Ann Eliza Young
Encyclopedia
Brigham Young
Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, he founded Salt Lake City, and he served as the first governor of the Utah...
's fifty-five wives and later a critic of polygamy
Polygamy
Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...
. She spoke out against the suppression of women
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
and was an advocate for women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
during the 19th century.
Early life
She was born in 1844 in Nauvoo, IllinoisNauvoo, Illinois
Nauvoo is a small city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States. Although the population was just 1,063 at the 2000 census, and despite being difficult to reach due to its location in a remote corner of Illinois, Nauvoo attracts large numbers of visitors for its historic importance and its...
to Chauncey Griswold Webb and his wife, born Eliza Jane Churchill.
First marriage
Webb married James Dee monogamously on April 4, 1863 in Salt Lake City, Utah. They had two children together and later divorced. According to Ann Eliza's biographer Irving Wallace, "for the rest of her days Ann Eliza would always refer to James Dee as the man who 'blighted' her life."Brigham Young
On the advice of her family Webb later 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 divorceeDivorcee
Divorcee, refers to a person whose marriage has ended in divorce, a legal dissolution of marriage before death by either spouse. The feminine form is "divorcée", and the masculine "divorcé". At one time the term had negative cultural and religious associations...
.
Although she later called herself Young's "wife no. 19," others have referred to her as his "27th wife." One researcher concluded that she was actually the 52nd woman to marry Young. The discrepancies may be due, in part, to difficulties in defining what constitutes a 'wife' in early Mormon polygamous practices.
Divorce
Webb filed for divorceDivorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
from Young in January 1873, an act that 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.
Excommunication
She was excommunicated from the LDS Church on 10 October 1874. She then proceeded to auction off several pieces of Young's furniture in response, which she did not own. The divorce was granted in January 1875 and Brigham Young was ordered to pay a $500 per month allowance and $3000 in court fees. When Young initially refused, he was found in contempt of courtContempt of court
Contempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...
and sentenced to a day in jail and a $25 fine. The alimony
Alimony
Alimony is a U.S. term denoting a legal obligation to provide financial support to one's spouse from the other spouse after marital separation or from the ex-spouse upon divorce...
award was later set aside on the grounds that a polygamous marriage was legally invalid, potentially indicting them both for unlawful cohabitation.
Advocacy for Women's Rights
Ann Eliza Young subsequently traveled the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and spoke out against polygamy, Mormonism
Mormonism
Mormonism is the religion practiced by Mormons, and is the predominant religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement. This movement was founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. beginning in the 1820s as a form of Christian primitivism. During the 1830s and 1840s, Mormonism gradually distinguished itself...
, and Brigham Young himself. She testified before the U.S. Congress in 1875; these remarks were credited with contributing to the passage of the Poland Act
Poland Act
The Poland Act of 1874 was an act of the United States Congress which sought to facilitate prosecutions under the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act by eliminating the control members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints exerted over the justice system of Utah Territory. Sponsored by Senator...
that reorganized the judicial system of Utah Territory
Utah Territory
The Territory of Utah was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from September 9, 1850, until January 4, 1896, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Utah....
and made it easier for the Federal Government to prosecute polygamists.
Wife No. 19
In 1876, she published an autobiographyAutobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
entitled Wife No. 19. In it she wrote that she had "a desire to impress upon the world what Mormonism really is; to show the pitiable condition of its women, held in a system of bondage that is more cruel than African slavery ever was, since it claims to hold body and soul alike." Her account of the "horrors of polygamy and masonry" is available from various sources. It was the basis of Irving Wallace
Irving Wallace
Irving Wallace was an American best-selling author and screenwriter. Wallace was known for his heavily researched novels, many with a sexual theme. One critic described him "as the most successful of all the many exponents of junk fiction perhaps because he took it all so seriously, not so say...
's 1961 biography, The Twenty-Seventh Wife, and of David Ebershoff
David Ebershoff
David Ebershoff is an American-born writer, editor, and teacher.-Biography:Born in Pasadena, California, he is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago, and studied at Keio University in Tokyo....
's 2008 novel, The 19th Wife.
Moses R. Denning
After her divorce from Brigham Young, she married 53-year-old Moses R. Denning of Manistee, MichiganManistee, Michigan
Manistee is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 6,586. It is the county seat of Manistee County. The name "Manistee" is from an Ojibwe word first applied to the principal river of the county. The derivation is not certain, but it may be from...
, a non-Mormon and wealthy logger known to have only one arm. Two years prior to her marriage to Denning, Ann Eliza stayed at the home of Denning, who at the time was married with children. Because of Denning's financial stability, Ann Eliza lost interest in her crusade against Mormonism and polygamy and stopped delivering lectures the week she married Denning. She eventually became estranged from her family, including her children (a grandson told Wallace that neither of her sons had contact with her after they reached early adulthood). In 1930, her older grandson told Wallace "I hope to hell I never see her again."
Divorce
Denning later left Ann Eliza after a series of alleged affairs she'd had with local townsmen. Ann Eliza retaliated on the advice of her attorney by charging large amounts of money to Denning's accounts, as she had previously done in her divorce from Brigham Young. According to Wallace, "she bought a thousand dollars worth of groceries and provisions, dry goods, shoes, slippers, furniture and hardware in a couple of days."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 for the third time and living in Lansing, Michigan
Lansing, Michigan
Lansing is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located mostly in Ingham County, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County. The 2010 Census places the city's population at 114,297, making it the fifth largest city in Michigan...
. Ann Eliza would eventually return to Utah to claim a $2,000 legacy from her first husband, whom she had previously described as the "blight of my life."
Life in Mormon Bondage
In 1908, she published a revised version of Wife No. 19 entitled Life in Mormon Bondage, a revision of her previously published work and which excluded the story of her first marriage to Dee, and her third marriage to Denning entirely. After its publication, little is known about her whereabouts from personal accounts or historical records. Neither the date nor the location of her death or her burial place are known. One source says she died in 1925 in Rochester, New YorkRochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
. Ann Eliza Webb Dee Young Denning
Born: September 13, 1844 at Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois
Died: 1925 at Rochester, New York
James Dee married Ann Eliza Webb on April 4, 1863 at Salt Lake City, Utah, ceremony was performed by President Brigham Young. She is the daughter of Chauncey Griswold Webb b. October 24, 1811 and Eliza Jane Churchill Webb b. May 4, 1817. }}
See also
- Celestial marriageCelestial marriageCelestial marriage is a doctrine of Mormonism, particularly The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and branches of Mormon fundamentalism.Within Mormonism, celestial marriage is an ordinance associated with a covenant that always...
- Current state of polygamy in the Latter Day Saint movementCurrent state of polygamy in the Latter Day Saint movementAccording to the consensus of historians, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, Joseph Smith, Jr., privately taught and practiced polygamy. After Smith's death in 1844, the church he established splintered into several competing groups...
- History of civil marriage in the United States
- Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late 19th centuryLatter Day Saint polygamy in the late 19th centuryPossibly as early as the 1830s, followers of the Latter Day Saint movement , were practicing the doctrine of polygamy or "plural marriage"...
- Polygamy in the United StatesPolygamy in the United StatesPolygamy, in particular polygyny where one man takes several wives, is a common marriage pattern in some parts of the world. However, in the United States polygamy has never been a culturally normative or legally recognized institution. In Canada, polygamy laws are written in a slightly different...