I sought out a presentation on why women were drawn to glossolalia-the speaking of tongues-a practice that feels so foreign to my own religious experience but was a source of comfort and enlightenment for 19 th century seekers. For example, in talking about the clothing women made to bury their dead, historian Kris Wright said that “sewing and other crafting were a form of knowledge making for those pioneer women” and that “embroidery is the text of textile.” I learned that though women weren’t allowed to speak in church meetings until the twentieth century (the church was founded in 1830) historians like Jennifer Reeder are documenting what they were thinking and feeling during those early years through minutes of their women’s auxiliary meetings, diaries and the objects they produced.
Over the course of two days, scholars and history buffs presented nearly fifty papers that filled in the blanks of women’s history in the Mormon church.
If so, is her face blurred because of her ethnicity or was this just an accident? Either way, it’s a startling illustration of how women’s stories have disappeared throughout history. Last week we traveled to Utah for a women’s history symposium where I saw this image of “Brigham Young and an Unknown Woman.” The unknown woman’s beaded bracelets and marks of torture on her hands have led historians to speculate that she was Native American.
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