E53: Nauvoo Expositor, Part 1

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:11)
Oh, hold up, do you hear that sound? It's the sound of the Nauvoo era wrapping up on this podcast.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:17)
Hold your horses.
We'll return back to Nauvoo plenty, I'm sure. But I gotta be honest, after a year of Nauvoo, I'm really pumped to move on.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:28)
Well, if there's anyone I know who's ready to move on after a year of things, it's definitely you, so.
But you know who can't seem to move on? Progressive Mormons.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:37)
You know what? That joke is a perfect segue to the story of the very first Progressive Mormons.
And as someone who has identified with the label of Progressive Mormon for a very long time, I have participated in several Progressive Mormon organizations. First as a blogger for Feminist Mormon Housewives, FMH, and then at Sunstone, and then things like Wear Pants to Church Day and Ordain Women. There have been a bunch of other Mormon activist moments for me, and I've supported plenty. The one I seem to miss was the Mormon Reformers Movement of 1844 Ever heard of it?

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:11)
Yeah, once you say it by its proper name, The Nauvoo Expositor.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:15)
And the subsequent destruction of the expositor. Dun dun dun!
Hi, this is Lindsay Hansen Park.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:29)
And this is Bryan Buchanan.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:30)
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** (1:58)
This is the tale of Mormon saints and sinners from our roots until present day.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:03)
Gird your loins, lock your hearts, and pay your tithing, because we're bringing you the story of Mormonism in all its paradisiacal glory.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:11)
It's the Sunstone History Podcast.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:37)
Hello, 1844 All the things we talked about in previous episodes are going down and the political scene as Nauvoo is escalating into a crescendo. Joseph Smith can't seem to catch a break.
What with all the secret polygamy and rumors? And as 1844 rounded the corner, Smith had entered into more than 30 plural marriage situations. 11 of the women were married to other dudes and continued to live with their living husbands. 18 of the women were single and four were widows. It's complicated, we call it polygamy math. I'm exhausted even saying it. How do you even cover that much ground in ceremonies alone? Like going to one boring wedding is plenty, but over 30? No, thank you.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:19)
But what's worse, going to the wedding 30 times or having to be the scribe at one of those?

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:24)
Let's see, what's worse? My answer's gonna be either Sarah Ann Whitney or Helen Marr, because what's worse than going to 30 weddings is being married to Joseph Smith as a teenager. That has to suck.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:36)
And seriously, at this point, there's like 10,000 people gathering from all the corners of the world to join this guy. And he's known all over America and he's becoming a big time curiosity in the newspapers.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:48)
Yeah, I think from my understanding growing up Mormon, we always thought it was like these little fringe frontier pioneers living by themselves. But this was like a huge deal.
It's actually weird to think that Joseph Smith was like the Britney Spears of his time, being followed by press and paparazzi, but he kind of was.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:06)
Free Joseph.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:08)
But like, he's like Britney, but with worse dance moves, I'm sure of it, and more wives. I don't know how many wives does Britney have now? Do we even know?

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:18)
28

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:20)
But the only difference between celebrity culture then and now is it was a lot more inconvenient to print stories back then and expensive to travel around, you know, to follow these public figures back in 1844 But still, plenty of people did it, and that's why we have so much stuff on Joseph.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:34)
Yeah, and one of the reasons we have so much info on all of his day-to-day whereabouts in Nauvoo, especially the last couple years of his life, is there's all sorts of source material to go around, newspaper articles, journals, several exposés, you name it.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:49)
Also, he, I don't know why Mormon prophets who are always breaking the law do this, but they always have scribes to follow them around. It's like, hey, record everything, but burn it later.
But to your point, we know a lot about Joseph Smith because America was sort of low-grade horrified by him, but also fascinated. And that's kind of the climate in Nauvoo of 1844