Nineteenth-century travelers saw polygamous Mormon households as plain and unappealing

Evidence

Along its shores, by means of irrigation, Mormon industry has compelled the ground to yield fine crops of hay and barley; and we passed several cabins, from which, even at that early hour, Mormons, each with two or three wives, were going forth to their day’s work. The women were ugly, and their shapeless blue dresses hideous. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 42

Categorization

• XREF: Her blunt aesthetic judgment of the polygamous women echoes the class/identity reading in the immodesty article and her general caste of eye for female appearance.