Mormon Studies Commons^™

The Legend Of The Bear Lake Monster, Melissa Anderson Asay

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

The Bear Lake Monster is a legend that has persisted for centuries. This monster is rooted in Shoshone oral traditions and hold the potential to be based off of fossils found in the Shoshone territory. This living legend was later amplified by Mormon settlers. One settler in particular, Joseph C. Rich, played a significant role in shaping its narrative. Though he eventually admitted to fabricating sightings to encourage settlement, belief in the creature remains alive today. The serpent’s presence in local lore has undeniably influenced the Bear Lake region, shaping both its identity and tourism industry. This legend serves as …

"Dark And Loathsome": The Construction And Persistence Of Racial Theology In The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints, Margaret Phillips

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints banned Black men from holding the priesthood until 1978, a policy many mistake for the whole of the faith's engagement with race. This thesis argues that the priesthood ban was only a symptom of a far deeper theology of race, one built into Mormonism's broader theology from its founding. Two intertwined beliefs anchor this theology: the default whiteness of the human body and soul, and twin curse narratives that mark Black and Indigenous peoples alike as bearers of a divine curse— dark skin read as the visible penalty for their ancestors' sin. …

Bedeviled Beauty: My Journey Through White American Theater Institutions, J'Aila C. Price

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Game console: Oculus Quest

World: American Theater Institutions

Player: Minority

Place: United States

Level: “Ain’t no way.”

This thesis explores the contrast between the Westernized philosophies ingrained in my education and my identity as a Black female artist. It sheds light on the difficulties of pursuing higher education in the arts and the gaps that arise from limited exposure to culturally diverse Black resources, revealing the systemic issues in Western performance education. The paper also discusses the insights gained from my journey as a Black female artist, focusing on my thesis performance of Blood at the Root, which is …

"I Know The Dream Mine Is True": Mormons, Mining, And The Making Of "Bad Religion" In Early Twentieth-Century Utah, Christine V. Shell

American Studies ETDs

In 1894, folksy Mormon farmer-turned-prophet John H. Koyle, Jr, dreamed that an angel from the Book of Mormon showed him where and how to mine for golden ore and Book of Mormon treasures. Shortly afterwards, Koyle and a handful of friends established the “Dream Mine” at the revealed location, and as word spread additional workers joined the cause—for this was a mine destined to save the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members from financial and spiritual ruin during the long-foretold apocalyptic “Last Days.”

Koyle’s followers took delight and solace from their participation in the Dream Mine’s …

Constructing A Religious Paradox: The Nauvoo Temple, 1841-1846, Justin R. Bates

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

While still in poverty and fleeing heavy persecution in 1841, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints committed themselves to an unexpected architectural endeavor. They decided to construct a temple to their God in their newly christened frontier city of Nauvoo, Illinois. What motivated these poor, homeless, persecuted Christians to start construction on such an ambitious project? Though they were being driven from the state, were about to lose the Temple, and had just lost their alleged prophet, they still chose to finish it. Despite significant financial and social challenges, the Latter-day Saints chose to build the …

Clark Memorandum: Spring 2022, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Byu Law School Alumni Association, J. Reuben Clark Law Society

The Clark Memorandum

• General Joseph Smith and His Candidacy for the Presidency of the United States
• Leadership Lessons from the Life of Dallin H. Oaks
• Flunking the Founding
• Seven Lessons from the Life of Rex Lee

The Saints And The State : The Mormon Troubles In Illinois, James Simeone

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

A compelling history of the 1846 Mormon expulsion from Illinois that exemplifies the limits of American democracy and religious tolerance.

When members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (known as Mormons) settled in Illinois in 1839, they had been persecuted for their beliefs from Ohio to Missouri. Illinoisans viewed themselves as religiously tolerant egalitarians and initially welcomed the Mormons to their state. However, non-Mormon locals who valued competitive individualism perceived the saints‘ western Illinois settlement, Nauvoo, as a theocracy with too much political power. Amid escalating tensions in 1844, anti-Mormon vigilantes assassinated church founder Joseph Smith and …

Mormon Women Connected Suffrage Directly To Joseph Smith’S First Vision And The Restoration Of The Gospel: Reflections From The 1920 Relief Society Magazine, Ahsley Anderson Webb, Jay H. Buckley

