Mormon Studies Commons^™

Female Breast Cancer Incidence And Survival In Utah According To Religious Preference, 1985-1999, Ray M. Merrill, Jeffrey A. Folsom

Faculty Publications

Female breast cancer incidence rates in Utah are among the lowest in the U.S. The influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint (LDS or Mormon) religion on these rates, as well as on disease-specific survival, will be explored for individuals diagnosed with breast cancer in Utah from 1985 through 1999. Methods: Population-based records for incident female breast cancer patients were linked with membership records from the LDS Church to determine religious affiliation and, for LDS Church members, level of religiosity. Incidence rates were age-adjusted to the 2000 U.S. standard population using the direct method. Cox proportional hazards …

Building Zion: The Latter-Day Saint Legacy Of Urban Planning, Craig D. Galli

BYU Studies

As with the founding of Plymouth Colony, distinctive historical circumstances and theological beliefs converged to motivate early Latter-day Saint community builders. While the historic roots of Salt Lake City are well known to virtually every grade school student in Utah and to Church members around the world, aspects of our remarkable legacy of urban and transportation planning remain obscure. The physical design and community values underlying early attempts to build Zion provide useful perspective and inspiration as today's community leaders now grapple with managing urban growth along Utah's Wasatch Front (from Brigham City to Nephi and Grantsville to Kamas) and …

George H. Brimhall's Legacy Of Service To Brigham Young University, Joseph H. Groberg, Mary Jane Woodger

BYU Studies

Franklin S. Harris, president of Brigham Young University from 1921 to 1945, said of his predecessor, George H. Brimhall (fig. 1), "George H. Brimhall, under a tree would make a university any day for where he teaches students will always gather to be taught." Brimhall had two great causes, Harris said: his religion and the cause of education. From his youth to his old age, Brimhall carried these causes forward with unrelenting vigor. In his service as president of Brigham Young University (1904-1921), they merged into one: a university supported by, loyal to, and controlled by The Church of Jesus …

Qualities That Count: Heber J. Grant As Businessman, Missionary, And Apostle, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Growing Up In Early Utah: The Wasatch Literary Association 1874-1878, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

One day in early February 1874, Jim Ferguson, sensing the forlorn hope of advancing his courtship with Minnie Horne, suggested to Ort (Orson F.) Whitney and another of the boys that they organize a reading society. Ferguson "had heard, no doubt, of fond couples 'reading life's meaning in each others eyes,'" Whitney later mused, "and that was the kind of reading that most interested him." Since the seventeen-year-old Whitney found himself "in the same box with Ferguson on the girl question," the suggestion found a ready response. Whitney immediately invited those who "would make desirable members" to meet at the …

Young Heber J. Grant: Entrepreneur Extraordinary, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

When lecturing at the Harvard Law School, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes told students they could do anything they wanted to in life, if only they wanted to hard enough. Later in a private aside he added, "But what I did not tell them was that they had to be born wanting to."

Young Heber J. Grant's Years Of Passage, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

As Heber J. Grant came of age, Mormonism was as much a part of the Utah landscape as the territory's dusty valleys and vaulting mountain walls. Young Heber met religion everywhere—in his Salt Lake City home and neighborhood, at the Tabernacle on Temple Square, in the offices of Church and civic leaders where he sometimes ventured, and certainly in his native Thirteenth Ward, one of the most innovative and organizationally developed Latter-day Saint congregations of the time. Slowly young Heber internalized his religious culture, but not before encountering the usual perils of adolescence and coming of age. The process tells …

Strangers In A Strange Land: Heber J. Grant And The Opening Of The Japan Mission, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

When Heber J. Grant returned from a two-week vacation in Pacific Grove, California, in February 1901, the news he heard at first seemed favorable. One of his associates in the Quorum of the Twelve, Francis M. Lyman, had been asked to preside over the Church's European Mission. Elder Grant congratulated himself that "missionary lightning had once more escaped me," "heaved a sigh of relief," and embraced Lyman in mock celebration.

Crisis In Zion: Heber J. Grant And The Panic Of 1893, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

In late June 1893, Heber J. Grant, a pencil-thin, bewhiskered young man, waited nervously in the downtown office of New York businessman John Claflin. Thirty-six years old and conservatively dressed, Grant was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and president or director of at least a dozen Salt Lake City-based businesses. A financial panic had struck the nation and the Mormon businessman was urgently seeking a loan to save himself and his church from bankruptcy. Although similar dramas were being enacted in business and banking houses across the …

Jedediah And Heber Grant, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

On December 1, 1856, Elder Wilford Woodruff and Elder Franklin D. Richards left the Church historian's office for the home of Jedediah Grant, less than a block away. The hour was late, about 10:30 in the evening. It had snowed several inches during the day, and the weather was turning cold.

