Within one month, Johnson lost both her husband and her church -- and found her place in history.

Winner of the 2019 OutWrite Chapbook Competition in Nonfiction.

Legitimization of Mormon Feminist Rhetors studies how marginalized groups use rhetorical strategies to craft legitimacy for themselves. Kinney uses archival research to parse the rhetorical devices employed by Mormon feminist women. The author assumes a pan-historical methodology by examining four unique examples of notable Mormon feminist rhetors that stretch across the 191-year history of this religion: Emmeline B. Wells (1828–1921), Fawn Brodie (1915–1981), Sonia Johnson (1936–present), and Kate Kelly (1980–present). Backed by intensive analysis, the author finds that Mormon feminist women take up the ancient rhetorical canons as a heuristic to cultivate a position of authority for themselves: Wells employs arrangement patterns, Brodie engages with memory, Johnson draws upon invention practices, and Kelly applies delivery strategies. Scholars and students of communication, rhetoric, religion, and women’s studies will find this book particularly interesting.

Few figures in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provoke such visceral responses as Sonia Johnson. Her unrelenting public support of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) made her the face of LDS feminism while her subsequent excommunication roiled the faith community. Christine Talbot tells the story of Sonia’s historic confrontation with the Church within the context of the faith’s first large-scale engagement with the feminist movement. A typical if well-educated Latter-day Saints homemaker, Sonia was moved to action by the all-male LDS leadership’s opposition to the ERA and a belief the Church should stay out of politics. Talbot uses the activist’s experiences and criticisms to explore the ways Sonia’s ideas and situation sparked critical questions about LDS thought, culture, and belief. She also illuminates how Sonia’s excommunication shaped LDS feminism, the Church’s antagonism to feminist critiques, and the Church itself in the years to come. A revealing and long-overdue account, Sonia Johnson explores the life, work, and impact of the LDS feminist.

The Claremont Women's Oral History Project has collected hundreds of interviews with Mormon women of various ages, experiences, and levels of activity. These interviews record the experiences of these women in their homes and family life, their church life, and their work life, in their roles as homemakers, students, missionaries, career women, single women, converts, and disaffected members. Their stories feed into and illuminate the broader narrative of LDS history and belief, filling in a large gap in Mormon history that has often neglected the lived experiences of women. This project preserves and perpetuates their voices and memories, allowing them to say share what has too often been left unspoken. The silent majority speaks in these records. This volume is the first to explore the riches of the collection in print. A group of young scholars and others have used the interviews to better understand what Mormonism means to these women and what women mean for Mormonism. They explore those interviews through the lenses of history, doctrine, mythology, feminist theory, personal experience, and current events to help us understand what these women have to say about their own faith and lives.

This two-volume set examines women's contributions to religious and moral development in America, covering individual women, their faith-related organizations, and women's roles and experiences in the broader social and cultural contexts of their times. This second edition of Encyclopedia of American Women and Religion provides updated and expanded information from historians and other scholars of religion, covering new issues in religion to better describe and document women's roles within religious groups. For instance, the term "evangelical feminism" is one newly defined aspect of women's involvement in religious activism. Changes are constantly occurring within the many religious faiths and denominations in America, particularly as women strive to gain positions within religious hierarchies that previously were exclusive to men and rise within their denominations to become theologians, church leaders, and bishops. The entries examine the roles that American women have played in mainstream religious denominations, small religious sects, and non-traditional practices such as witchcraft, as well as in groups that question religious beliefs, including agnostics and atheists. A section containing primary documents gives readers a firsthand look at matters of concern to religious women and their organizations. Many of these documents are the writings of women who merit entries within the encyclopedia. Readers will gain an awareness of women's contributions to religious culture in America, from the colonial era to the present day, and better understand the many challenges that women have faced to achieve success in their religion-related endeavors.