Family History

The BYU Devotional on Tuesday was by a BYU Special Collections prof on family history (link from BYU NewsNet). This is the kind of history the Church likes--pleasant faith-building anecdotes about one's Mormon ancestors. The speaker noted how reading the journal of Emmeline B. Wells touched him deeply. Click here for more on this dedicated polygamous suffragette, who became an editor of The Women's Exponent (the original one, not the modern successor). BTW, am I the only one that thinks of the McCartney song every time I hear the word "suffragette"?

Comments

[danithew]

I am thinking you are referring to the David Bowie song "Sufragette City" which is one heck of a rockin' song... here's the chorus lyrics:

"Oh don’t lean on me man, cause you can’t afford the ticket
I’m back from suffragette city
Oh don’t lean on me man
Cause you ain’t got time to check it
You know my suffragette city
Is outta sight...she’s all right"

If Paul McCartney has a sufragette song then I'd like to hear it. Could be I missed out on a good song. :)

[danithew]

... And then I realized that you actually had a link to the lyrics of that McCartney sufragette song... so I'll have to give it a listen.

Thanks for passing on the music trivia. I love that kind of stuff.

[Clancy]

Possibly. For my part, when I hear the word "suffragette," I get the song "Sister Suffragette" from Mary Poppins in my mind:

Mrs. Banks:
We're clearly soldiers in petticoats
And dauntless crusaders for woman's votes
Though we adore men individually
We agree that as a group they're rather stupid!

Cast off the shackles of yesterday!
Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!
Our daughters' daughters will adore us
And they'll sign in grateful chorus
"Well done, Sister Suffragette!"

From Kensington to Billingsgate
One hears the restless cries!
From ev'ry corner of the land:
"Womankind, arise!"
Political equality and equal rights with men!
Take heart! For Missus Pankhurst has been clapped in irons again!

No more the meek and mild subservients we!
We're fighting for our rights, militantly!
Never you fear!

So, cast off the shackles of yesterday!
Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!
Our daughters' daughters will adore us
And they'll sign in grateful chorus
"Well done! Well done!
Well done Sister Suffragette!"

[Nate]

There is also all that temple theology that might account for the Church's interest in family history.

You know, if you take that sort of thing seriously...

[Dave]

My take on family history mirrors commentary by Leone in Roots of Modern Mormonism. His comments on the LDS interest in family history have the rather unique advantage of being based on actual field work with LDS communities.

[William Morris]

To get a complete picture of Emmeline B. Wells read her poetry. It's pretty good. And some of it is kind of dark. She doesn't pull the punches about how difficult it is to lose children to early deaths or to share her husband with sister wives.

I've always thought it would be cool to do a play/literary criticism/reading hybrid production based on her life that would intersperse readings of and commentary on her poems with short dramatized scenes from her life, monologues based on her journal, letter readings, etc. I vaguely recall reading about a one-woman show based on her life that ran in SLC in the '90s -- one modeled after the format used for the one-woman show on Emily Dickenson -- The Belle of Amherst.