On March 21-22, our own Cheryl Bruno & Michelle Stone put on the first ever Journal of Mormon Polygamy Conference at the University of Utah on March 21-22, 2025. One of the purposes of the journal & conference was to bring historians of the traditional polygamy narrative and polygamy skeptics atogether. I would estimate a large majority (say 75%) were skeptics in attendance. As part of the conference, I was part of a small group that had a tour of special collections at the University of Utah. It was cool to see an 1830 copy of the Book of Mormon with the name Emily Hale, which librarians were unsure about. Was it a relative of Emma Hale Smith? Other notable items in special collections included “Wife Number 19” by Anne Eliza Young and an 1870 Doctrine and Covenants.
Opening Day and Speaker Impressions
Barbara Jones Brown was the keynote speaker and knocked it out of the park. One of the skeptics big arguments is that historians don’t give enough credance to Joseph, Hyrum and Emma’s public denials of polygamy. Barbara started out with a clip from Pres Hinckley’s 1998 interview on Larry King Live. She noted that everything Hinckley said about polygamy was incorrect. Other prophets, including Joseph F Smith, Heber J Grant, George Albert Smith, and others also issued incorrect public statements. Public denials should be scrutinized for accuracy.
The opening panel with Cheryl Bruno, Maxine Hanks, and Michelle Stone, focused on Emma Smith. Michelle emphasized Emma’s denial of polygamy and said we should “believe the women,” without mentioning all the women who contradicted Emma’s denials. Maxine and Cheryl presented traditional understandings and said more research should be welcome.
Saturday Sessions and Presentations
Saturday morning sessions included training classes on accessing special collections and research techniques for those interested in researching original highlights. W&T’s own Mary Ann Clements’ presented on genealogy’s role in historical research. Mary Ann is a certified geneaologist (in addition to training as an archaeologist) and said Family Search records needed to be verified with other sources.
Peter Brown examined modern critiques of the origins of polygamy and the term “polygamy denial.” Apparently that term was coined by Jacob Vidrine, a fundamentalist Mormon. Don Bradley’s presentation focused on Andrew Jensen’s list of Joseph Smith’s wives. He focused on the handwriting of the list and identified Eliza R Snow’s handwriting and role in creating the list of wvies.
Impressions
This was a much different conference than other academic conferences. Many attendees reveled in the idea of finally being taken seriously and were very enthusiastic when skeptics gave presentations. The opening speaker discussed the importance of disagreeing respectfully and the challenges of maintaining scholarly integrity. While I know that Cheryl & Michelle have a goal to improve the scholarship, it is hard to know if this endeavor will have long-term success.
Due to technical issues in the first presentation, I posted a few videos and comments in a separate video. The conference is described as having a different vibe compared to typical academic conferences, with more emotional investment and cheering from the audience. I was surprised at the high turnout at the conference, with around 20-25 people at the special collection session and several hundred at the main event.
Reactions and Conference Atmosphere
The conference is described as having a different vibe compared to typical academic conferences, with more emotional investment and cheering from the audience. 20-25 people attended the special collection session and several hundred attended the main event.
Cochranites an Origin of Polygamy?
For those who believe Joseph neither taught nor instigated polygamy, they have to come up with another way polygamy entered the Church. Enter the Cochranites, a groups that practiced polygamy prior to the founding of the LDS Church. As the theory goes, Brigham Young, Heber C Kimball, and others served a mission in Saco, Maine where they learned about polygamy from the Cochranites and imported it without Joseph’s knowledge into the Church. Gwendolyn Wyne, a podcaster and YouTuber from Switzerland, mentioned this theory in her presentation.
Joseph Smith’s siblings have connections to the Cochranites. Don Carlos is Joseph’s brother. Following Don Carlos’ death, Joseph is reported to have married his wife, Agnes Coolbrith. She is mentioned as one of Joseph Smith’s first plural wives. Agnes is from Saco, Maine and would have been familiar with Cochranites as well and could have been influenced by them, allowing her to be more open to polygamy. Joseph’s sister Lucy’s husband, Arthur Milliken was also from Saco, Maine. It seems that if Brigham Young to Maine taints him with polygamy, Joseph’s family was also tainted, and it makes it hard to make a case that Joseph would have been cleared of Cochranite teachings with family members so close to Saco, Maine as well. Rick expressed his belief that the traditional narrative holds up better than the theory linking Brigham Young to the Cochranites. Tying Joseph Smith to the Cochranites weakens the argument that Brigham Young introduced polygamy to the LDS Church.
Do you think the polygamy skeptic movement is gaining steam? Why? Do you see the movement growing or petering out?
