History Commons^™

The Latter-Day Saint Home As A Site Of Religious Transition, 1890–1930, Cathy Gilmore

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis examines religion as practiced in the Latter-day Saint home during a period of religious transition between 1890 and 1930. Using the family of June A. Bushman and Hyrum Smith as subjects, we examine how families managed the religious reforms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during this period. As individuals who came of age at the turn of the twentieth century, June and Hyrum’s lives intersected with their church’s transition from an isolated religion to a modern, American church.
Administrative modernization, priesthood reforms, reimagined family relationships, and other ecclesiastical changes came into tension with the …

Orson Pratt And The Expansion Of The Doctrine And Covenants, Brian C. Passantino

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a faith that is distinguished by its religious texts. The nickname "Mormon," that has been applied to adherents of the faith, comes from the name of its most cherished canonical book, the Book of Mormon. Aside from the Bible and the Book of Mormon, Latter-day Saints accept two other books of scriptures – the Pearl of Great Price and the Doctrine and Covenants. These four books constitute the authorized scriptures of the faith, or as they refer to them, "the standard works."

My thesis focuses on the book entitled the Doctrine …

American Proto-Zionism And The "Book Of Lehi": Recontextualizing The Rise Of Mormonism, Don Bradley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Although historians generally view early Mormonism as a movement focused on restoring Christianity to its pristine New Testament state, in the Mormon movement’s first phase (1827-28) it was actually focused on restoring Judaism to its pristine “Old Testament” state and reconstituting the Jewish nation as it had existed before the Exile.

Mormonism’s first scripture, “the Book of Lehi” (the first part of the Book of Mormon), disappeared shortly after its manuscript was produced. But evidence about its contents shows it to have had restoring Judaism and the Jewish nation to their pre-Exilic condition to have been one of its major …

Anatomy Of A Rupture: Identity Maintenance In The 1844 Latter-Day Saint Reform Sect, Robert M. Call

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, managed dissent throughout his prophetic career. Most of the earliest dissenters came and went with little lasting impact on Mormonism—the church maintained a coherent structure despite attempted disjuncture. However, when Smith was assassinated in June 1844 (just fourteen years after he established the church), the Mormon community ruptured. Claimants to Smith’s ecclesiastical office competed for church-wide leadership. Brigham Young led thousands westward to the Rocky Mountains, but thousands of Mormons rejected Young and his version of Mormonism. This crisis over succession sparked the growth of schisms in …

The Vox Populi Is The Vox Dei: American Localism And The Mormon Expulsion From Jackson County, Missouri, Matthew Lund

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In 1833, enraged vigilantes expelled 1,200 Mormons from Jackson County, Missouri, setting a precedent for a later expulsion of Mormons from the state, changing the course of Mormon history, and enacting in microcosm a battle over the ultimate source of authority in America's early democratic society. This study will reexamine the motives that induced Missourians to expel Mormons from Jackson County and explore how government authorities responded to the conflict. Past studies contend that Mormon communalism collided with the Jacksonian individualism of Missouri residents, causing hostility and violence. However, recent studies have questioned many of the conventional notions of law …

Recreating Religion: The Response To Joseph Smith’S Innovations In The Second Prophetic Generation Of Mormonism, Christopher James Blythe

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

On June 27, 1844, Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, was assassinated. In the wake of his death, a number of would-be
successors emerged. Each of these leaders - part of what I call the second prophetic
generation - established a unique vision of Mormonism.

In 1844, Mormonism was in the middle of a major shift in its character. Joseph
Smith’s death left numerous theological and practical questions unresolved. This thesis argues that, rather than merely a succession struggle of competition and power, a principal function of the second prophetic generation in Mormonism …

Changes In Seniority To The Quorum Of The Twelve Apostles Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Travis Q. Mecham

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A charismatically created organization works to tear down the routine and the norm of everyday society, replacing them with new institutions. Max Weber has stated that a charismatic organization can only exist in the creation stage, after which it will either collapse under the weight of the changes it has made, or begin a move towards the routine, making it as well-established and routinized as the society it sought to replace.

The changes to the seniority of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints demonstrate the movement of the church from charismatic …

Utah And Mormon Migration In The Twentieth Century: 1890 To 1955, Todd Forsyth Carney

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Most Utahns spent the years between Mormon entry into the Great Basin and statehood for Utah pursuing the traditional frontier-rural life, a mode which had been an integral part of the American experience since earliest colonial times. After the Mormon capitulation and statehood, Utah moved into a transitional phase, a phase between the traditional and the modern in which elements of each were mixed and mingled. This phase ended with the Second World War.

