"Celestial Marriage" vs. "Polygamic Lascivious Cohabitation"

THE ISSUES THAT DIVIDED Mormons and gentiles long predated the settlement of Salt Lake City. To many Americans, Mormon theology was presumptuous if not heretical, particularly because of its claims of a new scripture and the doctrine of continuous revelation through an anointed prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr. Some merchants resented the Saints for their exclusive trading practices. Their political opponents accused them of bloc voting, while others accused them of agitating Indians or tampering with slaves. To many gentiles, the tightly organized and hierarchical Mormons appeared deeply un-American in an era that revered the striving, competitive, self-made (white) male; the independent voter; the rugged individualist who rejected authority and demanded equality with others.

      These issues led to a long period of conflict wherever the Mormons settled and ultimately to their self-exile in the Salt Lake Valley, which deeply affected the Saints by reinforcing their self-image as a chosen people subject to the hatred and abuse of unbelievers. The perceived persecution helped create a body capable of impressive cooperative achievements as well as long-term resistance to those they considered enemies. Many of the above issues resurfaced when non-Mormons began to settle in the Salt Lake region. ¹

      The story of the settlement of the Salt Lake Valley is well known and will only be sketched here. The Saints welcomed the isolation of the valley because it allowed them to build their exclusive "Kingdom of God" with little interference. In effect, the civil and ecclesiastical governments of the region were the same: the LDS Church leadership. Salt Lake City's elected mayor and ward-based city council mirrored most contemporary American cities. City and territorial governments were all-Mormon (until 1888 and 1889 respectively), and generally acted in the LDS Church's interests and enforced its values. ² The creation of the Territory of Utah in 1850, however, brought federally appointed judges and governors to Salt Lake City and marked the beginning of the long three-cornered contest between Mormons, the national government, and local non-Mormons for control of the territory. ³

      The Latter-day Saints' faith was central to all aspects of the new settlement; and marriage, the family, and certain gender roles were central to the faith. The sacred texts of the LDS faith—the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price—abound in prescriptions for proper family life, the roles of women, and the requirement of premarital chastity and marital fidelity. Worthy male members belonged to a universal lay priesthood, held all church governance offices, and exercised ultimate authority within their families. ⁴ Women had a subordinate but necessary role; together, righteous men and women sought to conceive and raise righteous progeny and achieve exaltation in the afterlife. ⁵

      The Saints held that sexual desire between man and woman was a positive gift from God, to be expressed only within marriage. ⁶ They shared with other Christians biblical strictures against sexual immorality. The Book of Mormon contains many similar moral prescriptions, which together constitute the "law of chastity." ⁷ The Doctrine and Covenants, which Saints believe contain divine revelations given to their prophet, also address sexuality. ⁸ LDS leaders supplemented these dictates with sermons and discourses. ⁹ Nineteenth-century Mormon doctrine revered the family, encouraged marriage, acknowledged necessary roles for women but subordinated them to male authority, valued the expression of sexuality but restricted it to the married state for purposes of procreation, and punished transgressions of the moral code. Few of these beliefs would have been surprising or unacceptable to other Christian Americans. The great difference, of course, lay in the Latter-day Saints' concept of "eternal" or "celestial marriage," defined in the nineteenth century as plural marriage.

      The Saints were not alone in the Salt Lake Valley for long. Non-Mormons often stopped on their way to Oregon or California in the late 1840s and 1850s. A relative handful stayed, adapted to the Mormon community, and did not disrupt the Saints' hegemony. ¹⁰ The federal officials sent to the territory discovered that their authority was virtually nonexistent, much to their chagrin. Even the bloodless "Utah War" of 1857-59 did not appreciably shake the Mormon hierarchy's control, although it did demonstrate the federal government's willingness and ability to exert power over the territory. ¹¹

      Substantial numbers of non-Mormons began to arrive in the 1860s. In 1862 Colonel Patrick E. Connor and his California volunteers established Camp Douglas on the east bench of the city, creating a permanent army presence (and a steady source of customers for prostitutes). Connor, who deeply distrusted the Saints, felt he had a duty to attract "loyal" gentiles to the territory to counteract the Mormon majority. Accordingly, he encouraged mining in hopes of spurring a boom. The advent of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 eventually allowed both the transportation of tons of ore and the immigration of thousands of gentiles. ¹² The railroad inaugurated an era which Leonard Arrington describes as a period of two separate, competitive economies: one consisting of nucleated, agricultural Mormon commonwealths, the other of gentile-dominated mining districts. From roughly 1869 to 1890, Utah society remained rather strictly divided between those "of the Kingdom" and those outside. ¹³

      Mid-nineteenth-century Christian Americans broadly shared the Mormon beliefs in the centrality of marriage, sexuality, the importance of family, and the proper role of women. ¹⁴ The rise of market capitalism and the physical separation of work and the home in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries gradually led middle- and upper-class men and women to create the ideal of "separate spheres." While men were expected to operate in the competitive, striving, individualistic public sphere of wage work and politics, women were expected to remain in the home, creating a safe, pure, virtuous private refuge for their families. The home protected women from the public sphere, for whose rigors and corruption they were supposedly not suited, and made the best use of the "natural" attributes and talents that they did possess.

      By the middle of the nineteenth century, these beliefs had crystallized into what historian Barbara Welter called the "cult of true womanhood," to which women were expected to aspire. A "true woman," according to Welter, was pious, pure, submissive, and domestic. Because she was virtuous, she might claim moral superiority over her husband, father, brothers, or sons. Marriage was the best and happiest state for a true woman, with motherhood a natural corollary. Individuals and families that followed these strictures (or at least appeared to) could consider themselves "respectable." ¹⁵ Of course, many women could not afford or did not aspire to this ideal state. Women who needed or wanted to work outside the home faced not only limited opportunities and low wages but also suspicions about their respectability. ¹⁶

      With the creation of women's sphere came new claims for the nature of women's sexuality. The female sex had traditionally been viewed as naturally lustful, and folklore as well as some accepted medical authorities held that women were possessed of stronger sexual appetites and capable of greater pleasure than men. By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, many authorities began to argue that women had no natural inclination for sex. For example, Dr. William Acton declared that "the majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind." ¹⁷ Those authorities now considered men the passionate sex, a construction that allowed some men to argue for the importance of greater sexual license, including the patronage of prostitutes, to male health and happiness. ¹⁸

