Her writing supported the part her husband, Thomas Kane, played in the lobbying efforts that attempted to prevent the Poland Bill from persecuting members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who then practiced plural marriage.

While the books may have influenced congressional debate about the Poland Bill, they more importantly represent a close first-person account of Mormons in the mid-late 1880s and reveal their lifestyles and opinions about polygamous practices.

Her father's lack of skill in raising and nurturing children created an unhappy home life for Elizabeth.

The couple lived in Philadelphia where Thomas's father, John K. Kane, worked as a United States District Court judge.

[1] Elizabeth and Thomas Kane envisioned working together to close the gender equality gap through women's education and they also sought to reform the institution of marriage.

Kane did not share her husband's interest in the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; she resented them because of their influence on him and their practice of polygamy.

[10] When Kane's husband went on extended trips to help his Mormon compatriots, he would abandon his job, leaving her in financial distress.

When her husband enlisted in the Civil War, Kane and her children lived with her aunt, Ann Gray Thomas.

[13] She continued to write, completing the final chapter of her father's autobiography after he died, as well as a biography of her ancestor John Kane.

[14] She taught in the Presbyterian Sunday School and was elected president of a local chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, attending both state and national conventions.

[19] In the winter of 1872, Kane accompanied her husband on a twelve-day trip from Salt Lake City to St. George, Utah, with her two younger sons Evan O'Neil and William Wood, as guests of Brigham Young in view of Thomas Kane's work in defending the Latter-day Saints in Utah.

[25] According to Eric A. Eliason, the travel accounts had become their own style of literature, due to the interest and recording of the point of view of the subject matter.

[26] Kane followed this approach in writing her travel account, interviewing the Mormons and recording their opinions, while attempting to remain detached from the subject matter.

In contrast to most of the Mormon travel accounts written at the time, her writing focused on rural Utah rather than urban locales, covering more than one visited settlement.

[29] Her husband encouraged her to publish her personal journals and letters to family in order to help lobby against the Poland Act.

[31] Experiencing growing sympathy for the Mormons, particularly the women, Kane hoped the book would lessen the persecution of the Latter-day Saints.

[39] She wrote to Senator Simon Cameron, urging Congress to end persecution of the Saints, since it only fueled the fire of their faith, as they were willing to die for what they believed in.

The Poland Act did pass, but it was a milder bill than initially proposed, perhaps due, in part, to the contributions of Elizabeth and Thomas Kane.

[44] Evident of her religious beliefs, she believed that the miscarriage was a punishment from God for secretly not wanting the child and being ungrateful for the pregnancy.

In her book Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Journey through Utah to Arizona, the title on the second page was "Pandemonium or Arcadia: Which?

"[63] Kane metaphorically compared the Mormon community to Pandemonium, the city of Lucifer, and Arcadia, the rural Greek paradise.

Another reason that she claimed to have disliked the Mormons was that she felt that they drained her husband of his time and resources and prevented him from being interested in her own religion.

During one visit to the Kane family in Pennsylvania, she pretended to fall asleep, while Thomas played piano and sang in the next room, citing that she knew she had fallen in love with him after that moment.

On the one hand, Thomas wanted Elizabeth to be his intellectual equal and sought to mentor her to become a socially and politically prominent woman, rather than just a wife.

On the other hand, there was a touch of irony and condescension in Thomas' mentorship, because he was often an overbearing husband who pushed Elizabeth into doing things because he felt that he knew best.

Her son Elisha Kent Kane would go on to rebuild an exact replica of the original family home at 90% scale and name it Silverside for his wife Zella, who was the silver side of ever storm cloud in his life.

In addition to her home it provides residencies year round for artists, authors, and writers through her non profit Elysian Sanctuary.

[87] Elizabeth subsequently named the Georgian Colonial Revival-style mansion "Anoatok" (the Eskimo–Aleut word for "the wind loved spot") in honor of her late brother-in-law and Arctic explorer Elisha Kent Kane.

[88] Following her death in 1909, ownership of the house was awarded to her sons Evan and Thomas, the latter of whom moved out after a new home was completed for him in 1910 by Cope & Stewardson.

[91] Her second book was republished in 1974 by the Tanner Trust Fund and the University of Utah Library, with the true identity of the families she met revealed.