Review
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Title: A Faded Legacy: Amy Brown Lyman and Mormon Women’s Activism, 1872–1959
Author: Dave Hall
Publisher: University of Utah Press
Genre: Women’s Studies; Biography
Year Published: 2015
Number of Pages: xvi, 266, Illustrations, Endnotes, Bibliography, Index
Binding: Cloth
ISBN: 978-1-60781-453-5
Price: $34.95
Reviewed by Laura Compton for the Association for Mormon Letters
Finally, a thoroughly researched biography of one of Mormonism’s most
influential women is here. Amy Brown Lyman served as General Relief
Society Board Member, Secretary/Treasurer, Counselor and President
over the span of 36 years in the first half of the 20th Century, yet
she remains unknown to most 21st-century readers. Dave Hall’s aptly
titled “A Faded Legacy: Amy Brown Lyman and Mormon Women’s Activism,
1872-1959” carefully traces her rise, influence and decline for all
who don’t quite remember what she did to transform Mormon women’s
experiences.
Lyman’s legacy is not one relevant only to Mormon women, though. In
addition to her work in the Relief Society, she served on the Utah
State Legislature, pioneered social work which promoted the health and
welfare of local communities (especially their women and children),
accompanied her husband in leading the European Mission and raised two
children and a granddaughter. Hall introduces Lyman and her work this
way: “If one could step back in time to ask prominent figures in
national women’s or social work organizations active in the 1920s or
1930s about her, they would have known her and been familiar with her
work. Without question, Amy Brown Lyman’s accomplishments rank her
among the most influential women in Mormon history. Yet today, Lyman
is all but forgotten among her own people and rates not even a
footnote outside the Latter-day Saint community.” (xi)
That Lyman is “all but forgotten” is a shame, and there are many
factors which might contribute to the loss of her story. Perhaps her
strong-willed leadership grated on a few nerves a bit too much and
leaders were relieved she was no longer a force in their lives;
perhaps her husband’s excommunication while serving as an apostle was
too shameful for society to bear; perhaps her own historical silence
in leaving few written records of her life made it hard to recall all
she did; perhaps the fact that she was a female leader in an era where
women were strongly encouraged to focus on home and hearth all
contributed to the loss of her story as well. But despite these
barriers to legacy, Hall has pieced together an important and
compelling biography of a woman all Mormons should come to know.
“A Faded Legacy” shows us that part of the reason we need to know
about women like Lyman is that they were dealing with the same kinds
of issues women and men deal with today. Whether it is making Relief
Society relevant to young women, or helping communities through hard
times or disasters, or puzzling over ways to meet the needs of a
rapidly growing community, or struggling to make programs meaningful
and enriching to educated and experienced women without leaving those
with less experience and education far behind, these are all issues
Lyman dealt with personally. Had her tenure as General Relief Society
President not ended quite so abruptly, perhaps the organization itself
would have other ways of approaching these issues today.
Lyman was a “second generation” Mormon, born in Utah in 1872 to
polygamous parents. She and her generational cohorts understood
polygamy as children and community members, but did not expect to live
it themselves. Instead, their challenge was to find a way to convince
the non-Mormon world that LDS women were not benighted, uneducated
heathens. Her status as bishop’s daughter, along with her own
personality and innate leadership skills, gave her access to both
educational and career opportunities other young women might have
missed out on. Those opportunities put her in close association with
influential women and men at colleges, universities and
social/activist clubs both in Utah and across the United States,
introducing her, as Hall notes, to many of those influential and
“prominent figures” of the early 20th century.
Despite all of her work and the many organizations with which she
served, there are relatively few accessible written histories,
letters, journals or other documents from which a biographer could
pull life details. Hall’s biography overcomes those issues by using
oral histories and interviews with some of Lyman’s closest associates,
backing up and corroborating memories by searching out documentation
or secondary witnesses. The craft with which Hall weaves disparate
resources into Lyman’s world clearly places her within the history of
the American West and shows readers how she both influenced and was
influenced by her time and place in the world.
As Hall notes, “Lyman’s story provides an opportunity to examine the
roots and trajectory of Mormon women’s activism, following both its
rise during a period of separation from mainstream society and its
decline as women of the faith assimilated to national norms. And,
because of Lyman’s long association with leaders of national and
international women’s organizations, it also shows how the fate of
Mormon women was linked to that of other first wave feminists.” (7)
Amy Brown Lyman’s story is an important one which traces rise and
fall, joy and sorrow, cooperation and opposition. Lyman’s personality
is the bright thread which weaves through space and time, always
persistent, always looking forward, sometimes biding time and
sometimes pushing forward with the strength of a woman committed.
Hall has done a remarkable and important job in beginning to restore
Lyman’s legacy to its proper place in history.