19775

37

96

Book

English

Grow, Matthew J.

Liberty to the Downtrodden : Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer

New Haven

Yale University Press

2009

[2010 Mormon Historical Association Winner for Best Book]

Explores social reform in antebellum and Civil War America through a biography of Thomas L. Kane (1822-1883). A member of a prominent Philadelphia family, Kane crusaded most prominently against slavery and in defense of the Mormons' religious liberty. He represents a crucial community of reformers who challenge the traditional narrative of nineteenth-century reform, which presents antebellum reform as springing from the convergence of Whig politics and evangelical religion. By contrast, the roots of Kane and similar reformers came from the Democratic Party, anti-evangelicalism, and romanticism. The antebellum Democratic Party had a significant reform wing, driven by the party's egalitarianism and more inclusive vision of religious and ethnic pluralism. These reformers declared war on human suffering and sought to defend the downtrodden. While many remained traditionally religious, others, like Kane, reacted against evangelical reform because of their own antipathy to evangelicalism (though he converted in mid-life to Christianity). Most eventually became Republicans (often with a stop in Free Soil). Antislavery and other nineteenth-century reforms owe as much, if not more, to these reformers as to their evangelical counterparts. In the 1840s, Kane found the ideal object of his sympathies in the reviled Mormons. For the next four decades, he was the Mormons' most trusted outside supporter and adviser. To counter the popular perception of Mormons as dangerous fanatics, Kane cast them as a sincere religious minority searching for liberty. His dramatic mediation between Mormons and government officials in 1858 brought a peaceful end to the Utah War and earned him national fame. Kane's life also illuminates the influences of the "culture of honor" (typically associated only with the South) and romanticism on nineteenth-century culture and reform. Kane's ethic of honor particularly shaped his Civil War career, in which he led the famous Pennsylvania Bucktails and became a Brigadier General. In addition, Kane emulated the cultural type of the romantic hero. As such, he preferred decisive action over contemplation; iconoclasm over conformity; individual judgment over social norms; and personal courage over upper-class comforts. Kane's life thus illuminates a world of mid-nineteenth-century reform shaped by Democratic ideology, anti-evangelicalism, and romanticism. [Author's abstract]

Biographies, male, 19th century (books)
Award Winner
Non-Mormons, relations with, 19th century
Evangelical America
Kane, Thomas L.
U.S. government, relations with, 19th century

Across the Desert in 1858 : Thomas L. Kane’s Mediating Mission and the Mormon Women Who Made It Possible
A Frontier Life : Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary
A House Full of Females : Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870
"A Negro Preacher" : The Worlds of Elijah Ables
Brigham Young and the Expansion of the Mormon Faith
Brigham Young : Pioneer Prophet
Finally Statehood! Utah's Struggles, 1849-1896
From Mormon Battalion Member to Civil War Soldier : The Military Service of Henry Wells Jackson
"Full of Courage" : Thomas L. Kane, the Utah War, and BYU's Kane Collection as Lodestone
"He is Our Friend" : Thomas L. Kane and the Mormons in Exodus, 1846-1850
History of the Saints : the Great Mormon Exodus and the Establishment of Zion
Into the Fray : Sam Houston's Utah War
"I Want to Have Your Name Live with the Saints to All Eternity" : Thomas L. Kane in Mormon Memory
"I Was Not Ready to Die Yet" : William Stowell's Utah War Ordeal
Joseph Smith's Gold Plates: A Cultural History
Kingdom of Nauvoo : The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier
Letters on Mormon Polygamy and Progeny : Eliza R. Snow and Martin Luther Holbrook, 1866-1869
Mormon Envoy: The Diplomatic Legacy of Dr. John Milton Bernhisel
Mormon Gender in the Age of Polygamy
"My Dear Friend" : The Friendship and Correspondence of Brigham Young and Thomas L. Kane
"Not as a Stranger" : A Presbyterian Afoot in the Mormon past
Parley P. Pratt : The Apostle Paul of Mormonism
Reconstruction, Religion, and the West: The Great Impeacher Meets the Mormons
Religion of a Different Color : Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness
Robert Newton Baskin and the Making of Modern Utah
Saints : The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days. No Unhallowed Hand 1846–1893.
Saving the Governor’s Bacon : Thomas L. Kane’s Political Defense of Alfred Cumming, 1859
The Affair of the "Runaways" : Utah's First Encounter with the Federal Officers : Part 1
The Civil War Years in Utah : The Kingdom of God and the Territory that did not Fight
The Journey West : The Mormon Pioneer Journals of Horace K. Whitney with Insights by Helen Mar Kimball Whitney
The Mormon Menace : Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South
The Mormon Military Experience: 1838 to the Cold War
The Mormon Passage of George D. Watt : First British Convert, Scribe for Zion
The Prophet and the Reformer : The Letters of Brigham Young and Thomas L. Kane
Thomas L. Kane and Nineteenth-Century American Culture
Thomas L. Kane's 1858 Utah War Mission : Presidential Ingratitude and Manipulation
“What Means This Carnage?” : The Civil War in Mormon Thought

