History of Religion Commons^™

Exposé Of Polygamy: A Lady's Life Among The Mormons, Fanny Stenhouse

All USU Press Publications

After the 1872 publication of Exposé of Polygamy, Fanny Stenhouse became a celebrity in the cultural wars between Mormons and much of America. An English convert to Mormonism, she had grown disillusioned with the Mormon Church and with polygamy, which her husband practiced before associating with a circle of dissident Utah intellectua ls and merchants. Stenhouse's critique of plural marriage, Brigham Young, and Mormonism was also a sympathetic look at Utah's people and honest recounting of her life. Before long, she created a new edition, titled Tell It All, which ensured her notoriety in Utah and popularity elsewhere but turned …

Mormonism's Last Colonizer: The Life And Times Of William H. Smart, William B. Smart

All USU Press Publications

By the early twentieth century, the era of organized Mormon colonization of the West from a base in Salt Lake City was all but over. One significant region of Utah had not been colonized because it remained in Native American hands--the Uinta Basin, site of a reservation for the Northern Utes. When the federal government decided to open the reservation to white settlement, William H. Smart--a nineteenth-century Mormon traditionalist living in the twentieth century, a polygamist in an era when it was banned, a fervently moral stake president who as a youth had struggled mightily with his own sense of …

Religion, Politics, And Sugar: The Mormon Church, The Federal Government, And The Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, 1907 To 1921, Matthew C. Godfrey

All USU Press Publications

One famous target of Progressive Era attempts to rein in monopolistic big business was the eastern Sugar Trust. Less known is how federal regulators also tried to break monopoly control over beet sugar in the West by going after the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, a business supported and controlled by the Latter-day Saints church and run by Mormon authorities. As sugar beet agriculture boomed, the Mormon church's involvement led directly to monopolistic practices by Utah-Idaho Sugar and to federal investigations. Church leaders encouraged members, a majority population in much of the intermountain West, to patronize the company exclusively, as suppliers and …

Polygamy On The Pedernales: Lyman Wight's Mormon Villages In Antebellum Texas, 1845-1858, Melvin C. Johnson

All USU Press Publications

In the wake of Joseph Smith Jr.'s murder in 1844, his following splintered. Most of the membership ultimately followed Brigham Young to Utah, but smaller groups coalesced around other Mormon leaders. A number of these later combined to form the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now the Community of Christ. Among those were most of the remaining followers of a maverick Mormon apostle, Lyman Wight. Sometimes called the "Wild Ram of Texas," Wight took his splinter group to frontier Texas, a destination to which Smith, before his murder, had considered moving his followers, who were increasingly …

The Marrow Of Human Experience, William A. Wilson

All USU Press Publications

Composed over several decades, the essays here are remarkably fresh and relevant. They offer instruction for the student just beginning the study of folklore as well as repeated value for the many established scholars who continue to wrestle with issues that Wilson has addressed. As his work has long offered insight on critical mattersn--nationalism, genre, belief, the relationship of folklore to other disciplines in the humanities and arts, the currency of legend, the significance of humor as a cultural expression, and so forth--so his recent writing, in its reflexive approach to narrative and storytelling, illuminates today's paradigms. Its notable autobiographical …

Emma Hale Smith Bidamon: A Study Of How The Enigma Was Forgotten, Christine Hegstrom Merrill

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

"Beyond history's garden gates, the thick jungle of the past remains, and memory's trails lead off into it" (Richard White). Historians throughout time have had to decipher and toil between memory and history as they have reconstructed the past-laboring with the similarities between the two, as well as major differences. With these historical studies have come theories about memory and history, with new divisions within each category, from private to public to historical memory and from autobiographical to biographical histories. This paper originated as a biographical study of Emma Hale Smith Bidamon, a leading figure in the early days of …

Junius And Joseph: Presidential Politics And The Assassination Of The First Mormon Prophet, Robert S. Wicks, Fred R. Foister

All USU Press Publications

"Junius and Joseph examines Joseph Smith's nearly forgotten [1844] presidential bid, the events leading up to his assassination on June 27, 1844, and the tangled aftermath of the tragic incident. It... establishes that Joseph Smith's murder, rather than being the deadly outcome of a spontaneous mob uprising, was in fact a carefully planned military-style execution. It is now possible to identify many of the key individuals engaged in planning his assassination as well as those who took part in the assault on Carthage jail. And furthermore, this study presents incontrovertible evidence that the effort to remove the Mormon leader from …

