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Sharing The Sacred: A Tradition Of Mormon Public Education In Kirtland, Ohio, James Stuart Bielo, Kimberly Blake, Daniel Mcclurkin, Seth Boda Apr 2016

Sharing The Sacred: A Tradition Of Mormon Public Education In Kirtland, Ohio, James Stuart Bielo, Kimberly Blake, Daniel Mcclurkin, Seth Boda

Southern Anthropological Society - Annual Conference

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) has a strong tradition of promoting formal education. This includes several initiatives detailing, preserving, and sharing church history at sites of significance, setting these sites apart as sacred space. In summer 2015 I conducted eight weeks of ethnographic fieldwork at the Kirtland Historic Village, a recreated 19th century town in northeast Ohio. Historic Kirtland’s status as a sacred LDS space, coupled with its high operating costs and low non-LDS visitor attendance, raises the question of why the site stays open to the general public and free of admission. The use of …