Minneapolis Tribune editors picked up this piece from the San Francisco Chronicle:

MAKING WOMEN SLAVES.

Polygamy as an Investment – a Talk
With a Utah Farmer with a Plu-
rality of Wives

Utah Letter in San Francisco Chronicle.

We halted at a way-station for dinner. A white-haired but not very sanctimonious saint occupied the chair next to me. “A resident of the country?” I asked. “Oh, yes: for twenty-five years.” “Married?” “Some.” “More than one wife?” “I think so. I’ve got a few scattered about here and there.” “Believe in polygamy, I presume?” “Certainly. I’d never have made a living if I hadn’t.” “How’s that?” “Well, you see, stranger, I used to think a good deal as you do. I had 160 acres of land and one wife, but didn’t make much headway. There was too much work for one man to attend to. Finally I froze to a second wife. She took her share of the burden like a perfect brick, and affairs moved on in better shape. Then I got to thinking that if two wives were better than one, three would be better than two; consequently I took a third and my affairs improved still more. I mapped out the business of the ranch, and gave No. 1 her part, and gave a part to No. 2 and part to No. 3, and took a part myself. Everything went on like clockwork. Our little community was thoroughly organized. Finally I concluded a fourth wife would be quite an advantage, and I looked around and secured her. I found that the more wives I had the more land I could work. I now operate 240 acres of one kind and another, and have six wives to assist me, and I’ve got things so systematized down that everything goes on quite lovely, and I don’t have much to do myself. Polygamy is a great institution, my friend, and you’ll never succeed in the world until you marry a few times. Sometimes one of my wives gets a little offish like, but, instead of making a great row about it and getting a divorce, as you do in California, I simply stay away from her for a day or two, and then when I do happen around she smiles all over her face and loves me in a desperate fashion. Oh, yes; I may marry several times yet before I die; and the more women I marry the richer I expect to get.” This talk was by no means sophistry, as I afterwards ascertained. A large portion of the women of Utah are slaves.

Farming has never been an easy way to make a buck, but it must have been especially daunting to carve a living out of the raw fields of western Minnesota in the decades after the Civil War. Here is the Elwood S. Corser farm, near Crookston, in about 1882. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

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