Twelve Mormon Homes Revisited: Touring Polygamous Utah with Elizabeth Kane, 1872-1873

In Twelve Mormon Homes: Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona, first published in 1874, Elizabeth Kane recorded impressions of what she heard and saw among the Mormon people in the twelve communities that hosted her and her family. Neither an apologist nor a convert, Kane maintained her anti-polygamy stance, even while gaining admiration for the women who had entered and endured what she considered an objectionable practice. In this new volume, Lowell C. Bennion immerses readers in the social and architectural worlds encountered by Kane. He provides descriptions of the people and customs of the plural families that hosted her and reconstructions of what the houses looked like at the time of the visit, particularly valuable to contemporary readers because all but two--the Hinckley house at Cove Creek Fort and the Dame house in Parowan--have long since been demolished. By retracing Elizabeth Kane’s steps, readers will gain a new perspective on attitudes toward Mormon life in the nineteenth century.

Lowell C. Bennion taught in the geography department at Humboldt State University in California for nearly three decades.