Rachel R. Grant: The Continuing Legacy Of The Feminine Ideal, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

We can imagine ourselves visiting Aunt Rachel Grant, longtime president of the Thirteenth Ward Relief Society and one of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint's "leading ladies," at her home on Salt Lake City's Second East Street. In the year of our visit, 1890, her two-story, plastered adobe home partakes of the prevailing feminine ideal that stresses homemaking and handicraft. The stove is highly burnished, while the arms of each chair are covered with homemade lace crocheting. A corner "whatnot" meticulously displays pictures, small framed mottoes, wax and hair flowers, and other curios. Rachel's person also reflects her …

Heber J. Grant And The Utah Loan And Trust Company, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

Before 6:00 A.M. on May 29, 1897, the portly and veteran Apostle Brigham Young Jr., himself ailing due to an attack of dropsy, called at the Heber J. Grant household to pray a blessing upon his associate. He found that "Bro Grant... had a poor night but he was going to the hospital with firm faith that all would be well." The day before, Grant awoke with sever lumbar and abdominal pain. The doctors diagnosed a ruptured appendix and advanced peritonitis and advised immediate surgery. As the hour-and-a-half operation progressed, the nine attending surgeons found "extraordinary suppuration and commenced mortification." …

Young Heber J. Grant And His Call To The Apostleship, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

A year following his call to become president of the Tooele Stake, twenty-four-year-old Heber J. Grant stopped by the Salt Lake studio of Charles Savage, the pioneer photographer. The conversation took an unexpected turn. Elder Grant wrote in his journal that Savage told him "to put it down that within one year I would be a member of the Twelve Apostles."

Grant's Watershed: Succession In The Presidency, 1887-1889, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

Events during 1887-89, during Elder Wilford Woodruff's succession to the Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, remains an important but largely untold story—a time when differing views divided the Church's General Authorities and when the policies and procedures for installing a new president of the Church were tested and confirmed. These years are also important for the insights they offer in understanding the life of Heber J. Grant, who himself regarded that time as a personal watershed. While it is clear that he acted with candor, energy, and idealism throughout the episode, with hindsight he believed …

Heber J. Grant's European Mission, 1903-1906, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

Elder Heber J. Grant landed in Liverpool, England, in November 1903, and by the first of the year he officially assumed his new position as president of the European Mission. The mission began at Tromso, Norway; and ran to Cape Town, South Africa; with Iceland and India serving as distant east-west meridians. While the church had branches in each of these extremities, Grant's field of labor was more compact. Most of the mission's effort was reserved to the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, where he had a general superintendency, and especially in the British Isles, where he had duties that …

A Mormon “Widow” In Colorado: The Exile Of Emily Wells Grant, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

As the southbound Denver & Rio Grande train pulled out of the depot at Salt Lake City in November 1889, Emily Wells Grant breathed a sigh of relief, and relaxed. As a plural wife of Elder Heber J. Grant, she was used to dodging United States marshals. Her recent crisis, she admitted, was of her own making. Why had she insisted on attending her father's seventy-fifth birthday celebration in the Twelfth Ward after five years of secrecy? She had been spotted there, the grand jury had reopened her husband's cohabitation case, and she had been forced to flee again. The …

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 …

John B. Fairbanks: The Man Behind The Canvas, Rachel Cope

Theses and Dissertations

A biographical sketch of artist John B. Fairbanks, this thesis primarily probes Fairbanks' evolution as an artist. From amateur, to art missionary, to professional artist, Fairbanks influenced his cultural surroundings in Utah and in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His commitment to his career and his impact on others significantly affected Utah and Mormon art. Thus it is important to understand and recognize the full portrait of John B. Fairbanks.

John B. Fairbanks, born on 27 December 1855, developed an interest in art while still young. Until reaching the age of thirty-four, he often worked as an …

The Trial Of Don Pedro León Luján: The Attack Against Indian Slavery And Mexican Traders In Utah Sondra Jones, Jacqueline S. Thursby

BYU Studies

Sondra Jones. The Trial of Don Pedro León Luján: The Attack against Indian Slavery and Mexican Traders in Utah. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000.