Faculty Publications

On a cold Thursday in early February 1920, newly enfranchised women from across the nation huddled together in Chicago for a seven-day-long Golden Jubilee. The anticipated passage of the Nineteenth Amendment needed only three more states for ratification, which occurred a few months later. At the same time, women in Utah reflected back half a century to February 12, 1870, when Utah Territory granted women the right to vote. Female Utahns rejoiced with their sisters throughout the United States who anticipated the fruition of universal suffrage. Susa Young Gates, who attended the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association Convention in Chicago, …

Limitation, Liberation, And The Latter-Day Saints: The Establishment Of Mormon Womanhood In The Woman’S Exponent, 1872-1890, Meaghan Harrington

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Navigating the establishment of Mormon womanhood from 1872-1890 in the Exponent shows how Mormon women related to their outer world, their inner world, and themselves. This thesis analyzes the thoughts, feelings, and desires of a complex sociocultural grouping, and asks the reader to question their own attitudes towards gender and culture. The rhetoric of Mormon womanhood in the Exponent and the culture from which it stemmed have implications for understanding both “the rights of the women of Zion, and the rights of the women of all nations.”

“O Stop And Tell Me, Red Man”: Indian Removal And The Lamanite Mission Of 1830-31, Kaleb C. Miner

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

In 1830-1831, Mormon missionaries were sent out to proselytize Native Americans—an effort called the “Lamanite Mission.” While this event has been scrutinized multiple times over and in a variety of ways, the Native Americans themselves are most often either considered passive characters in the narrative or ignored completely. However, understanding the circumstances of those Native Americans leading up to the Lamanite Mission, during the era of Indian Removal, can give a deeper understanding of the early Mormon mission which has heretofore been ignored. Understanding Indian Removal not only explains why the Seneca, Wyandot, Shawnee, and Delaware people were located as …

Nineteenth-Century American Religion And Politics In The West: Doctrinal Shifts In Mormonism And The Creation Of Utah, Katherine Manning

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

American religion and politics have always been closely intertwined. Though America was founded on ideals of religious pluralism and tolerance, the actual landscape of American religion often resembled the opposite of these ideas. As a religious majority, Protestants in the nineteenth-century believed in a specific American identity—one which championed the “virtuous” family and a capitalist market system. Yet, some religious organizations challenged these norms, making them the object of intense persecution. One of the most famous of these examples is the Mormons. From their “peculiar” beliefs to their separatist goals, Mormons presented the American people with a religious group which …

Beyond The Exodus: Nauvoo After 1849, Rebecca A. Wiederhold, Dainan Skeem

Faculty Publications

Nauvoo, the City Beautiful, was named by Joseph Smith in 1839 when the Mormons began settling the area. After seven short years, the Saints had built a city to rival Chicago at the time. In 1844, Joseph was martyred and in 1847 the Mormons fled the city, changing the makeup of the town’s population and the direction of its growth. Emma Smith eventually returned with the remainder of her family and was beloved of the neighborhood children. Many other families not associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued to farm the land and raise families. As …

Forging The Mormon Myth, Maryanne Hafen

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

The work of the forger Mark Hofmann frames many key problems and changes in Mormon historiography. More specifically, it reveals a tension between versions of Mormon history that are propagated in the religion. On one hand, there is a documented and literal history. On the other, a sacred and engaging myth. However, these two cannot coexist harmoniously.

"Saints Observed": Outside Observations Of Mormon Life, Matthew J. Grow

New Mexico Historical Review

No abstract provided.

Utah’S Role In Protecting The Mormon Trail During The Civil War, Kenneth L. Alford Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This chapter (from the 2015 book “Far Away in the West: Reflections on the Mormon Pioneer Trail” published by the Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center) sets the stage for Utah Territory’s role protecting the Mormon Trail during the Civil War by outlining the Utah War (1857-1858). This essay begins by comparing and contracting Washington, DC’s wartime interest in the trail with that of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Utah Territory. The essay then outlines the changing parties who were responsible for the trail between 1861 and 1865 – the U.S. Army (spring-summer 1861), no one …

We Know No North, No South, No East, No West: Mormon Interpretations Of The Civil War, 1861-1865, Richard Bennett

