Cultural History Commons^™

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 …