      Some historians maintain that the doctrine of separate spheres, while shutting women out of electoral politics and keeping most economically dependent, did provide them with certain power. The public and private spheres were, at least in theory, equally important and complementary. Historians John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman argue that the separation of home and work altered the dominant meaning of marriage from an economic partnership whose main purpose was to produce children to an intimate relationship motivated by romantic love that provided companionship for husband and wife. Women could also exercise more control over their fertility through contraception, continence, abstinence, and abortion. Some women used their moral authority within their sphere to publicly demand curbs on men's sexuality. ¹⁹

      While the Mormon gender system was broadly similar to the non-Mormon, real differences existed. Mormon men continued to bear the ultimate responsibility and authority for the family's spiritual well-being. Mormon beliefs about the purposes of marriage, particularly that of raising righteous progeny, were more in keeping with the older conception of marriage. Historian Klaus Hansen suggests that Mormons may have stressed procreation as the primary purpose of marriage to counter gentile claims that male lust drove the Mormon leaders to institute polygamy. ²⁰ The marriage of several women to a single man probably lessened the importance of romantic love as a criterion.

      Compared to most other contemporary American women, especially in the middle and upper classes, Mormon women also tended to be more often present in public space. The demands of frontier life and the absence of husbands (whether on church missions or because they were with their other families) often forced women to take leadership roles within their families and communities. The network of LDS auxiliary organizations also provided Mormon women with opportunities to exercise leadership in the public sphere. ²¹

      Women who sold sex for money violated the tenets of true womanhood and Mormon womanhood alike. Prostitutes sold publicly what was supposed to be kept for marriage and shared only with a husband. Indeed, a frequent synonym for "prostitute" was "public woman." Historian Glenna Matthews notes that until around the turn of the century, "public man" was a term of high praise, while no positive connotation was attached to "public woman." ²² The discourse surrounding prostitution reveals much about nineteenth-century gender systems. Respectable people considered prostitutes "fallen women," a term evoking the biblical fall from grace. A prostitute "fell" just as a victim of seduction or an adulteress did; all three similarly violated the norms of virtuous true womanhood. A "fallen woman" might lose the protection of a father or husband, while an unmarried woman who lost her virginity was "ruined" (a term which suggests an economic aspect to virtue) and her chances for a desirable marriage were irreparably damaged. ²³ Women who sold sex might also pollute the homes of the middle and upper classes. Men who patronized prostitutes exposed their wives or children to "loathsome diseases." ²⁴ While some respectable people expressed sympathy for prostitutes, most probably regarded them with loathing and horror.

      The obvious difference between Mormon and non-Mormon gender systems was polygyny, most often referred to as polygamy. Joseph Smith may have begun practicing plural marriage during the 1830s. A revelation of 12 July 1843 gave official sanction to the doctrine. ²⁵ The Mormons continued to officially deny the existence of plural marriage until they were well established in Utah, by which time the majority had apparently accepted polygamy in principle if not in practice. Then, at a special Church conference in August 1852, Apostle Orson Pratt delivered a lengthy public defense of the practice that established the basic Mormon position for the next four decades. ²⁶

      Pratt advanced arguments on a number of fronts. Most importantly for the Saints, he stressed that God commanded plural marriage, obligating Mormons to follow the practice or risk denying the faith. Pratt and the defenders who followed him emphasized the religious nature of plural marriage at least partly to claim protection for the practice under the establishment of religion clause in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The apostle also provided social arguments. He emphasized the sinful nature of the outside world, or "Babylon," from which the Saints had so recently escaped. Babylon abounded in sexual sins that plural marriage could prevent. Prominent among those sins was prostitution. ²⁷

      This line of reasoning appeared again and again in Mormon sermons. Mormon leaders stressed the blessings of committed marriage and the loving, happy home, within which a pure woman could enjoy the protection of a good man and the joy of raising their children. They repeatedly contrasted the polygamous Mormon world, in which every woman had the possibility of achieving those worthy goals, with monogamous Babylon, where "surplus" women who could not find husbands were virtually forced into prostitution. ²⁸

      Mormon arguments for plural marriage convinced few outside of their world. Polygamy offended and outraged many non-Mormons, who claimed it hurt the family, caused physical harm, and enslaved or prostituted women. An Illinois congressman summarized many of the arguments in an 1860 debate over a proposed antipolygamy bill: "I charge it to be a crying evil; sapping not only the physical constitution of the people practicing it, dwarfing their physical proportions and emasculating their energies, but at the same time perverting the social virtues, and vitiating the morals of its victims.... It is a scarlet whore. It is a reproach to the Christian civilization; and deserves to be blotted out." ²⁹ Most opponents of polygamy charged that it fostered a broad and vague "immorality." Like Orson Pratt's public defense, these arguments stayed relatively consistent over time. ³⁰

      Antipolygamists refused to credit Mormon claims that plural marriage was a legitimate religious practice. They often accused the LDS leadership of introducing and practicing plural marriage merely to gratify male lust, the same deadly sin that fueled prostitution. A typical attack charged that a libidinous Joseph Smith practiced concubinage through the "'sealing' process" and that the equally immoral Brigham Young gave institutionalized lust "the nature of a divine ordinance" by inventing the pivotal 1843 revelation after the fact. ³¹ The opponents of plural marriage also blamed it for a variety of social ills. One woman claimed that Mormon men discarded older wives for younger, more appealing women and practiced "the grossest of incest—the intermarriage of near relations." She cited other critics who blamed polygamy for keeping Utah in poverty. ³² Some medical authorities suggested that plural marriage was creating a "new race" of genetically damaged offspring. ³³