Wheat & Tares 
Yes, it was an interesting conference. Polygamy is the gift that just keeps on giving (to Mormon historians and students of LDS history).
The papers on other contemporaneous polygamy hotspots — that is, places and groups other than Mormons in Nauvoo that were practicing polygamy in one form or another during the 1830s and 1840s — were I think the most interesting. There was a group in England as well as the Cochranites, I think. It’s sort of like polygamy was just under the surface in Western culture at the time and managed to pop up in a variety of places, although that cultural window of opportunity didn’t last long.
It’s hard not to have some sympathy for LDS polygamy deniers (that is, those who deny Joseph started it and practiced it — no one denies Brigham and his circle of LDS leaders practiced it in Utah). They want Joseph to be better than he was. Lots of people think this way about friends, family, and various historical characters. Love is blind.
It’s LDS leaders who ought to look harder at modern polygamy deniers. Message to LDS leaders: this is what happens when you keep waffling on polygamy, trying to both energetically deny the practice in the current Church but at the same time forcefully defend the practice by the 19th-century Church.
thank you for putting the spotlight in this.
How do historians distinguish the polygamy taught and practiced by Joseph Smith from that taught and practiced by other LDS leaders? For I see a very different teaching and practice.
Smith seems to have been focused on a linking of people under a priesthood umbrella which would yield a spiritual, Patriarchal dynasty. But directly producing progeny does not seem to have been a priority. Or else Joseph Smith had become sterile and could no longer seed progeny.
Brigham Young and what became his close supporters were all in on having a physical manifestation of their elevated position. The open justification for polygamy in the Church becoming the argument it brought more children into Zion.
If one believes that Joseph Smith was simply engaged in a spiritual practice of sealing people to his Patriarchal order, then we could say that the polygamy Joseph Smith taught is very closely aligned to the polygamy currently supported in the LDS church, where a man can have multiple women sealed to him.
I dunno, it’s a bit like arguing that pedophilia was a thing before the Catholic Church got into the act.
“How do historians distinguish the polygamy taught and practiced by Joseph Smith from that taught and practiced by other LDS leaders? “
Smith did it furtively.
There is a problem with polygamy no matter which way to try to look at it. Most women and many men find the idea abhorrent and immoral. It just seems to make too many women unhappy, even the very righteous in the Bible.
But there polygamy is staring at us from our history with its remnants firmly planted in our current doctrine where two of the first presidency believe they will be with both of their wives. The history of how it actually treated women, and even the Bible stories show a lot of unhappy women and (half) brothers who hated each other. So, what do we do with something in our religion we feel is wrong?
We can throw Joseph Smith under the bus as a fallen prophet. We can throw Brigham Young under the bus saying he started it, not Joseph. We can throw ourselves under the bus and tell ourselves that really it is wonderful and we are too selfish to understand. We can say all prophets are not just fallible, but some of them are pretty evil and that God doesn’t care if they break major commandments and throw prophetic goodness and righteousness right out the window. We can throw God under the bus and say it really comes from God because women’s happiness doesn’t matter to God because He loves his (white) male children only, (because there is also that nasty racial problem that we have to determine how that came from a loving God.)
In trying to solve this problem, most of us try one or more of these on to see how they fit and none of them feel comfortable. If it was Joseph that started it, how do we trust that his other revelations came from a loving God? If it was Brigham, then our branch of the church followed the wrong man as prophet and the real next prophet started one of the branches that rejected Brigham Young and most of us are in the wrong church. That says the reorganized church is the only “true”church. Well, and throwing ourselves under the bus *hurts* and although many men like throwing women under the bus by believing in eternal polygamy, many of us just feel that polygamy is morally wrong and not from a loving God and trying to convince ourselves otherwise just goes against our own conscience. We can say that prophets make mistakes, but being unfaithful to your wife feels like more than a little mistake—more like major sin. So, we throw all prophets under the bus and say God doesn’t really care if they break major commandments as long as those prophets make the rest of us obey all the commandments. ?!? Or we just say God isn’t really loving and orders crap that hurts women and makes brothers hate each other.
The top church leaders don’t seem like they want to solve the problem in a way that feels to me like we have a God who cares about our happiness. And both Nelson and Oaks talk about God as if love is down there a ways on God’s priority list. They talk about obedience as the first law of Heaven and both Joseph and Brigham were perfectly righteous, even if their multiple wives were broken hearted. Even Urchdorf in his last conference talk said we are only wanted in God’s Kingdom *if* we are obedient to prophets who make mistakes.
So, maybe they are right and God only loves the obedient and doesn’t care about anyone’s happiness. If so, I don’t even like God.
