Ann Eliza Young: Difference between revisions
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[[Image:AEYoung.jpg|thumb|right|240px|A lithograph of Ann Eliza Young sometime between 1869 and 1875]] |
[[Image:AEYoung.jpg|thumb|right|240px|A lithograph of Ann Eliza Young sometime between 1869 and 1875]] |
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'''Ann Eliza Young''' (née '''Webb''') (1844 – |
'''Ann Eliza Young''' (née '''Webb''') (1844 – date unknown) was one of [[Brigham Young]]'s many wives and later a critic of [[polygamy]] and an [[United States|American]] [[Mormon]] dissident. |
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Webb married Brigham Young, the second [[President of the Church|president]] of [[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] (LDS Church), when he was 67 years old and she was a 24-year-old divorcée with two children.<ref>"[http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/brighamyoungswives.htm Brigham Young's Wives and His Divorce From Ann Eliza Webb]". Accessed [[March 10]], [[2007]].</ref> Although she later called herself Young's "wife no. 19", and others have referred to her as his "27th wife", she was in fact the 52nd woman to marry Young.<ref name = joj>Jeffrey Odgen Johnson, [http://content.lib.utah.edu/u?/dialogue,17879 “Determining and Defining ‘Wife’ — The Brigham Young Households”], ''[[Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought]]'', vol. 20, no. 3 (Fall 1987) pp. 57-70.</ref> She filed for [[divorce]] from Young in January 1873, an act which attracted much attention. Her bill for divorce alleged neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion, and claimed that her husband had property worth $8,000,000 and an income exceeding $40,000 a month. (Young countered that he owned less than $600,000 in property and that his income was less than $6000 per month.)<ref>William Alexander Linn. ''The Story of the Mormons from the Date of their Origin to the Year 1901''. Book VI. Chapter 21: "[http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Mormons/00000087.htm The Last Years of Brigham Young]"</ref> She was excommunicated from the LDS Church on [[10 October]] [[1874]].<ref name = joj/> The divorce was granted in January 1875 and Brigham Young was ordered to pay a $500 per month allowance and $3000 in court fees.<ref name = joj/> When Young initially refused, he was found in contempt of court and sentenced to a day in prison and a $25 fine.<ref name = joj/> The alimony award was later set aside on the grounds that a polygamous marriage was legally invalid.<ref name = joj/> |
Webb married Brigham Young, the second [[President of the Church|president]] of [[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] (LDS Church), when he was 67 years old and she was a 24-year-old divorcée with two children.<ref>"[http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/brighamyoungswives.htm Brigham Young's Wives and His Divorce From Ann Eliza Webb]". Accessed [[March 10]], [[2007]].</ref> Although she later called herself Young's "wife no. 19", and others have referred to her as his "27th wife", she was in fact the 52nd woman to marry Young.<ref name = joj>Jeffrey Odgen Johnson, [http://content.lib.utah.edu/u?/dialogue,17879 “Determining and Defining ‘Wife’ — The Brigham Young Households”], ''[[Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought]]'', vol. 20, no. 3 (Fall 1987) pp. 57-70.</ref> She filed for [[divorce]] from Young in January 1873, an act which attracted much attention. Her bill for divorce alleged neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion, and claimed that her husband had property worth $8,000,000 and an income exceeding $40,000 a month. (Young countered that he owned less than $600,000 in property and that his income was less than $6000 per month.)<ref>William Alexander Linn. ''The Story of the Mormons from the Date of their Origin to the Year 1901''. Book VI. Chapter 21: "[http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Mormons/00000087.htm The Last Years of Brigham Young]"</ref> She was excommunicated from the LDS Church on [[10 October]] [[1874]].<ref name = joj/> The divorce was granted in January 1875 and Brigham Young was ordered to pay a $500 per month allowance and $3000 in court fees.<ref name = joj/> When Young initially refused, he was found in contempt of court and sentenced to a day in prison and a $25 fine.<ref name = joj/> The alimony award was later set aside on the grounds that a polygamous marriage was legally invalid.<ref name = joj/> |
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Revision as of 13:35, 19 November 2008
Ann Eliza Young (née Webb) (1844 – date unknown) was one of Brigham Young's many wives and later a critic of polygamy and an American Mormon dissident.
Webb married Brigham Young, the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), when he was 67 years old and she was a 24-year-old divorcée with two children.[1] Although she later called herself Young's "wife no. 19", and others have referred to her as his "27th wife", she was in fact the 52nd woman to marry Young.[2] She filed for divorce from Young in January 1873, an act which attracted much attention. Her bill for divorce alleged neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion, and claimed that her husband had property worth $8,000,000 and an income exceeding $40,000 a month. (Young countered that he owned less than $600,000 in property and that his income was less than $6000 per month.)[3] She was excommunicated from the LDS Church on 10 October 1874.[2] The divorce was granted in January 1875 and Brigham Young was ordered to pay a $500 per month allowance and $3000 in court fees.[2] When Young initially refused, he was found in contempt of court and sentenced to a day in prison and a $25 fine.[2] The alimony award was later set aside on the grounds that a polygamous marriage was legally invalid.[2]
Ann Eliza Young subsequently traveled the United States and spoke out against polygamy, Mormonism, and Brigham Young himself.[4] She testified before the U.S. Congress in 1875; these remarks were credited with contributing to the passage of the Poland Act which reorganized the judicial system of Utah Territory and made it easier for the federal government to prosecute polygamists.[5] In 1876, she published a popular autobiography entitled Wife No. 19.
After her divorce from Young, she married non-Mormon Moses R. Deming.[2] She became estranged from her family, including her children (a grandson told biographer Irving Wallace that neither of her sons had contact with her after they reached early adulthood), and faded into obscurity. A 1907 article on the 30th anniversary of Young's death updated the public on his then surviving widows and stated that Ann Eliza was divorced again and living in Lansing, Michigan. In 1908, she published a revised version of Wife No. 19 entitled Life in Mormon Bondage. The book received little notice, and after its publication, she disappeared from the public eye and the historical record. Neither the date nor the location of her death or her burial place are known.
Her story was the basis of Irving Wallace's 1962 biography, The Twenty-Seventh Wife, and of David Ebershoff's novel, The 19th Wife, which was published by Random House in August 2008.
Publications
- Young, Ann Eliza (1876), Wife No. 19, or the story of a life in bondage. Being a complete exposé of Mormonism, and revealing the sorrows, sacrifices and sufferings of women in polygamy, Hartford, Conn.: Dustin, Oilman & Co..
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400063970
- The 19th Wife: A Novel by David Ebershoff, Random House (August 5, 2008).
References
- ^ "Brigham Young's Wives and His Divorce From Ann Eliza Webb". Accessed March 10, 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f Jeffrey Odgen Johnson, “Determining and Defining ‘Wife’ — The Brigham Young Households”, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 20, no. 3 (Fall 1987) pp. 57-70.
- ^ William Alexander Linn. The Story of the Mormons from the Date of their Origin to the Year 1901. Book VI. Chapter 21: "The Last Years of Brigham Young"
- ^ Troy Taylor. Forest Farm House at Old Deseret Salt Lake City, Utah. Accessed March 10, 2007.
- ^ Jack B. Cullen. "Ann Eliza Young: A Nineteenth Century Champion of Women's Rights." February 1983.