Contents Acknowledgements vii 1. Introduction 1 2. Thus Far 9 3. The Letters 19 a. Lucy Mack Smith 1831 19 b. Phebe Crosby Peck 1832 25 c. Almira Mack Scobey Covey 1835 27 d. Rebecca Swain Williams Kimball 1835 29 e. Lovina Fairchild Wilson 1835 33 f. Mary Ann Angell Young 1835 34 g. Mary Fielding Smith 1837 41 h. Jennetta Richards 1838 48 i. Temperance Bond Mack 1838 51 j. Eliza Roxcy Snow 1839 54 k. Mary Fielding Smith, letter 2 1839 57 l. Melissa Morgan Dodge 1839 63 m. Vilate Murray Kimball 1839 69 n. Laura Clark Phelps 1839 73 o. Almira Mack Scobey Covey, letter 2 1840 79 p. Lucy Thompson Lisk 1840 80 q. Olive Boynton Hale 1841 87 r. Ann Marsh Abbott 1843 89 4. The Ways of Salvation 103 5. Conclusion 111 Bibliography 113 Abstract 123 Index 124