Who is Ann Eliza Young?

The 19th Wife of Brigham Young

By some accounts, a noble-woman and champion of women’s rights.

By others, a social harlot and opportunist.

But by all accounts from the time, Ann Eliza was “a genuine sensation” when she toured the country on her crusade to end polygamy in the United States.

In 1875, Ann Eliza Young wrote a bestselling and controversial memoir, Wife No. 19, about her life as a Latter-day Saint and her plural marriage to Brigham Young.  Many Latter-day Saints felt it unfairly portrayed Brigham and the Mormon Church.  Anti-polygamists, however, believed the book revealed the degradations of polygamy to the American public more powerfully than ever before.  If you want to read Ann Eliza’s original memoir, you can download it here. Note: This is a large PDF file

Read some of the original newspaper articles from the story here