      Polygamy also served as a surrogate for other concerns, especially for non-Mormons who sought a share of political and economic power in Utah. Many Mormons realized this and refused to accept gentile objections to polygamy at face value, contending instead that they served as a smokescreen to disguise efforts to break the Saints' control over Utah or to destroy their church. In the Mormon view, the antipolygamy "crusade" was merely a continuation of the persecutions that the Church had suffered for decades. ³⁴ Most gentiles insisted that polygamy was the real issue. Charles Carroll (C. C.) Goodwin, editor of the Salt Lake City Daily Tribune, declared that the gentiles of Utah fought for "a higher civilization, a nobler manhood, a more exalted womanhood, a higher, deeper patriotism and a more profound regard for morals, for justice, for order and for law." ³⁵ Some non-Mormon men, however, admitted that polygamy was not the most important issue. Fred T. Dubois, a longtime activist against polygamy and Utah statehood, later wrote that "those of us who understood the situation were not nearly so much opposed to polygamy as we were to the political domination of the church. We realized, however, that we could not make those who did not come actually in contact with it, understand what this political domination meant. We made use of polygamy, in consequence, as our great weapon of offense and to gain recruits to our standard." ³⁶

      Mormon and gentile women, however, concentrated their arguments on plural marriage. Marriage was central to both gender systems. Married women's subordinate status in law and custom meant that their economic and social status and that of their children fundamentally depended upon the legitimacy of their marriages. Women also stressed family morality because society considered it part of their sphere. The female contestants employed the language of "domestic feminism": they emphasized the supposedly distinctive qualities of their sex and used their moral stature within the domestic sphere to define themselves as the guardians of true womanhood and the home. ³⁷ Among the rhetorical weapons in their petitions, appeals, newspaper articles, and fiction was prostitution.

      The federal government took no direct action against Mormon marriage until the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862, but this law lacked an effective enforcement mechanism. ³⁸ The federal government's interest in the Mormons' peculiar institution coincided with the beginning of the long power struggle between gentiles and Mormons in Utah. Brigham Young and other church officials responded to the influx of gentiles during the 1860s by attempting to strengthen the Saints' economic independence. ³⁹ Although these efforts had their successes, the results were ultimately disappointing. A group of Mormon businessmen believed that such exclusive policies were harmful to the territory's economy. These men, known collectively as the New Movement or the Godbeites after one of their leaders, William S. Godbe, argued that the Saints should pursue a more open economic policy. The Godbeites aired their ideas in a series of publications, including the Daily Tribune newspaper. ⁴⁰

      The Mormon leadership excommunicated or "disfellowshipped" most of the dissidents. Some Godbeites joined with gentile businessmen, professionals, and army officers to found the Liberal Party, which claimed to be the voice of the disfranchised Utah gentiles and the advocates of a progressive economic policy. Liberals complained of the Mormons' exclusive economic practices, their monopoly of political offices, and high taxes assessed upon gentiles. The Liberals opposed statehood for the same reason that Mormons desired it: statehood would mean greater political autonomy, with Mormons inevitably winning the lion's share of offices. Only through a continuation of territorial status, with the appointed federal officials that came with it, could Utah's gentiles continue to have some influence on politics and some protection from alleged Mormon abuses. Liberal candidates contested political offices with a marked lack of success until the late 1880s. ⁴¹

      The Godbeite/gentile alliance foundered in the early 1870s, mostly over the issue of polygamy (several of the Godbeites were polygamists) and the increasingly anti-Mormon stance of the Tribune. The paper's most strident criticism of the Mormons came between 1873 and 1883 under the editorship of Frederic Lockley. ⁴² In 1880, C. C. Goodwin joined the editorial staff. Goodwin, a committed Liberal, continued the criticism (albeit at a milder pitch) until the achievement of statehood inaugurated a period of reconciliation, roughly from the early 1890s until 1905. ⁴³ Silver millionaire Thomas Kearns bought the paper in 1901 and revived its anti-Mormon stance as the organ of the "American" Party from 1905 to 1911. Thus, despite periods of peace, the Tribune served as the voice of the most determined and discontented gentiles in Utah for four decades. The Saints answered the criticism through their own outlets, including the LDS Church organ, the Salt Lake City Deseret News (Evening and Weekly), the Salt Lake City Herald, and other Mormon-owned or -influenced papers. ⁴⁴

      A handful of gentile and Mormon female activists also conducted a public and often bitter struggle over polygamy. This struggle was part of "the search for female moral authority in the American West," in the course of which middle-class women battled perceived immorality and disorder. ⁴⁵ Utah women contested suffrage, protection of the home, and the relative natures of plural marriage, slavery, and prostitution. Those fights brought some women out of their domestic circle, while others already involved in public activities used their organizations, contacts, and media access in the struggle, providing experience and developing tactics that some of them would use against prostitution in the coming years.

      Most Mormon and gentile women in nineteenth-century Utah inhabited separate worlds. They shared some things: a subordinate position within patriarchal cultures; daily concerns such as child care and food preparation; and important cultural assumptions, including the proper role of women as wives and mothers within the domestic sphere. The spiritual, economic, and social exclusivity practiced by the LDS Church, however, and the existing antipathies between many non-Mormons and Saints, kept most women from making common cause within voluntary associations. Mormon and gentile women had little social contact, especially since Mormons had the active society of the ward and its auxiliary organizations. Plural marriage ensured that few women would cross the divide. ⁴⁶

      Non-Mormon women were convinced that plural marriage was a prison for women, and that given the chance they would reject the practice. Indeed, many Mormon women were shocked and appalled by plural marriage; some left the faith because of their objections and became public advocates for its abolition. ⁴⁷ Others suffered neglect, abuse, or loneliness, some more and some less quietly. For example, Abraham H. Cannon described an ugly scene between his uncle, Salt Lake stake president Angus Cannon, and Angus's wife Amanda: "We found Aunt Amanda, ... who in her ungovernable rage said she was going to the U.S. Marshal's to have Uncle Angus arrested for marrying Dr. Mattie Paul Hughes." Joseph Marion Tanner virtually abandoned his second wife, Annie, who was forced to take household work to support their children. ⁴⁸ Although Mormon leaders extolled polygamy as the highest form of marriage and nearly all of the high LDS officials married multiple women, reflecting both their spiritual authority and their relative ability to afford multiple households, the majority of rank-and-file Saints lived in monogamous relationships. While estimates vary, most scholars agree that between 10 and 20 percent of Mormon marriages before 1890 were polygamous. ⁴⁹

