Harvard Professor Tells of Mormon Diaries During MU Lecture

COLUMBIA — Bitterness describes more than just the cold weather experienced by a group of Mormons on their trek across the Midwest. Their attitudes, at times, also became bitter.

Monday at MU, Harvard University professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich introduced a chapter from her upcoming book, which will chronicle the lives of various 19th-century Mormons. In 1991, Ulrich won a Pulitzer Prize for her book, “A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812.”

Her presentation, titled “Mud and Fire: Mormon Diarists Cross Iowa,” was the first in the MU history department’s new Lewis Atherton Lecture Series, which is named in memory of a former MU history professor.

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