25297

Book

English

Reeve, W. Paul

Religion of a Different Color : Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness

New York, NY

Oxford University Press

2015

335

[2016 Mormon Historical Association Winner for Best Book]
[2016 John Whitmer Historical Association winner for Best Book]

Mormonism is one of the few homegrown religions in the United States, one that emerged out of the religious fervor of the early nineteenth century. Yet, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have struggled for status and recognition. In this book, W. Paul Reeve explores the ways in which nineteenth century Protestant white America made outsiders out of an inside religious group. Much of what has been written on Mormon otherness centers upon economic, cultural, doctrinal, marital, and political differences that set Mormons apart from mainstream America. Reeve instead looks at how Protestants racialized Mormons, using physical differences in order to define Mormons as non-White to help justify their expulsion from Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. He analyzes and contextualizes the rhetoric on Mormons as a race with period discussions of the Native American,African American, Oriental, Turk/Islam, and European immigrant races. He also examines how Mormon male, female, and child bodies were characterized in these racialized debates. For instance, while Mormons argued that polygamy was ordained by God, and so created angelic, celestial, and elevated offspring, their opponents suggested that the children were degenerate and deformed. The Protestant white majority was convinced that Mormonism represented a racial - not merely religious - departure from the mainstream and spent considerable effort attempting to deny Mormon whiteness. Being white brought access to political, social, and economic power, all aspects of citizenship inwhich outsiders sought to limit or prevent Mormon participation. At least a part of those efforts came through persistent attacks on the collective Mormon body, ways in which outsiders suggested that Mormons were physically different, racially more similar to marginalized groups than they werewhite. Medical doctors went so far as to suggest that Mormon polygamy was spawning a new race. Mormons responded with aspirations toward whiteness. It was a back and forth struggle between what outsiders imagined and what Mormons believed. Mormons ultimately emerged triumphant, but not unscathed. Mormon leaders moved away from universalistic ideals toward segregated priesthood and temples, policies firmly in place by the early twentieth century. So successful were Mormons at claiming whiteness for themselves that by the time Mormon Mitt Romney sought the White House in 2012, he was labeled "the whitest white man to run for office in recent memory." Ending with reflections on ongoing views of the Mormon body, this groundbreaking book brings together literatures on religion, whiteness studies, and nineteenth century racial history with the history of politics and migration.

Anti-Mormonism, American setting
Award Winner
Ethnic group, Mormons as
Mormon thought
Non-Mormons, relations with
Race relations

69

212

"Further Light Pertaining to Celestial Marriage": The Law of Purity and Twentieth-Century Mormon Fundamentalist Discourse on Sexuality
"No True Religion without True Science" : Science and the Construction of Mormon
Whiteness
"Our Religion Is Not Hostile to Real Science" : Evolution, Eugenics, and Race/Religion-Making in Mormonism's First Century

"Playing the Whore" : The Domestic and Sexual Politics of Mormon Missionary Work on Tahiti Nui and in the Tuamotus
"Ye Are No More Strangers and Foreigners" : Theological and Economic Perspectives on the LDS Church and Immigration
'Skin' or 'Scales' of Blackness? Semitic Context as Interpretive Aid for 2 Nephi 4 : 35 (LDS 5 : 21)
A "Distinction Between Mormons and Americans" : Mormon Indian Missionaries, Federal Indian Policy, and the Utah War
A Faithful Band : Moses Mahlangu and the First Soweto Saints
A Reflection from an African Convert on Official Declaration 2
A Wall Between Church and Academy
Alexander Campbell and Joseph Smith
All "Mormon Elder-Berry's" Children : Race, Whiteness, and the Attack on Mormon "Anglo-Saxon Triumphalism"
American Indians and the Nauvoo-Era Council of Fifty
Americanist Approaches to the Book of Mormon
Black Saviors on Mount Zion : Proxy Baptisms and Latter-day Saints of African Descent
Black, White, and Red All Over : Skin Color in the Book of Mormon
Buried Swords : The Shifting Interpretive Ground of a Book of Mormon Narrative
Can Mormons Be White in America?
Confronting and Condemning 'Hard Doctrine,' 1978–2013
David O. McKay’s 1954 Confrontation with Mormonism’s Black Priessthood Ban
Decolonization on the Salish Sea : A Tribal Journey back to Mormon Studies
Discussing Difficult Topics: Race and the Priesthood
Documents, Volume 6: February 1838-August 1839
Entangled Histories : The Mormon Church and Indigenous Child Removal from 1850 to 2000