      Mormons insisted that women were not forced into plural marriage but rather controlled the process: they could refuse to enter into plural marriages, while first wives could decide whether their husbands could marry others. Of course, Mormon women were subject to heavy pressure from husbands, neighbors, and LDS officials who exhorted them to "live their religion" by contracting plural marriages or risk denying their faith. Most women in polygamous marriages apparently accepted the difficult principle, either because they believed God commanded it or because they had little other choice. ⁵⁰

      Some historians agree that plural marriage conferred certain benefits. When husbands were absent on church missions or with their other families, plural wives by necessity exercised a great deal of economic and social autonomy. The antipolygamy crusade also caused many women who had personal objections to the practice to close ranks behind the principle in defense of their religion and menfolk. ⁵¹ Many women, either on their own account or with the encouragement of the male LDS leadership or both, took action against the drumbeat of criticism. At a "mass indignation meeting" in the Mormon Tabernacle on 13 January 1870, women spoke out in favor of plural marriage. ⁵²

      Less than a month later, the territorial legislature authorized woman suffrage, making Utah only the second territory to do so. Historians have traditionally argued that LDS officials granted women suffrage "to counter accusations that Mormon women were the downtrodden, ignorant slaves of the male hierarchy, to recruit the national suffrage organization to lobby against antipolygamy legislation pending in Congress, and to promote Utah's bid for statehood." ⁵³ Historian Lola Van Wagenen argues that Mormon women themselves actively sought suffrage, as did some New Movement activists. Also, LDS women revived the Relief Society, an organization that carried out a variety of charitable and social programs, about this time. Such activities may also have helped to politicize Mormon women. ⁵⁴ They gained a forum for their political and social views on 1 June 1872 with the first issue of the Woman's Exponent, the unofficial organ of the Relief Society. For almost four decades, the paper advocated women's rights while it defended the LDS Church and, until 1890, plural marriage. ⁵⁵

      National activists welcomed woman suffrage in Utah, although sometimes for very different reasons. Non-Mormons initially believed that oppressed Mormon women would somehow "vote down" polygamy. ⁵⁶ Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony came to Utah in July 1871 to congratulate Utah's women. Stanton lectured an overwhelmingly Mormon audience on the degrading effects of "polyandry, polygamy, monogamy, and prostitution," a speech which got her banned from the Tabernacle. ⁵⁷

      Some gentile and ex-Mormon women associated with the New Movement and the Liberals also initially supported woman suffrage. Polygamy, however, split the alliance and turned some women from suffrage to antipolygamy activism. The most vocal of these activists was Cornelia Paddock. Paddock was born in New York in 1840. At twenty-eight she moved to Nebraska, where she married Alonzo G. Paddock, a mining man who had worked in Utah since 1858. They moved to Utah in 1870 and lived there until Cornelia's death in 1898. ⁵⁸ The Paddocks were among the founding members of the First Baptist Church of Salt Lake City. ⁵⁹

      Cornelia Paddock quickly became the leading female antipolygamist after hearing firsthand accounts of polygamy's horrors from Mormon friends and acquaintances: "All these women pour into my ears the story of their sufferings and their wrongs, and continue asking, 'Is there any hope for us?'" ⁶⁰ Her Mormon informants included Sarah M. Pratt, first wife of Orson Pratt, who left her husband and the LDS Church when he sought to take other wives. Paddock eventually used their stories in her fiction. ⁶¹

      In February 1872, Paddock gave two public addresses condemning polygamy on social, health, and moral grounds. She helped write and organize a petition drive against the 1872 statehood attempt. The perceived anti-Mormon tone of the petition led many Mormon women to leave the alliance, just as the Liberal Party had split. ⁶² Cornelia Paddock became a favorite of the Tribune, contributing a series of articles. Male Liberals were delighted to have the support of a talented female writer who could bolster their arguments. ⁶³

      The female opponents of polygamy organized after the Caroline Owens incident. Reportedly terrified by the prospect of life as a plural wife, Owens fled to a gentile woman's home on her wedding night. In response, in November 1878 a group of women launched the "Ladies Anti-Polygamy Society," with former plural wife Sarah Ann Cook its first president, gentile Jennie Froiseth vice president, and Cornelia Paddock secretary. ⁶⁴ Supporters included two officers of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU); Jennie Froiseth later helped found the Salt Lake chapter of the WCTU. ⁶⁵ The society attacked plural marriage through meetings, petitions, and newspaper articles. Cornelia Paddock was one of the society's most active writers. Her pieces appeared less often in the Tribune, however. The male editors complained that Paddock expressed too much sympathy for Mormon women, whom the Tribune insisted "could not be permanently degraded unless they were parties to the injury; they could not be held slaves unless they were fitted for bondage." ⁶⁶

      The split between the Tribune and Paddock illustrates gender differences in the antipolygamy fight. While men often used the issue as a pretext to fight Mormon hegemony, Cornelia Paddock and the Anti-Polygamy Society argued that polygamy violated the rights and dignity of women. Gentile women condemned the Mormon "hierarchs" as lustful despots who enslaved women for their own selfish purposes, including sex, labor, and political aggrandizement. Paddock appealed to the nation to save "multitudes of human beings in absolute thrall" in a land "tainted with treason and murder." ⁶⁷ Paddock's opposition to polygamy was part of her larger concern for the equality of women and the defense of the Christian home, a concern that led her to espouse woman suffrage (with conditions) and to fight a variety of moral abuses including prostitution, the serving of minors in saloons, and the seduction of minor girls.