Faculty Publications

While peace reigns in Utah, civil war, with all its horrors, prevails among those who earnestly desired to see the soil of these valleys crimsoned with the blood of the Saints, and, if we are mistaken in the signs of the times, before the conflict between the North and South shall have ended, all they unitedly desired to see meted out to the Mormons, will be poured out without measure upon those who have initiated the war of extermination, and are now carrying it on with all the energy they severally possess. So read the lead editorial in the Salt …

Pronounced Clean, Comfortable, And Good Looking: The Passage Of Mormon Immigrants Through The Port Of Philadelphia, Fred E. Woods

Faculty Publications

We were pronounced clean, comfortable, and good looking. So wrote LDS voyage leader Matthias Cowley after arriving in Philadelphia with a company of foreign Saints in the mid-nineteenth century. At this time, Latter-day Saint European immigrants, obeying the call to come to Zion, were gathering to America by the thousands on the way to their Mormon Mecca in Salt Lake City. They were obeying the call to come to Zion. In 1852, the First Presidency issued the following counsel: "When a people, or individuals, hear the Gospel, obey its first principles, are baptized for the remission of sins, and receive …

The "Tabernacle Post Office" Petition For The Saints Of Kanesville, Iowa, Fred E. Woods, Maurine Carr Ward

Faculty Publications

As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. Thus spoke wise King Solomon a millennium before the birth of Christ. As America labored to give birth to a new nation, the United States Post Office Department was born when the Second Continental Congress met in 1775 at Philadelphia and agreed to appoint Benjamin Franklin as the country's first postmaster general. During the nineteenth century, America continued to grow in population as children were born and as immigrants crossed the Atlantic to the land of promise. This growth not only caused America to lengthen …

Utah's Plight: A Passage Through The Great Depression, Joseph F. Darowski

Theses and Dissertations

The Great Depression marked a fateful passage in the annals of the American people. President Roosevelt's New Deal, the nation's signature response, proved to be a determined but erratic reaction. Against the backdrop of a nation deeply mired in an unrelenting international depression, dramatic events played themselves out in the lives of the men and women of Utah. Throughout, fidelity to principles of independence, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency were sorely challenged.

The people of Utah found succor in two almost diametrically opposed responses. The New Deal offered an amalgam of programs and panaceas through which the federal government attempted to deliver …

From Liverpool To Keokuk: The Mormon Maritime Migration Experience Of 1853, Fred E. Woods

Faculty Publications

In January, Fifty-three, we left our English home, Determined for the Gospel's sake, to Zion's land to come. Our family was very small, its members numbered three, Yet strong in faith of Israel's God, and full of hope were we. 'Twas not to us an easy task to bid old friends adieu, To take a long farewell of those who always had been true, To leave for aye, the cozy home we made but just before, And take a last fond look of things we should behold no more; The wind blew keen, as out we went into the cold …

The 1853 Mormon Migration Through Keokuk, Fred E. Woods, Douglas Atterberg

Faculty Publications

In May 1853, William W. Belknap, who would later serve as a major general in the Civil War and as secretary of war to President Grant, wrote to his sister, Clara, about the Mormon emigrants who were outfitting in Keokuk, Iowa, that spring and summer: "Yesterday was Sunday and I wish you had been here to go up to the Mormon Camp with me. They had preaching at three stands in three languages--English, German, and Danish. They sing --especially the Danes--very sincerely and are perfectly enthusiastic. It is a strange, strange mystery and if you were here you'd be astonished. …

Island Of Tranquility: Rhetoric And Identification At Brigham Young University During The Vietnam Era, Brian D. Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

The author argues that beyond religious beliefs and conservative politics, rhetorical identification played an important role in the relative calmness of the BYU campus during the turbulent Sixties. Using Bitzer's rhetorical situation theory and Burke's identification theory, the author shows that BYU's calm campus can be explained as a result of communal identification with a conservative ethos. He also shows that apparent epistemological shortcomings of Bitzer's model can be resolved by considering the power of identification to create salience and knowledge in rhetorical situations. During the Sixties, BYU administration developed policies on physical appearance that invited students to take on …

