E28: Binders Full of Women

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:07)
37 women, 1 sister-in-law, 5 sets of sisters, 17 angels, approximately, 1 set of mothers and daughters, maybe 2, way too many teenagers, 1 set of stairs, children, 2 episodes, priceless.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:36)
This is Lindsay Hansen Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:37)
And this is Bryan Buchanan.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:39)
Bringing you the story of Mormonism from the shadow of the Everlasting Hills, straight out of Zion, this isn't your grandpa's Mormon history.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:47)
[♪ Music playing of [♪ Music. That only you can save me, brother, Brigham, brother Young.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:12)
I have revered him, Brigham, brother Young.
Cast your minds back, friends. Back to the beginning of time. Or at least until the Polygamy Overview episode, you will remember that you were instructed to put pins in many things. Put a pin in this, put a pin in that. We need a podcast voodoo doll. We will return to some of those pins here and now. For today's agenda is a very audacious plan. We aim to discuss Joseph Smith's polygamy in Nauvoo in a single episode.
It's okay to laugh, it's a really, really a fool's errand from the beginning. It's like when you're trying to shove everything into one suitcase, or me as a college freshman at Utah State trying to carry all the week's groceries on the shuttle up to the apartment, all the way up the stairs, or the line house in Salt Lake City. Part of your brain is saying, hey dummy, there are things called the laws of physics. You can't physically fit everything in there. But it's like a test of your integrity and you're keep trying until you admit to yourself that you were an idiot to even attempt this, which is how I felt every time I brought my groceries in. But I did it.
10, 10 bags, five on each arm. Yeah, this is going to be a two parter. We'll talk about each of the women who married Joseph Smith as plural wives. Relax. It will be concise. It's not a year of polygamy. If you want more detail, remember that the first several dozen episodes of Year of Polygamy discuss each of these women and these stories in detail.
Yeah, Bryan, it's just really hard to talk about Navu polygamy in one episode. What were you thinking?

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:20)
We got to talk about them, but we can't take forever. It was a very difficult task because there is so much.
Multiple books, long books, biographies of some of the specific women, but you need like all of them. Their names, snapshots of them.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:37)
Can you imagine being just a non-Mormon historian, biographer to write about a dude and his one wife? That would be pretty simple, but when you're a Mormon biographer or historian, you're like, let's talk about some of these Mormon patriarchs. It will go on into the eternities.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:53)
This is our first shout out to Todd Compton. In Sacred Loneliness, which is short biographies of each of Joseph Smith's wives, is such a daunting book to even think about.
You read it, and you get down, you're like, wow, that was a great book. But then think about writing it.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:09)
Well, Navu, all of my Navu research has been like this. Same for you, Bryan, we keep getting lost on tangents. So we're going to have a lot of fun tangents this season. I'm really excited about it. So now we started this project before with the story of Luisa Beeman.
Such a romantic story that every little girl dreams about. Luisa, scrap those plans for your white Victorian wedding. You get to get dressed up like a dude under a tree, and then your brother-in-law will repeat the words of a ceremony that your husband Joseph Smith is telling him.
However, before we take one more step, let's have a time out in the field for a second.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:46)
It's everybody's favorite, tangent time. Real quick, like let's just discuss sources. How do we know about these women and their relationship with Joseph Smith? Three categories coming up.
First, contemporary records. And if you know anything about Nauvoo era polygamy, you're already nodding your head as I tell you, this category is kind of small. A few journals, a couple letters, some land transactions, a couple revelations, and that's about the size of it. Second, affidavits. That's a word you don't get to hear enough. As a teaser for the wild 1860s, you just need to know for now that toward the end of that decade, the contest for who's going to be the successor to the legacy of Joseph Smith starts to heat up. The RLDS Church is formally organized in 1860 under the leadership of his son, Joseph Smith III, and thanks in large part to the influence of his mother Emma, the RLDS trajectory very strongly rejects polygamy, often to the point of denying Joseph Smith's involvement, period, or at least his support of it. And as part of this battle, Joseph F. Smith, who as the son of Joseph Smith's brother Hiram Smith, was then Joseph Smith III's cousin, he goes around in Utah later, and he collects dozens of affidavits from people who were involved in polygamy, most notably the women who were plural wives.