A House Full of Females

The Alpine Book Club read A House Full of Females by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich this month. It was a scholarly work about polygamy between 1835 and 1870. It was hard to read it, because the women who lived in polygamy had difficult lives. Most of the women at book club had polygamous ancestors, and we shared some stories. Some families made it work and were happy. Others were not so happy in polygamy, and many unhappy women got divorced.

The heroes in the book were the women. They did hard things and in a strange way, were early feminists, defending their rights, and even winning the vote for women way ahead of the rest of the nation.

Afterwards, this house full of females ate cookies made by Maureen. Socializing, cooking and eating were things our ancestors undoubtedly did as well as we do today!