      Paddock reached for a national audience in 1879 with In the Toils; or, Martyrs of the Latter Days, a novel which depicts the horrors of polygamy through the experiences of a woman and her daughter. After the women endure unspeakable hardships, including the loss of family members to Mormon murderers and "practices ... on a par with those of the lowest portion of heathendom," General Patrick Connor rescues the kidnapped heroine. ⁶⁸ The style of In the Toils and Paddock's other novel, The Fate of Madame La Tour, is derivative of earlier anti-Mormon novels, with their stereotypical depictions of the Mormons' "wily, insincere leaders, and the rabble of ignorant, fanatical followers." ⁶⁹ These works, in turn, often draw on the captivity narratives of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially anti-Masonic and anti-Catholic exposés. ⁷⁰ Paddock, however, claimed "the characters ... are real, the incidents are true," and that "scores of incidents ... I have suppressed as unfit for publication." ⁷¹ Paddock's work gained her some national notoriety and a reputation as a knowledgeable voice within Utah. ⁷²

      Paddock also expounds at some length about Utah's mineral wealth. The advent of the Pacific railroad, which brought gentile miners to Utah, was the "day of deliverance" and the "beginning of regeneration," but "the un-American aspect of the Territory, viewed from both a social and a political standpoint, deters American citizens from either making it their home or investing their money in its mines." ⁷³ This emphasis upon economics is suggestive. Cornelia Paddock believed that economic modernization would bring "loyal" gentiles to the territory, "redeem" Utah from the Mormons, and make it prosperous and "American." Paddock and her activist colleagues may have shared personal concerns as well. Many non-Mormons found it difficult to make a living in the sometimes-hostile Utah atmosphere. The gentile women may have needed an influx of capital and development for their personal livelihoods. The Paddocks' fortunes were particularly tenuous. Alonzo Paddock worked at a variety of jobs, from supplying coal to the Utah penitentiary and gravel to a Salt Lake City school to clerking for the Utah Commission. ⁷⁴ Cornelia's later struggles to finance her Rescue Home further suggest the family's precarious financial situation.

      The Anti-Polygamy Society created its own print forum, issuing the first number of the Anti-Polygamy Standard on 1 April 1880, with the masthead slogan "'Let every Man have his own Wife, and Let every Woman have her own Husband'--1 Cor. 7:2." Jennie Froiseth edited the newspaper, which often featured Cornelia Paddock's writing. The society declared its stance in this first issue: polygamy was wrong because it kept woman in degradation and submission, instead of in the exalted position which a proper Christian marriage could bring her. Given the chance, the gentile activists believed Mormon women would gladly abandon the institution. ⁷⁵ For almost four years, gentile and Mormon women argued through the pages of the Standard and Woman's Exponent. Both groups claimed to be the champions of the pure, Christian home presided over by the virtuous wife and mother.

      The writers of the Standard drew on a powerful body of argument by equating polygamy with slavery. In their view, polygamy enslaved Mormon women, who needed and deserved the same vigorous action that had defeated slavery, since plural wives could not free themselves any more than the slaves could. The Standard's writers blamed LDS men for polygamy, while espousing deep sympathy for their wronged sisters and defending their own right to "free" them. The society expressed "kindness and good will" toward Mormon women, and swore to "fight to the death that system which so enslaves and degrades our sex, and which robs them of so much happiness." ⁷⁶

      The editors of the Woman's Exponent conducted a spirited defense using the same rhetorical weapons the Anti-Polygamy Society employed—the language of true womanhood: "Mormon women are not only virtuous, but chaste. The principle of plural marriage itself tends to the strictest chastity, and children born in this order of marriage, will, from antenatal influences, be purer in character ... nowhere on the earth exist purer women than right here in Utah, those who have embraced this sacred order of marriage the world is so ready to condemn." ⁷⁷ While the Anti-Polygamy Standard printed letters from women opposing polygamy, the Exponent published defenses from women who claimed they chose to enter polygamy and believed in it as a religious principle. ⁷⁸

      In August 1880, the Anti-Polygamy Society became "The Woman's National Anti-Polygamy Society" and appealed to women throughout the country for support. This appeal paralleled the efforts of male Liberals to gain federal assistance against the Mormons through the pages of the Tribune. ⁷⁹ Utah gentiles got the federal action they wanted. The Edmunds Act, signed into law in March 1882, put teeth into the Morrill Act. The Edmunds Act declared polygamy a felony and stripped polygamists of the franchise and eligibility for office and jury duty. The act further declared that any male who "cohabits with more than one woman" was guilty of a misdemeanor and could receive six months in prison and/or a three hundred dollar fine. ⁸⁰ The act also created a commission with authority over elections within the territory. The five-man commission included Algernon Sidney Paddock, former senator from Nebraska and a cousin of Cornelia Paddock's husband Alonzo. ⁸¹ Perhaps influenced by Cornelia, A. S. Paddock quickly gained a reputation among Mormons as the commissioner most in favor of strict legal measures against the Saints. ⁸²

      When the Edmunds Act brought the federal government into the antipolygamy effort, the Utah women changed their focus. The Anti-Polygamy Standard issued its last number in the spring of 1883 and a new activist helped steer the society in another direction. Angie Newman, a Vermont-born Methodist and ardent Republican, visited Utah in 1879, then returned to the territory as a full-time worker for the Methodist Episcopal Church's Woman's Home Missionary Society. ⁸³ The "Home Mission" movement, mirroring the missions that sent thousands of Christians overseas, considered Utah prime territory in need of redemption. ⁸⁴ Newman chose to make plural marriage her mission field. She determined that in the cause of killing polygamy, woman suffrage in Utah must be sacrificed. Along with Cornelia Paddock and the WCTU, Newman sponsored an antisuffrage petition drive that eventually contained a quarter of a million signatures when presented to Congress in June 1884. ⁸⁵

      Newman proposed a new tool to fight plural marriage: a "rescue home." The idea of establishing "an Industrial Home, where the destitute and homeless women of Utah may find a refuge" attracted support from several evangelical Protestant ministers. ⁸⁶ Cornelia Paddock backed the idea and expressed concern for the plight of women and children in polygamous families: "The man who cannot support one family in comfort certainly cannot support three or four; and men of this type, and of a type still worse,—drunken, brutal wretches, who, as a friend of mine once said, 'cannot be content with making one woman miserable for life,'—are among the most eager aspirants for the temporal blessings and eternal glories of celestial marriage." ⁸⁷ Utah's antipolygamy women formed the Industrial Christian Home Association of Utah. Newman told Congress that "if the young Mormon females were offered avenues of escape from polygamy and its attendant evils, many of them would take advantage of such an opportunity." ⁸⁸

