STENHOUSE, Fanny

Born 12 April 1828, St. Heliers, Jersey, England; died date unknown

Married T. B. H. Stenhouse, 1850; children: six

Little is known of Fanny Stenhouse's biography except what she recorded in her two books. Stenhouse was one of the younger children of a large English farming family. At the age of fifteen she took a job teaching English at a convent school in France and shortly afterwards became governess to a wealthy French family. At eighteen, Stenhouse was formally engaged to the cousin of her employer, but she gave up all thought of the marriage when, in 1849, she visited England and discovered her family had converted to the Mormon religion. Two weeks later, Stenhouse herself became a convert, and in 1850 she married the Scottish Mormon missionary responsible for her conversion. She had six children. The Stenhouses did missionary work in Switzerland before they migrated in 1855 to New York and in 1859 to Utah. In Salt Lake City, Stenhouse founded and edited the Daily Telegraph, the city's first daily paper.

Tolerant of the Mormon doctrine of plural marriage, Stenhouse became its opponent when it invaded her own home. For 15 years, Stenhouse and her husband had maintained a monogamous marriage. Yet as Stenhouse became more prominent in the community, he succumbed to pressure to meet his religious obligation to take another wife (who bore him two more children). At about the same time her husband was considering taking a third wife, Stenhouse's eldest daughter became the fourth wife of Brigham Young's eldest son. Stenhouse began to doubt the divinity of Joseph Smith's revelation about polygamy; she believed the doctrine was created by Smith to justify his own amorous activities. Stenhouse's doubts concerning the revelation placed her faith in the Mormon religion in jeopardy, and her husband came to share her doubts. In 1870 Stenhouse and her husband withdrew from the church, and his second wife soon divorced him.

While visiting gentile (non-Mormon) friends in New York, Stenhouse was encouraged to write the story of her life in the Mormon church and discuss the institution of polygamy. Stenhouse's first effort, Exposé of Polygamy in Utah: A Lady's Life Among the Mormons (1872), was written in a few short days. A small volume, illustrated with woodcuts, the book briefly outlined Stenhouse's life and presented her arguments against the doctrine of polygamy. Exposé of Polygamy in Utah was a popular book widely read by a population hungry for sensational news of the Mormons' bizarre practice of polygamy. One of Brigham Young's wives, Ann Eliza Webb Young, claimed the influence of this book as one reason why she left and later divorced her husband. Stenhouse's Exposé is an accurate book, less melodramatic than most written in that day and age, and as a result of its popularity, she embarked on a lucrative lecture tour. In 1874 Stenhouse published a second book covering the same issues but in greater detail.

The value of Stenhouse's work rests in her attempt at objectivity on a very controversial subject. The books are signifi-cant for the student of Mormon history because of what they reveal about the Mormon missionary system and the role played by English and European converts in the settlement of Utah.

—PAULA A. TRECKEL