The Interpreter Foundation and Redbrick Filmworks continues to release a new episode of their not-for-profit series of mini-documentaries titled Becoming Brigham each Monday. This week, they released the following episode:

Episode 30: “Educate Women? What Did Brigham Young Believe?”

How did the early revelation to Emma Smith and the organization of the Relief Society challenge the 19th-century cultural expectation of male leadership? What does Brigham Young’s journal language about his wife being “admitted to the priesthood,” combined with his lifelong focus on temple ordinances, reveal about how he understood women’s spiritual authority?

This episode examines the role of women in the 19th century Church and Brigham Young’s views on their place in building Zion. It begins with the 1830 revelation to Emma Smith in which she is called an “elect lady” and ordained to expound scripture, exhort the Saints, and compile a hymnbook, and how this early authorization, together with the 1842 organization of the Relief Society and the introduction of temple ordinances, marked a significant departure from prevailing cultural norms of male leadership, even while traditional expectations continued to shape daily life. The conversation then turns to Brigham’s practical expectations for women in the Utah settlements. He encouraged their education, and training in business skills, arithmetic, bookkeeping, and even the telegraph so they could staff offices and free able-bodied men for the intensive physical labor required to establish an agricultural society under constant missionary outflow and immigrant inflow. The episode closes by underscoring the unique nature of Latter-day Saint teachings on the eternal potential of women, including the doctrine of Heavenly Mother, and shows Brigham as an advocate who expanded women’s official roles.

Why this docuseries? Many people are aware of Brigham Young as a pivotal figure in American religious and frontier history, but Brigham is also often misunderstood, seen as a larger-than-life caricature rather than as a man. Who actually was Brigham as a man, a father, a husband, and a prophet? The video web series Becoming Brigham debunks fictions and provides surprising new insights into the real Brigham Young. Learn more in the article “Becoming Brigham: The Video Series Premieres.”