      The proposed home would provide plural wives with security, protection, and training in domestic work and industry, in the hope that a "rescued" woman would build a loving Christian home with a nonpolygamous husband. The home received enthusiastic backing from Utah's gentile establishment, including federal appointees Governor Murray, the Utah Commission, Chief Justice of the Utah Supreme Court Charles S. Zane, U.S. Attorney William H. Dickson, and U.S. Marshal Edwin A. Ireland, all actively involved in prosecuting plural marriage. ⁸⁹ Congress authorized $40,000 for the home but also created an all-male Board of Control headed by the governor. The board members narrowly defined eligibility to receive aid, and the response was disappointing. While a substantial number of women and their children sought relief, many did not meet the strict criteria, while others disliked the home's moralizing atmosphere. ⁹⁰ The LDS Church, of course, was outraged over the very purpose of the home and constantly ridiculed its problems. The Woman's Exponent predicted that only women who no longer had "the Holy Spirit abiding in them" would accept the offer of assistance. ⁹¹ When the home closed in 1892, the editor of the Deseret Evening News wrote that "we do not say that all the promoters of this so-called Industrial Home were guilty of falsehood or evil intent. The woman [Newman] who went to Washington with scandalous and salacious falsehoods in her mouth, in order to raise the funds for the building, was the chief deceiver and has never prospered for her filthy abuse of the people of this territory." ⁹²

      Perhaps the filthiest abuse Mormons accused Angie Newman of spreading was to compare polygamy to prostitution. According to correspondents who wrote to the Woman's Exponent, Newman gave a speech in Cincinnati in 1883 claiming that in Mormon Utah, "every house is a house of prostitution" (a charge she denied making). ⁹³ Newman later petitioned Congress, declaring that "as the result of close personal investigation for ten years, I assert the prostitution of the sacred office of motherhood, under the Mormon regime, has no parallel in any civilized country in the known world." ⁹⁴

      This was not the first time that plural marriage had been compared to prostitution. From the earliest hints of polygamy, some critics had likened the two practices. John C. Bennett, an early apostate, charged that Mormon leaders kept secret orders of prostitutes. ⁹⁵ Ex-Mormon Sidney Rigdon interpreted Joseph Smith's murder as divine retribution for contracting "a whoring spirit." ⁹⁶ Several women who rejected overtures of plural marriage were reportedly denounced as harlots. ⁹⁷ Patrick Connor claimed that Mormon Utah was "a community of traitors, murderers, fanatics, and whores." ⁹⁸ At least one unhappy plural wife drew a connection. Abraham Cannon's wife Mina demanded a divorce and told him that "she considered herself in disgrace every day that she lived with me in polygamy, and she would as soon be a prostitute as a plural wife." ⁹⁹

      Despite the Anti-Polygamy Society's professed solidarity with Mormon women, gentile activists condemned one group. Prominent Mormons like Eliza R. Snow, Emmeline B. Wells, and Sarah Kimball spoke and wrote forcefully in favor of plural marriage; gentiles could hardly dismiss them as ignorant, naive, and blameless victims of lustful men. ¹⁰⁰ The writers of the Standard contended that since these women had voluntarily abandoned their roles as true women and encouraged other women to enter plural marriages, they had virtually become brothel procuresses. The author of an unsigned piece claimed to quote a young Mormon girl: "I can only compare these women to those dreadful characters which they say exist in the outside world, and whose business it is to lure young girls to destruction. ... They are nothing but tools of the priesthood, and while professing to be working for the elevation of women, they are in reality doing nothing but seeking for new victims to gratify the base passions of their infamous masters." ¹⁰¹ The Tribune's editor labeled the editors of the Exponent "procuresses for the harems of the Mountain Meadows Church." ¹⁰² The Deseret Evening News, in turn, used prostitution to discredit the critics of polygamy. When antipolygamy activists met in November 1878 to form their organization, the Mormon newspaper claimed that "several 'soiled doves' signed the petition.... Quite consistent. A loud outcry against a system established by the Almighty for the preservation of purity is likely, in the nature of things, to be echoed by the impure." The Tribune replied that the writer of that statement "should be horse-whipped in the streets by the husbands and brothers of the ladies whom he has so shamelessly slandered." ¹⁰³

      While prostitution was one metaphor critics used for polygamy, the harem was a related (and perhaps more logical) one. Many antipolygamists declared that Mormon men had harems like the Ottoman Turks. The purported heroine of "Saved from the Mormons" described the marriage her father arranged for her: "My father had sold me, not because love for another had blinded his conscience, but from a base, sensual desire to increase the inmates of his harem." ¹⁰⁴ Another author insisted that poor Mormon families who all lived in one room risked a "violation of virtue" because of their children's exposure to their father's "promiscuous indulgences" with his "harem." ¹⁰⁵ The stereotype of the "lustful Turk" was a common one in anti-Mormon literature, and further identified Mormonism with un-American and un-Christian practice. ¹⁰⁶

      Such stereotypes and accusations were deeply hurtful to LDS women, even those who objected to polygamy. Plural wives objected to their image in popular literature, but the antipolygamy crusade was a real threat. Some thought that plural wives were being treated like prostitutes or worse. One woman was imprisoned when she refused to name the father of her unborn child; other Mormon women claimed "the question was an insult and a vile insinuation of departed virtue, and yet were she a public prostitute, no such question would ever be asked." ¹⁰⁷ Eliza R. Snow understood the danger to the economic and social status of plural wives and their children if their marriages were deemed illegal. In 1879, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Reynolds v. United States, upholding the constitutionality of the Morrill Act and opening the door to effective prosecution. Snow wrote that the Supreme Court had in effect declared "let us cause thousands of honorable, loving wives to be stigmatized as prostitutes, and their offspring as bastards." ¹⁰⁸

      The polygamy-prostitution equation was imperfect at best, and those who made it disagreed on a fundamental question: If polygamy was prostitution, which partner was the prostitute? Eliza R. Snow feared that if Mormon marriages were made illegitimate, then plural wives would be considered prostitutes. The members of the Anti-Polygamy Society called women like Snow "procuresses," again implying that plural wives were prostitutes. The Tribune, however, argued for Mormon men. The Tribune posed this parallel: "We will suppose a woman to have a circle of acquaintance, numbering say from two to twenty, with all of whom she may cohabit at stated intervals—would that not constitute her a prostitute? ... Now, then, suppose a man under whatever pretext you please, religious or otherwise, indulges in sexuality to the same extent with a like number of women, does he not equally commit the crime of prostitution?" ¹⁰⁹ On another occasion the Tribune straightforwardly called Mormon husbands "male prostitutes." ¹¹⁰ The Deseret Evening News responded that the real "prostitutes" were lascivious anti-Mormon men and referred to the Tribune as "the morning organ of male and female prostitutes." ¹¹¹