To me, rejecting one of the prophets as fallen or all presidents of this church as not prophets after all, and keeping a loving God seems the best option. So, I understand why some people want to argue over whether Joseph Smith or Brigham Young started polygamy.
@Anna, I agree with your comments about polygamy. But I’m going to stand up for Elder Uchdorf. He never said we are only wanted in God’s Kingdom *if* we are obedient to prophets who make mistakes. I went back and read through Elder Uchdorf’s talk. Here is the quote,
“If you love God, if you want to know Him better by following His Son, then you belong here. If you’re earnestly seeking to keep the Savior’s commandments—even though you’re not perfect at it yet—then you are a perfect fit for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
Elder Uchdorf does not talk about obedience to prophets in his talk at all. In my reading of his talks, he is very careful to use language that talks about being disciples of Christ, and following Christ’s teachings. And I think that’s fair, to suggest that as members of the Chruch of Jesus Christ we should seek to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.
(If I’m wrong and you can share with me where Elder Uchdorf shares what you heard, I’m willing to hear it.)
aporetic1, I was going off someone else’s report on his talk, that he said prophets do make mistakes and elsewhere went onto say everyone can belong if they are obedient. I didn’t listen to it myself, so you are probably correct. I would be totally happy for you to restore my faith in Uchtdorf.
@Anna, understood. Yeah, I’ve been hearing a fair amount of hate or displeasure towards Uchdorf’s talk, but I didn’t find it objectionable at all. I didn’t feel like he was trying to exclude people or make is seem like we are only welcome if we believe a certain way, or obey a certain way. I felt like his intent was completely the opposite, and people have been reading their own message into his talk and then getting upset about it.
Maybe I perceive it differently because when Uchdorf talks about “seeking to keep the Savior’s commandments”- I take it pretty literally as “The commandments that Christ gave.” I don’t consider things like polygamy, the word of wisdom, tithing to the church, garments, or things like that to be “the Savior’s commandments” because the Savior never said anything about those things. I don’t actually know what Elder Uchdorf means when he uses that phrase. But I’m not offended at all by his words… according to my understanding of them.
Joseph Smith’s practice of secret polygamy was very different from Brigham Young’s public practice of polygamy. Then the 1890 Manifesto was the beginning of pushing polygamy out of the Church. Oaks and Nelson’s serial monogamy is a far cry from JS and BY’S practice.
Rick B,
What is the basis for multiple women to be sealed to the same LDS man? The idea definitely goes back to Joseph Smith.
What evidence is there that Joseph Smith treated polygamy as a temporal dynasty? Making it secret certainly defeated that purpose! Smith was a sultan without an obvious harem. A mistake that Young corrected.
I think it is difficult to argue that Smith opposed polygamy. I think the evidence shows Smith gave the practice considerably accommodation in his own life and with the church leadership. I also believe Smith came to appreciate that polygamy could not work without tearing the church apart.
The church was torn apart. The church nearly was destroyed due to polygamy. It is likely Smith died as a consequence of his entanglement with polygamy. Polygamy continues to be a stain on the church. And nothing can be done to erase the stain. It is a permanent fixture of the LDS religion and it doesn’t matter who started it.
But for historians, does it matter if Joseph Smith’s last words were in opposition to polygamy? What do we actually know about what Smith thought about polygamy? I think we know that in abstract he was keen on the idea. But in practice, what did Smith conclude?
Well, we know Smith publicly denied polygamy. We have testimony he concluded it could not work. Because of this I think it is a fair question to ask whether polygamy was meant to become a church doctrine. If Smith had not been murdered what would have had happened to polygamy? We will never know.
I wonder if he verbiage” “time and all eternity” would still be there if a man had only one wife. Time and all eternity is fine for the man if you have 70 wives, but not so grand for the women.
To me, this kind of thing is a manifestation of the general cultural movement that believes that an opinion should be given just as much credence as a well studied, peer reviewed, consensus view. It is completely bonkers. And it’s not really about arriving at truth either–it’s about wanting to prove that whatever you believe is right. It’s just starting from a conclusion and working backwards to find the supporting evidence for it. For some reason, people have come to distrust consensus views without taking any amount of time seeing how they are formed and how they change over time. Michelle is probably the first I’ve seen that has dedicated time. But, it is still to end up at a preconceived theological ending point.
Now don’t get me wrong, if we end up with more evidence that points in a different direction than the current consensus and the consensus changes as a result, that’s fine–because it will have been driven by data and evidence and not some theological priority.
disciple asked a lot of questions and then answered them. Was there something you wanted me to answer?