This transition to modernity affected migration behavior. Seen in light of migration theory, the Utah experience is something of an anomaly. One theory says that migration …

Silent Saints: Deaf Mormons In Utah, Petra M. Horn

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Research for this thesis drew on the network of Deaf Mormon wards/branches, newspapers, magazines, books, unpublished documents, personal collections, and oral interviews to illustrate the religious activities engaged in by deaf Latter-day Saints at the national and local levels during the mid and late twentieth century America. The study focused on the theological perspectives, church participation, and personal experiences of deaf Mormons with a special focus on the accommodations the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day ·Saints has for the deaf populace. This special attention was used to examine and demonstrate the influence and attractions the Mormon religion has for …

Nature's Second Course: Water Culture In The Mormon Communities Of Cache Valley, Utah, 1860-1916, Kathryn T. Morse

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Nineteenth-century Mormon settlers in Utah combined a unique set of religious beliefs with a fervent agrarianism and a strong sense of community. They encountered a specific arid environment along the Wasatch Front. A distinctive cultural set of irrigation institutions and practices developed out of the complex interchanges between nature and culture in Cache Valley, Utah, between 1860 and 1916. The structure of water flow, and conflicts over water rights and responsibilities, reflected the fundamental tensions within Mormon communities between individual gain and collective progress; it also reflected the patriarchal essence of Mormon culture.

The season-to-season workings of irrigation institutions that …

Creating Ethnicity In The Hydraulic Village Of The Mormon West, Charles M. Hatch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study has looked behind the mask of nineteenth-century theocracy to see Mormons in the Great Basin creating a democratic society of regionally concentrated kin groups where obligations and rewards for individuals were increasingly determined by age and life cycle position. As generations of young adults acted together in self-interest dispersing their villages on receding frontiers, they forged a balance between competition and cooperation which merged the immediate need of individuals to establish and support families with the collective memory of their Mormon past. In so doing, they created an identity for themselves which was unique in the arid West. …

'That Place Over There' A Journalistic Look At Latter-Day Corinne, The Last Gentile Railroad Boomtown In The Mormon Lands Of Utah, John W. Morris

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The effort here, compiled over a nearly three-year period, is simply to encourage reporters of the mass media, those recorders of instant history on a daily basis, to take the time to put down in print somewhere the memories of old-timers everywhere. While centered in Corinne, Utah, the last rabble-rousing boomtown along the first transcontinental railroad to span the United States, this work is a collection of feature articles, laced with anecdotes and perhaps tall tales, of the type old-timers are eager to tell. It is a renegade mixture of oral and written histories and probably breaks most of the …

Martin Harris In Cache Valley - Events And Influence, Scott R. Shelton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The well-known Mormon historical figure, Martin Harris, spent the last five years of his life in Cache Valley, Utah. Most of the research done to this point on this man, who claimed to have seen angels and heard the voice of God, has been on the early years of LDS Church history during which Harris was intimately involved with the coming forth of The Book of Mormon. Little has been done on his years in Cache Valley, except for collections of affidavits concerning his testimony.

This study gives a brief overview of Harris's first eighty-seven years, his journey to …

"In The Toils" Or "Onward For Zion": Images Of The Mormon Woman, 1852-1890, Gail Farr Casterline

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this thesis is to identify and discuss various popular images of the Mormon women of Utah between 1852 and 1890, the period during which the Latter-day Saints openly practiced plural marriage. The phrase "in the toils" refers to the basic image present in the minds of many Americans--that the women of the church were an oppressed, unhappy, enslaved group of individuals. This image, expressed in different ways, is found in many published writings of the period examined.

After demonstrating the presence of this "in the toils" image, this study then attempts to analyze and evaluate its significance. …

The Mormons And The Civil War, Boyd L. Eddins

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

I had intended originally to write on another subject and had begun the research. However, in the process of perusing sources available, a related subject captured my interest. The Mormon prophecy relating to the Civil War had been a source of my belief in the efficacy of latter-day revelation. I was under the impression that my Church was extremely interested in current events as indication of the fulfillment of prophecy. I theorized that if such a direct, detailed prophecy as the one received in 1832 by Joseph Smith, began to unfold in our day, considerable excitement would be aroused. Perhaps …