Mormon healer and folk poet
Subtitle: Mary Susannah Fowler's life of "unselfish usefulness"
By: Margaret K. Brady
Publisher: Utah State University Press
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Logan, Utah
Language: eng
Number of pages: 222
Subjects: Fowler, Mary Susannah, -- 1862-1920; Traditional medicine -- United States -- History; Folk poetry, American -- History and criticism; Mormon women -- United States -- Biography; Mormons -- United States -- Biography
Genres: Biography
Description: "Brady brings an eclectic, interdisciplinary approach to her reconstruction of the previously uncelebrated life of a superficially ordinary and obscure, though actually quite remarkable, woman. Drawing on reflexive ethnography, Brady emphasizes her own involvement with her subject and with the multiple discourses that, in combination, give her access to Mary Fowler's identity. She encourages her readers to collaborate in piecing together the meaning of Mary's life, reading her autobiographical texts and those by others in juxtaposition with Brady's understanding of that life, and participating in the construction of Mary Fowler's "self," an identity she built through her poetry, life writings, and community service and which Margaret Brady has reconstructed through this thoughtful biography."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-218) and index
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Another leaf in time's old book : a life story of Mary Susannah Fowler; title: Home with our families, near home with our friends : folk belief and the Mormon community; title: And gave you all my care : folk healing as Mormon maternal practice; title: We knew 'twould entertain us : literacy within a community context; title: I love thee, my muse : folk poetry and the construction of identity; title: Your words like a balm : a matrix of discourses