      While the realities of Mormon polygamy were grim enough for some women, they were far removed from the brothel and harem stereotypes. Mormon authorities considered sexual sins—adultery, rape, incest, fornication—dangerous violations of their moral code. Of course, some Mormon men did violate the code, and not all were punished. ¹¹² Polygyny itself granted men sexual license denied to women. Nevertheless, the LDS Church took its moral code seriously. The most common grounds for disfellowshipping in the nineteenth-century church was sexual misconduct. ¹¹³ Even C. C. Goodwin admitted in 1913 that "there were plural marriages among the Mormons, but the harem character didn't attach." ¹¹⁴

      Despite the prohibitions within Mormon doctrine, some prostitutes worked in Mormon communities. Joseph Smith took "active measures ... to suppress houses and acts of infamy in [Nauvoo]." ¹¹⁵ Houses of prostitution were among the corruptions of Babylon that the Saints sought to escape by moving to the Salt Lake Valley, and they were largely if not wholly successful. President Jedediah M. Grant, the first mayor of Salt Lake City, admitted in 1856 that "some who profess to be 'Mormons' are guilty of enticing and leading girls to prostitution." ¹¹⁶ But most visitors to the Mormon capital in the 1850s and 1860s described its quiet, orderly nature. Such visitors, primed with stories about notorious marriage practices, may have expected an openly sensual atmosphere or a rowdy frontier town. Instead, they found well-ordered communities with few brothels, saloons, and other immoral "resorts." ¹¹⁷ Sociologist Stanley S. Ivins concluded that Mormon-majority communities before 1890 appeared "comparatively free from the evils of professional prostitution." ¹¹⁸ The surviving records suggest that the Mormons' claims were true: Salt Lake City had few prostitutes before the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 and the influx of gentile men in the early 1870s. ¹¹⁹ Of course, the Mormons' near-exclusive presence in the Salt Lake Valley lasted for less than a quarter-century. It is entirely likely that tenacious and resourceful women would have found customers in Utah and that a brothel district would have developed without a gentile influx.

      Mormon leaders warned against bringing prostitution to the Salt Lake Valley. In 1854, President Heber C. Kimball threatened consequences: "If ever it is allowed among this people, it will be when righteousness has ceased to dwell in their midst. It never can be allowed in this community in male or female, whether they belong to the Church or not; and we will wipe out such abominations, the Lord being our helper." ¹²⁰ At the height of the "Mormon reformation" in 1856, LDS leaders often sermonized against immorality in startlingly violent language. Jedediah M. Grant, the major voice of the reformation, cautioned those who brought prostitutes to Utah that he would "make holes through such miserable, corrupting rascals." ¹²¹ Elder Orson Pratt suggested that prostitution in New York City and London could be eliminated by applying the biblical sentence of death to male and female sinners alike. ¹²² Some Mormons went beyond threats. Salt Lake City police captain Hosea Stout blandly noted in his diary in 1858 that a group of men entered another man's house "and dragged him out of bed with a whore and castrated him by a square & close amputation." ¹²³

      The personal behavior of one federal official strengthened the Mormons' beliefs about depraved Babylon. ¹²⁴ W. W. Drummond, appointed to the territorial judiciary in 1855, reportedly arrived in Utah with a prostitute-mistress. ¹²⁵ Drummond also became embroiled in jurisdictional disputes with Mormons and was one of the "runaways" who persuaded President Buchanan to send a military force to the territory. ¹²⁶ For many Mormons, these developments confirmed the linkage between the immorality of the outside world and its desire to persecute the Kingdom of God.

      The "invasion" proved peaceful, but it brought unwanted elements. The U.S. Army established Camp Floyd about forty miles south of Salt Lake City. ¹²⁷ Along with the troops came a handful of officers' wives and the usual camp followers and hangers-on, including sutlers, saloonkeepers, laundresses, and prostitutes, who established a makeshift town called Frogtown or Dobeytown (later Fairfield). One observer claimed "Frog town has a thousand or more inhabitants all gamblers or whore[s]." ¹²⁸

      Prostitutes also gravitated to the edges of Camp Douglas when it was established in 1862. ¹²⁹ One soldier in the territorial penitentiary managed to gain time with a prostitute and make a joke at Mormons' expense: "A well dressed female visited the Penitentiary with the view of having an interview with her purported husband.... Gen. Connor replied that [the soldier] had no wife, and asked the warden to describe the lady, which he did. The General replied, 'It's that old strumpet, Mrs. Hall, that keeps at the mouth of Dry Canon.' Next day the warden approached the prisoner, McCoy, with a view of reproving for suffering him to be deceived. The prisoner replied, 'Mr. Warden, you introduced her as my wife, and I understand that you Mormons have a way of marrying by proxy, and I accepted the ceremony.'" ¹³⁰

      The Mormon leadership claimed to not find the advent of commercialized sex amusing. John Taylor fumed that "ministers and editors" who promised to civilize Utah and make it "American" had indeed brought some characteristic outside institutions with them, including prostitution and drunkenness. ¹³¹ Some Saints of the mid-nineteenth century produced and consumed alcohol, but LDS leaders condemned drunkenness and associated crime. ¹³² Their reactions seemed to correspond to the degree of control they exercised in the city. In 1852, when gentiles were rare and no serious challenge to Mormon hegemony had yet emerged, Ezra T. Benson declared that he would handle establishments selling whisky or tobacco by "temporal knocking" (evidently a physical assault upon these establishments). ¹³³ After the arrival of federal troops, Erastus Snow declared "the Lord Almighty" would wield the sword that would wipe saloons out. ¹³⁴ By 1871, Brigham Young acknowledged that saloons were well established on Main Street, but declared that he would never set foot in one. ¹³⁵

      Mormon city officials sometimes moved decisively against objectionable establishments. In 1870, Paul Englebrecht, a gentile saloonkeeper, attempted to operate without a license. Jeter Clinton, the police justice, ordered the abatement of Englebrecht's saloon as a public nuisance. The all-Mormon police force broke open all the "fixtures and articles" in the saloon, dumped the liquor into the gutter, and precipitated a near-riot between gentiles and Mormons. Robert N. Baskin, a prominent Liberal attorney, initiated a lawsuit against Clinton and the police for treble damages. ¹³⁶