125 Years of Conspiracy Theories : Origins of the Utah Expedition of 1857-58
A Biographical Study of Elizabeth D. Kane
A Gentile Account of Life in Utah's Dixie, 1872-73
American Philanthropy and Mormon Refugees, 1846-1849
And the War Came : James Buchanan, the Utah Expedition, and the Decision to Intervene
A Ram in the Thicket : The Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War
Army of Israel : Mormon Battalion Narratives
A Sentinel for the Saints : Thomas Leiper Kane and the Mormon Migration
At Sword's Point, Part 1 : A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858
Blood of the Prophets : Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
Brigham Young, The Quorum of the Twelve, and the Latter-day Saint Investigation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Brigham Young University : The First One Hundred Years
British Travelers View the Saints, 1847-1877
Building the City of God : Community and Cooperation among the Mormons
Camp Floyd and the Mormons : The Utah War
Causes of the Utah War Reconsidered
Charles A. Scott's Diary of the Utah Expedition, 1857-1861
Curious Gentiles and Representational Authority in the City of the Saints
Discord in the City of Brotherly Love : The Story of Early Mormonism in Philadelphia
Epilogue to the Utah War : Impact and Legacy
Exploring the Great Salt Lake : The Stansbury Expedition of 1849-50
Federal Authority Versus Polygamic Theocracy : James B. McKean and the Mormons, 1870-1875
Fort Limhi : The Mormon Adventure in Oregon Territory, 1855-1858
From Satyr to Saint : American Attitudes Toward the Mormons, 1860-1960
George Francis Train and Brigham Young
George Q. Cannon : A Biography
God's Country, Uncle Sam's Land : Faith and Conflict in the American West
History May Be Searched in Vain : A Military History of the Mormon Battalion
"I Have Given Myself to the Devil" : Thomas L. Kane and the Culture of Honor
'In Honorable Remembrance' : Thomas L. Kane's Services to the Mormons
Jan Shipps and the Mainstreaming of Mormon Studies
Joseph Smith : Rough Stone Rolling
"Lonely Bones" : Leadership and Utah War Violence
Loose in the Stacks : A Half-Century with the Utah War and Its Legacy
Lords of Creation : Polygamy, the Abrahamic Household, and Mormon Patriarchy
Lost Legacy : The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch
Medicine and the Mormons : An Introduction to the History of Latter-day Saint Health Care
Mormon Domestic Life in the 1870's : Pandemonium or Arcadia?
Mormons at the Missouri, 1846-52 : 'And Should We Die'
Mormons, Crickets, and Gulls : A New Look at an Old Story
Mormons in Mexico : The Dynamics of Faith and Culture
Mormons Study "Abroad" : Brigham Young' Romance with American Higher Education, 1867-1877
Mormon Thunder : A Documentary History of Jedediah Morgan Grant
New Sources on Old Friends : The Thomas L. Kane and Elizabeth W. Kane Collection
On the Mormon Frontier : The Diary of Hosea Stout [1844-1861]
On the Potter's Wheel : The Diaries of Heber C. Kimball
On the Way to Somewhere Else : European Sojourners in the Mormon West, 1834-1930
Political Deliverance : The Mormon Quest for Utah Statehood
"Pursue, Retake & Punish" : The 1857 Santa Clara Ambush
Quest for Empire : The Political Kingdom of God and the Council of Fifty in Mormon History
Refugees, Friends, and Foes : Mormons and Indians in Iowa and Nebraska
San Bernardino : The Rise and Fall of a California Community
Scoundrel's Tale : The Samuel Brannan Papers
Search for Sanctuary : Brigham Young and the White Mountain Expedition
Sentinel in the East : A Biography of Thomas L. Kane
She Who Shall Be Nameless
Some Themes of Counter-Subversion : An Analysis of Anti-Masonic, Anti-Catholic, and Anti-Mormon Literature
Take Up Your Mission : Mormon Colonizing Along the Little Colorado River, 1870-1900
'The Biggest Whorehouse in the World' : Representations of Plural Marriage in Nineteenth-century America
The Bone in the Throat : Orson Pratt and the Public Announcement of Plural Marriage
The Council of Fifty and Its Members, 1844 to 1945
The Curious Meet the Mormons : Images from Travel Narratives, 1850s and 1860s
The Genteel Gentile : Letters of Elizabeth Cumming, 1857-1858
The Lion and the Emperor : The Mormons, The Hudson Bay Company, and Vancouver Island, 1846-1858
The Mormon Battalion : A Historical Accident?
The Mormon Battalion : U.S. Army of the West 1846-1848
The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859
The Mormon Graphic Image, 1834-1914 : Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations
The Mormon Invasion of Russian America : Dynamics of a Potent Myth
The Mormon Quest for Utah Statehood
The Mormon Question : Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America
The Mormon Reformation of 1856-1857 : The Rhetoric and the Reality
The Mormons : A Discourse Delivered Before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
The Mormon-Suffrage Relationship : Personal and Political Quandaries
The Move South
The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography
The Notorious Hodges Brothers : Solving The Mystery of Their Destruction at Nauvoo
The Philadelphia Pennsylvania Branch : Its Early History and Records
The Pioneer Camp of the Saints : The 1846 and 1847 Mormon Trail Journals of Thomas Bullock
The Practice of Rebaptism at Nauvoo
The Story of the Mormons : From the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901
The Utah Expedition, 1857-1858
The Utah Expedition; Its Causes and Consequences
The Viper on the Hearth : Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy
The Whore of Babylon and the Abomination of Abominations : Nineteenth-Century Catholic and Mormon Mutual Perceptions and Religious Identity
Thomas L. Kane : A Guide to the Sources
Thomas L. Kane and Utah's Quest for Self-Government, 1846-51
Thomas L. Kane Meets the Mormons
Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Journey Through Utah to Arizona
United Orders
Utah : The Right Place. The Official Centennial History
We'll Find the Place : The Mormon Exodus 1846-1848
Wilford Woodruff's Journal, 1833-1898 : An Index
Wilford Woodruff's Journals
"You Nasty Apostates, Clear Out" : Reasons for Disaffection in the Late 1850s
Young, Brigham