Feeding the Flock : The Foundations of Mormon Thought : Church and Praxis
Forging a Dream : The Fabrication of Mosiah Hancock's Premortal Vision
Framing the Nation : Religion, Film, and American Belonging
How the Book of Mormon Reads the Bible : A Theory of Types
Injustices Leading to the Creation of the Council of Fifty
Latter-day Screens: Gender, Sexuality, and Mediated Mormonism
Looking Back, Looking Forward : "Mormonism's Negro Doctrine" Forty-Five Years Later
Mormon Women's History : Beyond Biography
Mormons and Lineage : The Complicated History of Blacks and Patriarchal Blessings, 1830-2018
Mormons on Broadway, 1914 Style : Harvey O' Higgins's "Polygamy"
Mormons, Musical Theater, and Belonging in America
None Can Deliver : Imagining Lamanites and Feeling Mormon, 1837-1847
Out of Obscurity : Mormonism Since 1945
Race and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in India
Race and the Making of the Mormon People
Race and the Making of the Mormon People
Real Native Genius :
How an Ex-Slave and a White Mormon Became Famous Indians
Reckoning with Race in the Book of Mormon : A Review of Literature
Reexamining the Radical : Stephen Holbrook and the Utah Strategy for Protesting the Vietnam War
Reflections in the Water : An Exploration of the Various Uses of C. R. Savage's 1875
Photograph of the Mass Baptism of the Shivwit
Scribbling Women in Zion : Mormon Women's Fascination with Fanny Fern
Settling the Valley, Proclaiming the Gospel : The General Epistles of the Mormon First Presidency
Shaping Mormonism's Public Image and Building the Faith : B. H. Roberts's Mission to the Midwest, 1896
Skins as Garments in the Book of Mormon :
A Textual Exegesis
Sprechen Sie Portugiesisch? Nein : The German Beginnings of the Church in Brazil
Taking the Waters : Lost Leisure on Salt Lake City's Beck Street
The Clock and the Compass : Mormon Culture in Motion
The Intellectual Cultures of Mormonism : Faith, Reason, and the Apologetic Enterprise
The Latter-day Saints and Race Issues in South Africa
The Mormon Church and Blacks : A Documentary History
The Mormon Jesus : A Biography
The Next Mormons : How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church
The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism
The Pearl of Greatest Price : Mormonism's Most Controversial Scripture
The Possessive Investment in Rightness : White Supremacy and the Mormon Movement
The Power of Godliness : Mormon Liturgy and Cosmology
The Prophet and the Reformer : The Letters of Brigham Young and Thomas L. Kane
Thoughts on Latino Mormons, Their Afterlife, and the Need for a New Historical Paradigm for Saints of Color
True and Faithful : Joseph Fielding Smith as Mormon Historian and Theologian
What Jane James Saw
When Joseph Smith Met Martin Van Buren : Mormonism and the Politics of Religious Liberty in Nineteenth-Century America
Whiteness in Modern Latter-day Saint History and Culture
William McCary, Lucy Stanton, and the Performance of Race at Winter Quarters and Beyond

Women and Mormonism : Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Your Sister in the Gospel : The Life of Jane Manning James, a Nineteenth-Century Black Mormon