      Englebrecht won his suit in the Third District court before Judge James B. McKean. The Englebrecht case was a minor one, as McKean's real target was Brigham Young's power. The judge was determined to enforce the Morrill Act but had found it impossible to obtain convictions before LDS-majority juries. He therefore ordered the U.S. marshal rather than the Mormon-dominated territorial attorney and probate court system to impanel juries. By this method McKean was able to seat gentile-dominated juries and obtain a number of convictions, including in the Englebrecht case. McKean then indicted Brigham Young for lascivious cohabitation. The city authorities, however, appealed the Englebrecht case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court declared in April 1872 that McKean's juries were improperly chosen, and all indictments returned by them, including Young's, were overturned. ¹³⁷

      The victory in the Englebrecht case may have emboldened Justice Clinton to take similar action against Commercial Street keepers of houses of prostitution. In 1870, one Kate Flint ran a brothel with three "inmates" in Corinne, the Box Elder County town that sprang up near where the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads had met just one year prior. A Corinne newspaper editor bragged that the town contained not a single Mormon. ¹³⁸ By April 1872, Flint and a few other prostitutes had joined the influx of miners and railroad men south to Salt Lake City, and were keeping house on Commercial Street. ¹³⁹

      The police arrested Flint and another madam, Cora Conway, and the women working in their brothels on 28 August 1872. Clinton found Flint and Conway guilty of keeping houses of prostitution and fined each fifteen dollars. The city attorney, however, noted that previous fines had not served to drive the women out of the city, and asked for abatement of their premises as nuisances. Clinton sent police officers to the brothels where they systematically demolished their furnishings. ¹⁴⁰

      A crowd gathered to watch the demolition. The Corinne Daily Reporter, a paper often harshly critical of Mormons, claimed that "among the spectators Brigham Young the chief manager of prostitution, stood looking on grandly exempt from havoc touching the many stinking bagnios over which he is ruler." ¹⁴¹ A few men reportedly threatened to set fire to the street. ¹⁴² They may have been friends, relatives, or customers of the affected women, or may have simply been expressing sympathy for their plight. Some of them probably believed that prostitution was ineradicable and a necessary evil, if not a positive good. The Deseret Evening News flatly rejected such reasoning, claiming that congratulations for the police action had poured in from Mormons, who preferred "their sons to be husbands, not paramours; their daughters to be wives, not harlots; and while they live they will do all in their power to check such prostitution." ¹⁴³ According to an anti-Mormon newspaper, Jeter Clinton advocated harsher action: "Now for these women, the low, nasty street-walkers ... the low, nasty, dirty, filthy, stinking bitches—they stink—that will invite strange men into their houses and introduce them into their family circles.... They ought to be shot with a double-barreled shot-gun. That is my doctrine (pointing to a soldier), and when you see those street-walkers following behind such women, (God keep me from calling them women), take a double-barreled shot-gun and follow them, shoot them to pieces; and if you do not overtake them before they get to their haunts or dens, go in and kill them both." ¹⁴⁴ This version of Clinton's "sermon" may have been published in response to his controversial abatement.

      While Mormons thus insisted on differentiating between sinful prostitution and divinely sanctioned plural marriage, the Tribune insisted on their similarities. The gentile paper declared that the only difference between polygamy and prostitution was that the former involved multiple women and the latter multiple men, and that both constituted the same crime of "plural cohabitation." ¹⁴⁵ The Tribune suggested that prostitution was preferable, and that "religious fanatics" taxed brothels to make up for tithing shortfalls by those living in "polygamic lascivious cohabitation." ¹⁴⁶

      Kate Flint and Cora Conway had lost thousands of dollars' worth of furniture, bedding, and tableware in the raid. Their homes and those of their "inmates" were probably unlivable and their livelihoods disrupted, at the least. The abatements did not, however, drive the women from the city. Flint was back in business by December, and her house remained a fixture for fifteen years. The raid evidently hurt Conway more seriously, as she went on to work as a prostitute in other women's houses (including Flint's) rather than as a brothel keeper. ¹⁴⁷

      Flint and Conway took advantage of the animosity between Mormons and gentiles to win redress. Both women sued Clinton and the police in the Third District court before Judge McKean. Mormon historian Orson Whitney wrote that Flint's suit represented a battle between good and evil. "Like its celebrated predecessor, the Englebrecht case, [the Flint case] was indicative of the struggle then going on in Utah between the opposing elements of vice and virtue,—the latter represented by the local civic authorities backed by the united sentiment of the majority of the people, and the former by saloon men, gamblers, and prostitutes, encouraged in their lawlessness by the anti-Mormon ring, and all but openly championed by officials of the Federal Government." ¹⁴⁸ Flint and her lawyer Robert Baskin complained that she could not get a fair trial before any Mormon juror, since the defendants were all Mormons. She claimed the LDS Church specifically targeted her because she was "known as one who is opposed to the same, and has incurred its displeasure and hostility." She also complained that the police had wantonly destroyed her personal property, including her underwear, and had stolen or destroyed $1,000 in cash. ¹⁴⁹ In March 1875, the court ruled that the warrant was defective and drew a pointed comparison between prostitution and plural marriage:

If Kate Flint kept a house and it was proved that fifty men frequented it for purposes of illicit intercourse, and process could be issued and her furniture and household goods be broken up therefor[e], the same could be done with say John Smith, who might have in his house twelve women with whom he had illicit sexual intercourse. It would not matter whether or not he claimed that those women were his wives, the law allowed a man but one wife, and, had a justice of the peace the right to act as in the case of Kate Flint it would not alter the situation if Kate Flint claimed that the fifty or more men visiting her house were her husbands. ¹⁵⁰

They say that if the Mormons will polygamy deny,
Like themselves take to houses of ill fame,
They will call them friends and brethren and will take them by the hand;
but in this, I think, they'll find they are lame.

[Chorus]
Murry holds the reins; the whip belongs to Zane;
Old Ireland and his aid will go below;
And old Dixon will do well to engage a case in Hell,
For the road he is on will take him there, I know. ¹⁸⁹