It's the Maxwell Institute podcast.

I'm Blair Hodges.

In the late 19th century, a newspaper written and published by women and four women sprung up in what most Americans thought was the unlikelyest of locations.

Utah, the home of the Mormons.

It was the women's exponent.

Along the top of the newspaper, the mast had proudly declared its concern.

The rights of the women of Zion and the rights of the women of all nations.

This declaration, and its articles on suffrage and women's rights, puzzled onlookers, who

thought about the religion mostly as a strange polygamous sect.

How could women simultaneously support a national campaign for political and economic rights,

while defending a marital practice that to most people seemed relentlessly patriarchal. That's the question

addressed by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich in her latest book, A Houseful of Females, Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835 to 1870.

But this book is about more than polygamy in women's rights. It's a bold new social and cultural history of early Mormonism more broadly,

as seen in the earliest and most personal writings of many of the overlooked figures of Mormon history.

Pulitzer and Bencroft Prize winner Laurel Thatcher Ulrich joins us to talk about a house full of females

in this episode of the Maxwell Institute podcast. Questions and comments about this and other episodes can be sent to

MI Podcast at BYU.edu. And don't forget to rate and review the show in iTunes.

We're joined today by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. She's a professor of history at Harvard University,

and we're talking about her latest book, A House Full of Females, Plural Marriage and Women's Rights

in Early Mormonism, 1835 to 1870.

Laurel, I wanted to start off with a famous quote that's been attributed to a lot of different people,

but you're the one who coined this memorable phrase.

...