Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
A blighted life ... : A true story
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
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Rare Books
145042
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Manuscripts
An invitation to lunch from Lady Agnes to her husband, Sir John's, student Mr. Engert.
mssAdams
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Manuscripts
A brief account of Clara Shaw's life in California, including a description of traveling to California from Wisconsin in 1858. Shaw also discusses her experiences with Indians, and describes her life as the wife of a rancher in Adobe Meadows, California.
mssHM 70165
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Rare Books
An autobiography of Isabel Burton, wife of explorer Sir Richard F. Burton. Lady Burton died shortly after she began writing, and H.W. Wilkins, compiling the extensive letters and manuscripts that she left behind, was able to complete the biography.
635718
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Manuscripts
Kathleen is wife of Lady Adams' nephew Patrick and an active volunteer at the Beaver Club which supports the troops. She gives great detail about wartime in London living at Claridges with her husband. She regrets she cannot speak of the many details she knows about because of her husband's position in the government.
mssAdams
![The story of my life as affected by polygamy [microform], 1948](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Frail.huntington.org%2FIIIF3%2FImage%2F22APN45816_R%2Ffull%2F%5E360%2C%2F0%2Fdefault.jpg&w=750&q=75)
Manuscripts
Microfilm of two drafts of Mary Bennion Powell's The Story of My Life as Affected by Polygamy. The first, shorter draft describes the polygamous past of Mary's family, including the plural marriages of her grandfather John Bennion, which she writes led to much unhappiness in her father's childhood, and the story of her mother's widowed mother Mary Ann Frost and her plural marriage to Parley Pratt and the monogamous marriage of her grandparents Oscar Winters and Mary Ann Stearns (Mary describes that Mary Ann, pressured by the Church, convinced her husband to enter a plural marriage with her mother Mary Ann Frost, which was quickly annulled). Much of the document focuses on "the struggle with the horror of polygamy," and particularly of Mary's hatred of her father Heber Bennion's third wife Mayme Bringhurst, who he married after "an unfortunate experience" and "ensuing scandal" between her and his brother. Mary writes scathingly of "this creature" Mayme and the disaster she brought on the family (Mary ascribes the deaths of her sisters and mother to polygamy) and that when she found out her father had married Mayme he became "a monster hideous beyond description." The second draft was written for the Sociology Department of the University of Wisconsin in 1948, to be used as "case material in a study of Mormon sex mores." The content is similar to the first draft although includes more writings on Heber's childhood, his resignation as bishop of Taylorsville over polygamy issues, Mary's indictments of the Mormon Church's approach to polygamy, and more of Mayme's infamy, including her dressing "like a prostitute" and behaving as a "kept woman." Mary concludes the draft with the note "Please, sirs, will you tell me why I can't stop hating them, after all these years." Also included are various letters Mary wrote to the University of Wisconsin regarding the project, as well as a letter to T.C. McCormick in which she enquires about libel laws.
MSS MFilm 00170