Toward A Better Understanding Of The Comparatively High Prostate Cancer Incidence Rates In Utah, Ray M. Merrill, Sterling C. Hilton, Jared D. Sturgeon, Charles L. Wiggins

Faculty Publications

This study assesses whether comparatively high prostate cancer incidence rates among white men in Utah represent higher rates among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS or Mormons), who comprise about 70% of the state's male population, and considers the potential influence screening has on these rates. Methods: Analyses are based on 14,693 histologically confirmed invasive prostate cancer cases among men aged 50 years and older identified through the Utah Cancer Registry between 1985 and 1999. Cancer records were linked to LDS Church membership records to determine LDS status. Poisson regression was used to derive rate …

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 …

The Symphony In America: Maurice Abravanel, And The Utah Symphony Orchestra: The Battle For Classical Music, Alex D. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Between 1947 and 1979 the Utah Symphony Orchestra was transformed from an obscure, part-time, amateur orchestra into one of the major symphony orchestras in America. By 1947 the orchestra, which had begun as a Works Progress Administration organization, was barely hanging on. The symphony struggled to remain financially solvent, performing only a few concerts per year. Thirty-two years later the Utah Symphony Orchestra was one of the most prestigious musical ensembles in the country— receiving rave reviews from critics around the world, touring extensively, and with more than a hundred albums to its credit. The remarkable growth of the Utah …

Motivations And Gratifications For Selecting A Niche Television Channel: Byu Television, Diena L. Simmons

Theses and Dissertations

The growth of direct broadcast satellite television distribution to the home as a viable competitor to cable and terrestrial broadcast has fostered the availability of special interest or niche channels and therefore provided greater choice to the viewer. This study, based on uses and gratifications theory, examined the relationships among ritual and instrumental viewing motivations and satisfactions, viewer religiosity, and viewing attentiveness as they related to the selection of a niche television channel, Brigham Young University Television.
The uses and gratification approach provides an appropriate framework for studying "media consumption, the interrelated nature of television user motives, and the relationships …

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 …

The Historical Ceramics Of Camp Floyd, Jennifer L. Elsken

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an historical archaeological project involving the classification and analysis of the ceramics found at Camp Floyd, a 19th century military site 40 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. United States military troops were dispatched to the Utah Territory to establish a Pony Express Station and an Overland Stage Trail, to assert federal authority in the Territories, and to end the ongoing conflict between the federal government and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The primary research question concerned the ceramic usage patterns at Camp Floyd as compared to other military sites and non-residential …

“All Hail To Christmas”: Mormon Pioneer Holiday Celebrations, Richard Ian Kimball

BYU Studies

To Mormon historians and members of the Church generally, Christmas is not a particularly "Mormon" holiday. Though contemporary Latter-day Saints throughout the world embrace a variety of traditions that commemorate the holiday, no major body of distinctively Mormon tradition surrounds the day in December traditionally reserved for the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Mormons celebrate the holiday like most other Christians—reading from the nativity account in Luke, exchanging presents, and spending time with family and friends. Santa Claus, decorated trees, and the redemptive story of Ebenezer Scrooge all are staples of the winter holiday for Mormons in the …

Brigham Young And The Mission Of Mormonism, Jed Woodworth

BYU Studies

For the most part, Brigham Young chose to ignore his critics, but on occasion he personally responded to them. The letter printed below contains Brigham Young's 1869 answer to a newspaper editor's question, "What is the mission of the Mormons?" Mormonism's fruits, Brigham attested, substantiated its faith claims.

Western Psalm, Josh Allen

English Theses & Dissertations

Western Psalm is a memoir that focuses on Utah and the people of that land. It is an attempt to tell the story of one Mormon in the hopes that that one story will capture the larger story of Mormonism itself.

Western Psalm is a book about identity and how identity is shaped by history. It explores Utahan and Mormon histories and the effects those histories have upon individual character. Western Psalm is about the conflict between finding an individual identity while at the same time honoring and being true to the identities that history demands we acknowledge.

In other …

Printing In Deseret: Mormons, Economy, Politics, And Utah's Incunabula, 1849-1851: A History And Descriptive Bibliography Richard L. Saunders, Craig L. Foster

BYU Studies

Richard L. Saunders. Printing in Deseret: Mormons, Economy, Politics, and Utah's Incunabula, 1849-1851: A History and Descriptive Bibliography. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000. xv; 213 pp. Illustrations. $35.00.

Service Learning In Business Schools: What The H.E.L.P. Honduras Story Teaches About Building, Sustaining, And Replicating International Initiatives In Graduate Programs, Lisa Mali Jones

Theses and Dissertations

This document outlines the foundation and first year results of the H.E.L.P. Honduras organization, which was formed as a student-based, student-governed international outreach initiative at the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. Specifically, in its first year the organization focused on providing microcredit and service relief to victims of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras.

After studying the case of H.E.L.P. Honduras, readers should conclude that educators interested in sponsoring sustainable student-run service learning organizations at private universities must address three primary issues: the problem of student selection and turnover, the need for administrative and faculty endorsement, and the need …