Customer Reviews

Audacious Women: Early British Mormon Immigrants

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This is an ambitious work. The author attempted both detailed studies and a statistical overview of 100 pioneer emigrants from Great Britain to Utah. It must have been difficult finding accurate records on that many women. She organized the study by phase -- family roots, conversion to Mormonism, emigration, first impressions of Zion, settling experience -- using all 100 women's stories to create a composite pioneering experience. Despite some minor errors and typos, this approach gives a fascinating, in-depth understanding of who, why, and how about 50,000 British women succumbed to Mormon proselyting and opted to reinvent themselves in the desert of the American West.

An interesting account of British women's role in the Mormon settlement of Utah was somewhat spoiled for me, as a British reader, by the author's lack of knowledge regarding the basic geography of England. We are confidently informed, for example, that Birmingham is a city in Lancashire, close to Liverpool. Unfortunately it isn't-the author has evidently confused Birmingham (England's second-largest city) with Manchester (third-largest). Didn't the author look at a map during her research?