laurel thatcher ulrich

Yesterday, June 10, marked another anniversary of Emma Smith’s 1804 birth. More than a year older than her husband and Latter-day Saint prophet Joseph Smith, she died at Nauvoo, Illinois in 1879. Renowned historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich took a moment in her recent lecture at Brigham Young University to reflect on Emma’s hands as seen in this captivating photograph from 1845. ((Unknown photographer, 1845. Courtesy Community of Christ Library-Archives, Independence, MO; from the Joseph Smith Papers website.)) With characteristic attention to detail that has become a hallmark of Ulrich’s craft, she explained: This is an amazing photograph of Emma Smith with her son David Hyrum, who was born—I think—four months after her husband’s murder . Between 1828 and 1844 Emma had given birth to nine children, five of whom had died in infancy. She also lost one of the twins she adopted when her own twins died. While this photograph is less flattering than her portrait , I think it nevertheless portrays both her strength and her suffering. My eye is immediately drawn to her hands. She was quite an elegant woman—tall and straight and good looking. Look at those hands. Those are working women’s hands. They have been in washtubs and they’ve been in dirt. And they have been trying to hold a family together. Ulrich spoke about the experiences and hardships endured by early Latter-day Saint women—including the practice of polygamy—throughout her lecture, “Huddling Together: Rethinking the Position of Women in Early Mormonism.” You can hear and watch Ulrich’s complete lecture here.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has spent much of her career investigating the lives of nineteenth-century women. But it wasn’t until her most recent project that she turned her attention to women of her own faith tradition, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Having grown up in the LDS faith she encountered many familiar things through her latest research. But she also discovered much to “trouble the old stories,” things that cast new light on what it as like to be a Mormon in the early days—especially for women.“There’s a lot to learn from this story,” Ulrich explained in a recent lecture at Brigham Young University. “It’s a sad story. It’s a very sad story. People are working through horrible conflicts and confusion. And people got hurt. But there’s something about the resilience of these interesting women…It’s an uplifting story.”In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Maxwell Institute co-sponsored a lecture in March by Dr. Ulrich in partnership with the BYU Women’s Study Program and BYU’s Department of History on her book A House Full of Females. The lecture, “‘Huddling Together’: Rethinking the Position of Women in Early Mormonism,” is now available on the Maxwell Institute’s YouTube channel. Watch About Laurel Thatcher UlrichLaurel Thatcher Ulrich was born in Sugar City, Idaho. She holds degrees from the University of New Hampshire, University of Utah, and Simmons College. She is 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University and past president of the American Historical Association. Her book A Midwife’s Tale received a Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize. She is immediate past president of the Mormon History Association. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her latest book is A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women’s Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870.