Building The "Goodly Fellowship Of Faith", Frederick Quinn

All USU Press Publications

As this critical, independent history, which ends with the ordination of one of the first women bishops in the nation, shows, Utah Episcopalians have had, despite small numbers, a remarkably eventful and significant history, which included complex relations with Mormons and Native Americans, early experience of women and homosexuals in the ministry, and a fascinating set of bishops. Among the latter were Daniel Tuttle, a leading figure in Episcopal history; Christian socialist and Social Gospel proponent Frank Spencer Spalding; and Paul Jones, forced to resign because of his pacifism during WWI. Frederick Quinn, an Episcopal priest and historian, is adjunct …

One Side By Himself: The Life And Times Of Lewis Barney, 1808-1894, Ronald O. Barney

All USU Press Publications

"What an astonishing life and what a remarkable biography. Lewis Barney's sojourn on the hard edge of the American frontier is a forgotten epic. Not only does this book tell of an amazing personal odyssey from his birth in upstate New York in 1808 to his death in Mancos, Colorado, in 1894, but Barney's tale represents a living evocation of some of the most significant themes in American history. Frederick Jackson Turner theorized that the frontier shaped our national character, but Lewis Barney's life stands as a testament to the real impact of the westering experience on a man and …

"I Was Seeled To The Prophet In Nauvoo": Helen Mar Whitney And A Lifetime In "The Principle", Tamora M. Hoskisson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

On a spring day in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1843, fourteen year-old Helen Mar Kimball, married thirty-seven year-old Joseph Smith, prophet, president, and founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The couple did not publicize the event nor invite friends to attend. Secrecy shrouded the wedding. A public announcement would not have been prudent for the young Latter-day Saint (LDS or "Mormon") church, as Helen's new husband, Joseph Smith, was not only already married, but to dozens of other women.¹

Biography Of James Jarvis Chandler, Paul S. Davis

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis is a general biography of a Mormon pioneer who, although not among the most renowned church officials, played a pivotal role in building Zion as teacher, missionary, leader, politician, husband, and father. After his conversion as a boy in England to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he and his family emigrated to America and settled in Willard, Utah. With a keen mind and a zeal for learning, Chandler pursued an education to prepare him for future employment as a school teacher. Although pupils throughout northern Utah and southern Idaho profited from his teaching proficiency and …

The History Of Louisa Barnes Pratt, George Ellsworth

All USU Press Publications

In her memoir, and 1870s revision of her journal and diary, Louisa Barnes Pratt tells of childhood in Massachusetts and Canada during the War of 1812, and independent career as a teacher and seamstress in New England, and her marriage to the Boston seaman Addison Pratt.

Converting to the LDS Church, the Pratts moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, from where Brigham Young sent Addison on the first of the long missions to the Society Islands that would leave Louisa on her own. As a sole available parent, she hauled her children west to Winter Quarters, to Utah in 1848, to California, …

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 …

Osiris, God Of Ancient Egypt And A Brief Background Of Egyptian Mythology, Carol Pendleton

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

In a country which has been subjected to so many inflows of various peoples, languages, and cultural patterns as has Egypt, one may expect to find a great diversity of deities and a complex and inconsistent theology. To differentiate the principal gods is the first step toward understanding the growth of the Egyptian religion. For in instances where polytheism can be traced back to its earliest stages we find that it usually has developed from a combination of monotheistic beliefs. It is improbable to suppose that a people would unite two gods, both of which belonged to them originally; there …

The Northwestern Shoshone Indians, (A) Under Tribal Organization And Government, (B) Under The Eccleastical Administration Of The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints As Exemplified At The Washakie Colony, Utah, Joshua T. Evans

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Northwestern Shoshone Indians is the tribe of Indians that inhabited the territory north of the Great Salt Lake comprising the northern part of Utah and the Southern part of Idaho. The Indians have loose boundary lines, yet we can definitely state that this tribe occupied the territory from the Weber river on the South to the Snake river on the North; from Bear Lake and Bear river on the East to Raft river and Goose creek on the West. Their confines would take in Weber, Rich, Box Elder, Cache, and part of Morgan, counties in Utah; and Bear Lake, …