How Long, Oh Lord, How Long? James E. Talmage And The Great War, Richard Bennett

Faculty Publications

What is it that is happening? A war greater in area and scale and more fearful in carnage, than any that has ever been since life on the round world began. Five months--no more--have passed since the first gun was fired, and already the list of men who were strong, healthy, capable, keen, five short months ago, and who are now stark in death, outnumbers anything of its kind in human history. And to reckon up the load of sheer blank sorrow in innumerable homes, and the actual but incidental war sufferings, short of death, or possibly worse than death, …

Faith, Femininity, And The Frontier: The Life Of Martha Jane Knowlton Coray, Amy Reynolds Billings

Theses and Dissertations

Through examining the life of Martha Jane Knowlton Coray, a nineteenth-century Mormon woman, this thesis establishes an analytical framework for studying the lives of Mormon women in territorial Utah. Their faith, femininity, and the frontier form the boundaries in which their lives are studied. Their faith was primarily defined by the doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, such as a belief in a restored gospel and priesthood, temples, and polygamy. These unique beliefs also fostered an identity as a chosen people and contributed to hostile feelings from their neighbors. Persecution followed and the Latter-day Saint community …

Two Sides Of A River: Mormon Transmigration Through Quincy, Illinois, And Hannibal, Missouri, Fred E. Woods

Faculty Publications

The infamous extermination order issued 27 October 1838 by Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs caused thousands of Latter-day Saints to flee the state and seek refuge in Illinois across the Mississippi River. Illinois, established in 1817, had high hopes for its future, but just two decades later it was smitten, like the rest of America, with the economic depression of 1837. In such a needy condition, the people Illinois welcomed the Mormon migrants for three central reasons. Financially motivated, the state viewed the Latter-day Saint influx as an opportunity to raise its population to boost the economy through the collection …

Gathering To Nauvoo: Mormon Immigration 1840-46, Fred E. Woods

Faculty Publications

The gathering of the Mormon pioneers to Utah (commencing in 1847) has received extensive attention; however, the earlier LDS immigration to Nauvoo has not been adequately treated. This paper is the inspiring story of the British Saints who traveled to Nauvoo between June 1840 and February 1846. The international call to gather was received by the Prophet Joseph Smith during the second presentation of the Restored Church, less than six months after its organization in 1830.

More Precious Than Gold: The Journey To And Through Zion In 1849-50, Fred E. Woods

Faculty Publications

The California gold rush, the first international gold rush in history, turned the world upside down, reaching its zenith in the years 1849-50. As a result of the rush during these two climactic years, the population swelled our nation's Pacific coast, entitling California to receive statehood in the fall of 1850. During these catalytic years, Latter-day Saints were journeying to the American West for a different kind of treasure. They gathered from afar to their Mormon mecca nestled in the Salt Lake Valley to fulfill their dreams of establishing Zion. Yet the California gold rush had a significant impact on …

The Star-Spangled Banner Forever Be Furled: The Mormon Exodus As Liberty, Richard Bennett

Faculty Publications

You wanted to know what we waited to move for, wrote Sidney Tanner, an early Mormon pioneer, to his family in the East. "It was to go to a land of freedom where we could enjoy the peace of society and our liberty. We did not want to live in a country where there was no peace, no liberty and its citizens [were] not allowed their rights." So much has been written about the Mormon Trail that one wonders if there is anything of consequence to be said. Surely all the prominent details are well known. And were it not …

Some Reflections At Winter Quarters, Richard E. Bennett

Faculty Publications

On this Memorial Day weekend, it is altogether fitting and appropriate that we gather today at this sacred place to remember the lives of our progenitors everywhere. From Gettysburg to Hiroshima, from Arlington to Flanders Field, and from the city cemetery to the family plot, we honor our dead ancestors and friends long since stilled. Whether they died on the battle fields of war or perished in the labor of giving birth, we honor them. Whether on the trail to a new life in Oregon or a new chance in Ukraine, they all were the lifeline to our present bright …

Children On The Mormon Trail, Jill Jacobsen Andros

Theses and Dissertations

Using first person, reminiscent accounts, this thesis examines children's lives on the Mormon Trail. It attempts to shed further light on the story of the Mormon Trail by sharing the perspectives of pioneers who crossed the plains as children. This study focuses on such issues as the children's impressions of the trail, their experiences on it, their duties, their family life, and the influence of religion. This study highlights the symbiotic relationship between children and the trail: children affected trail life and at the same time were affected by their experiences on the trail. Children shouldered responsibilites that were essential …