Item Detail
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Transformation of the Mormon Culture Region
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2003
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[From a book review by James B. Allen for the American Historical Review] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints changed in highly significant ways between 1880 and 1920. Yorgason adds the special insight of a cultural geographer to understanding this transformation as he focuses on changes in perspectives of both Mormons and non-Mormons in the “Mormon culture region.” Nineteenth century non-Mormons were bent on “Americanizing” Mormons by forcing them to get rid of polygamy, church domination of political life, and their brand of communitarianism. The Mormons’ defense of these things exacerbated intra-regional strain but by 1920 they had abandoned polygamy, had aligned themselves with national political parties, were no longer dominated politically by the church, and had fully embraced American capitalism. As a result, the relationship between Mormons and non-Mormons was entirely different. In broad outline this is no surprise to students of Mormon history, but what is new is Yorgason’s fresh interpretation of the underlying nature of the changes. After analyzing the nature of regions and their sociological significance in America, Yorgason discusses four major themes involved in the transformation of the Mormon cultural region: gender, the move from communitarianism to capitalism, perceptions of Mormon relationships to America and its history, and the family. In doing so he does not hide his personal biases in favor of feminism, egalitarianism, and current liberal politics. Yorgason shows that Mormon women were more independent and had more “cultural authority” in 1880 than they did in 1920. They were also part of the larger feminist movement, especially in the quest for suffrage. By 1920, however, they had stopped trying to reform gender roles further. Content with their achievements and with their roles in the still strongly patriarchal, monogamous American society, they were unprepared, Yorgason argues, to take the next step with American feminism that involved criticism of that society. Mormonism also changed from a society based on communitarian ideology to one that accepted and promoted “individualism, speculation, and inequality” (78). Yorgason contends, however, that the standard perception of this change is too simplistic for it does not treat the economy as having a cultural or moral component. The major change was not that Mormons became capitalists but, rather, their “further acceptance of capitalistic cultural logic” (127), which assumed the necessity of subordinate positions, or inequality, in society as opposed to the earlier emphasis on equality. This is seen in changing attitudes toward wage labor as well as in the effort by Mormons to colonize the Uintah Indian Reservation after its opening in 1905. In this particular capitalistic pursuit, Yorgason concludes, Mormons, “much like most people throughout U.S. history, thought only through their own conceptual prisms.... They exhibited few qualms about sacrificing Native American communal wealth at the alter of their own Zion”(94). Nineteenth century non-Mormons questioned Mormon loyalty to America while Mormons saw themselves as a persecuted people and “felt little compulsion to conform to national sociocultural norms or to follow the federal government in bad policies” (131). By 1920, however, they were seen, both by themselves and others, as a loyal part of the American mainstream. They no longer linked religion with political opinion. They looked at their own history, and its relationship to American history, in a new way, tending to suppress the differences and emphasize the similarities. They saw their destiny tied with that of the nation, and felt that their mission “was as much to make Americans as to make Mormons” (166). They still had unique religious beliefs and practices but, having been “Americanized,” they were also “happy to jump on the nation’s bandwagon” (170), along with regional non-Mormons. Yorgason also argues that nineteenth-century Mormons “never felt a great need to separate family and home from the rest of society,” whereas by 1920 they had accepted the nuclear family as the “fundamental unit of society” (175). There was also a regional connotation for the word home, and in 1920 the regional home was shared more comfortably with non-Mormons. Yorgason laments, however, that something was lost in this transformation: “the willingness of many people to seek fundamental changes in American society” (184). Most Mormons were no longer aware “that Mormon culture once encompassed a social agenda offering fundamental alternatives to the national status quo” (186). In a brief “Afterword” Yorgason idealizes a time when Mormonism will again be in greater tension with the broader society, rather than being comfortable as the “model minority.” It ought to stand for more egalitarian political, social, and economic reforms, he implies, and, as an active Mormon, he is saddened by what he thinks his church has lost by not participating in that “wider conversation” (192). Yorgason demonstrates a remarkable grasp of relevant secondary literature, drawing upon various sociological models as well as a wide range of historical literature for his interpretive framework. He has also done painstaking research in primary sources, including sermons, letters, diaries, newspapers, periodicals, and various government documents. The book his highly complex, and perhaps not one for popular consumption, but it ought to be brought to the attention of anyone seriously interested in Mormon history. Yorgason’s challenging new insights add an important dimension to our knowledge of this time of transition, and should have a significant impact on how future scholars deal with it.