Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is the James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History at Harvard University. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire, where she taught for many years, she is the author of numerous articles and essays on early American history. She won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1991 for A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. During her tenure as a MacArthur Fellow, she assisted in the the production of a documentary film based on A Midwifes Tale that aired on the PBS series “The American Experience.” Professor Ulrich’s work is also featured on a prize-winning website dohistory.org. Her most recent book The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of An American Myth explores the production and consumption as well as the social meanings of textiles in pre-industrial New England.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is also one of the original members of a Boston collective who founded Exponent II. She has published many personal essays in “periodicals associated with the unsponsored sector of contemporary Mormonism”. Several of these essays can also be found in All God’s Critters Got a Place in the Choir, which she co-authored with poet, Emma Lou Thayne. I am grateful to Sister Ulrich for taking time out of an extremely busy schedule to answer a few questions about feminism, history and Mormonism.

1. There are many people who think that Mormonism and feminism are incompatible and cannot co-exist. Others say that Mormon feminism is dead. How do you respond? What is your personal definition of Mormon feminism?

Well, this blog would seem to answer your first and second questions. If there are women out their claiming to be “feminist Mormon housewives,”then they must co-exist. I am not sure I have a definition of “Mormon feminism,” as a discrete entity. I am more interested in persons (male or female) who claim to be Mormons and feminists. Each of us has multiple identities. My Mormonism and my feminism intersect in a belief in the absolute equality of all of God’s children and in a belief that we have a responsibility to make the world better.

2. How did you come to identify yourself as a feminist?

I probably began using the word around 1970 when the group of women who eventually founded Exponent II began meeting to talk about the implications of the new women’s movement for our lives.

3. You are the author of several acclaimed women’s history books. How has your work as a historian and feminist scholar affected your religious feminism?

This is a big question. Mostly it has taught me that the issues Latter-day Saint women face are part of much bigger problems. Being a historian gives me a perspective on how things change . It doesn’t tell me what to do, but it broadens my experience of the world and of humankind. I sometimes say that I am an “evangelist for history.” I really think it helps to take the “long
view” of things. But the relationship between my profession and my faith goes both ways. My Mormonism constantly informs my scholarship, in ways that are no doubt too subtle to see. I’m quite sure that my sense of history came from what the church now calls “family history” and what we used to call “genealogy.” I was fortunate in having parents and grandparents who told stories about “pioneer days.” But it goes beyond that to a fundamental outlook on what
matters. I think the small details of ordinary life matter. Seeing religion work (and not work) among people I know well enlarges my capacity to understand its power in the past as well. It doesn’t tell me about the details or theology or replicate precise contexts, but it helps me sympathize in ways I might not be able to do if I had a purely secular outlook. Readers who want to know more about the relationship between my personal life and my scholarship,
might enjoy “A Pail of Cream,” an issue published in The Journal of American History 89 (2002): 43-47. I think it can be found on-line.

4. Some have questioned whether second-wave feminism has any relevance or appeal to today’s young Mormon women? What are the accomplishments of second-wave Mormon feminists? What were the challenges? What do you think the legacy of Exponent II and the group of women who founded it is?

For the challenges read Claudia Bushman, “My Short Happy Life with Exponent II” in Dialogue. Fall 2003. I think somebody needs to do a serious study of the accomplishments. It is easy to remember the pain and suffering, the excommunications and the like, harder at this distance to list the achievements. I think there are many. At the top of my list (remember I am an evangelist for history) is the rich and still growing scholarship in Mormon women’s history. Popular history in and outside the church hasn’t even begun to absorb this marvelous work—but it is there and it will endure. A second obvious achievement is what feminist discourse has done for women’s own lives. I see self-confident young women all around me who probably could not be doing what they are doing if it had not been for the pioneering work of their literal and figurative “mothers.” Then there are some small things, like two-piece garments and changing platforms in ward buildings. Believe it or not, those things didn’t just happen!

5. What have been the issues facing Mormon feminists in the period after September 1993?

Discouragement. Backlash. The growing conservatism of the larger society and the Church. On a larger scale, I think the biggest challenge in knowing what our responsibilities are in the larger world. War, the disruptions of the global economy, pornography, sex trafficking, poverty and growing inequality in the United States, lack of respect for mothering and the “helping professions” in general—like public school teaching, nursing, and social work. Plenty of challenges for Mormons who take their faith seriously.

6. Jan Shipps has said it is “dangerous” to do Mormon women’s history because of the feminist theology that flows from it. Is she correct in this assertion and in concluding that Mormon women historians cannot be permitted any authority in interpreting Mormon women’s history?

I am trying to remember exactly what she said. Since I haven’t read her essay in awhile, I’ll just have to respond to your general question, whether it is “dangerous” for Mormon women to interpret their own history. I’d say that historians (male or female) who presume to define Mormon theology can get in big trouble institutionally if their ideas counter those of current
General Authorities—but that isn’t a problem confined to women. Because our faith is so
bound up with our history, reinterpreting Mormon history can be threatening to some people. But here’s where my broader orientation as a historian helps. Good history is almost always “dangerous.” In the 1990s “history wars” broke out all over the United States—and in some places that continues. Think of the Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings debate, for example, or the argument over the Enola Gay exhibit at the Smithsonian (about the plane that dropped the
atomic bomb on Hiroshima) or the arguments over slave reparations. Women’s history was
assaulted on many sides during this period. At one point, a Congressman from the Midwest even attacked funding for the PBS documentary on my book A Midwife’s Tale. Women’s history is dangerous. That is why it is important. But if it is serious history—not slapdash research in the service of a cause, Mormon or otherwise—it can make a difference.