{"product_id":"audacious-women-early-british-mormon-immigrants-9781560850663","title":"Audacious Women: Early British Mormon Immigrants","description":"\u003cp\u003eVictorians loved to hear stories about the secret lives of Mormon women. Charles Dickens  Mark Twain  Joaquin Miller  A. Conan Doyle  and others fed the publics curiosity with tale after tale. Naive Manchester shopgirls seduced by lecherous missionaries  illiterate Liverpudlian fishwives shanghaied into domestic slavery in Utah--these were the stories that shaped public opinion. What was the truth behind such stereotypes? In fact  most female immigrants to Utah were former shopgirls  factory workers  and home pieceworkers in London and Manchester  and many were illiterate. Were they also naive adventuresses? Bartholomew fleshes out real-life profiles of these pioneering women through available letters  diaries  and public documents. They were by-and-large devout  and most of them approached their uncertain future with their eyes wide open. At minimum  they were least vaguely aware of what their religious commitment would entail. So if they did not fulfill Victorian fantasies of young concubines who had been abducted into desert harems  what about the romanticized icons of Mormon inspirational literature? Writes Rebecca Bartholomew: \"These women made mistakes. But if they were not angels  neither were they fools. They are likable. Their lives had meaning. They demonstrated that virtue has unlikely habitats and could even sprout in that spiritual chamber of horrors  that Eden betrayed  that whited sepulchre  Mormondom.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45275058765877,"sku":"ByrdShop_1560850663","price":49.85,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781560850663.jpg?v=1780500403","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/audacious-women-early-british-mormon-immigrants-9781560850663","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}