Transformation of the Mormon Culture Region
"A Negro Preacher" : The Worlds of Elijah Ables
"As Ugly as Evil" and "As Wicked as Hell" : Gadianton Robbers and the Legend Process among the Mormons
"Blindside" : Utah on the Eve of Brown v. Board of Education
"How Do Things Look on the Ground?" The LDS African American Community in Atlanta, Georgia
"I Would Confine Them to Their Own Species" : LDS Historical Rhetoric & Praxis
Regarding Marriage Between Whites and Blacks
"Liberty to the Downtrodden" : Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer
"Some Savage Tribe" : Race, Legal Violence, and the Mormon War of 1838
"Until This Curse of Polygamy Is Wiped Out" : Black Methodists, White Mormons, and Constructions of Racial Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century
"Was This Really Missouri Civilization?" : The Haun's Mill Massacre in Missouri and Mormon History
'Regeneration - Now and Evermore!' Mormon Polygamy and the Physical Rehabilitation of Humankind
'Tell It All' : The Story of a Life's Experience in Mormonism
A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints (Commonly Called Mormons)
A Call to Arms : The 1838 Defense of Northern Missouri
A Collection of Facts, Relative to the Course Taken by Elder Sidney Rigdon, in the States of Ohio, Missouri, Illinois and Pennsylvania
A Demographic Portrait of the Mormons, 1830-1980
A Foreign Kingdom : Mormons and Polygamy in American Political Culture, 1852-1890
A Fragment : The Autobiography of Mary Jane Mount Tanner
A Frontier Life : Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary
A Mormon Chronicle : The Diaries of John D. Lee, 1848-1876
A Non-Mormon View of the Birth of Mormonism in Ohio
A Peculiar People : Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America
A Peculiar People : The Physiological Aspects of Mormonism, 1850-1975
A Peculiar Place for the Peculiar Institution : Slavery and Sovereignty in Early Territorial Utah
Across the Continent : A Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax
Adoptive Sealing Ritual in Mormonism
All Abraham's Children : Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage
All Are Alike Unto God : Fascinating Conversion Stories of African Saints
Americans' Views of Muslims and Mormons: A Social Identity Theory Approach
An "American Mahomet" : Joseph Smith, Muhammad, and the Problem of Prophets in Antebellum America
An Ambiguous Decision : The Implementation of Mormon Priesthood Denial for the Black Man--A Reexamination
An Overland Journey From New York To San Francisco : In the summer of 1860
Andrew Hunter Scott : Builder in the Kingdom
Annals of the Southern Utah Mission
Artemus Ward's Lecture [on the Mormons]
At Sword's Point, Part 1 : A Documentary History of the Utah War to 1858
Atchison's Letters and the Causes of Mormon Expulsion from Missouri
Blood of the Prophets : Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows
Boadicea, the Mormon Wife : Life-Scenes in Utah
Bones in the Well : The Haun's Mill Massacre, 1838, A Documentary History
Brigham Young : American Moses
Brigham Young : Pioneer Prophet
British Isles, The Church in
By the Hand of Mormon : The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion
Caricature as Containment : Orientalism, Bondage, and the Construction of Mormon Ethnicity in Nineteenth-century American Popular Fiction
Causes of the Utah War Reconsidered
Corinne : The Gentile Capital of Utah
Cousin Laman in the Wilderness : The Beginnings of Brigham Young's Indian Policy
Dancing with the Devil : The Making of the Mormon-Republican Pact
David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism
Documents Containing the Correspondence, Orders, &c. In Relation to the Disturbances with the Mormons
Doing the Works of Abraham : Mormon Polygamy : Its Origin, Practice, and Demise
Double Jeopardy : Visual Images of Mormon Women to 1914
Early Mormon Adoption Theology and the Mechanics of Salvation
Encyclopedia of Mormonism : The History, Scripture, Doctrine, and Procedures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Exiles in a Land of Liberty : Mormons in America, 1830-1846
Ezra Taft Benson : A Biography
Factors in the Destruction of the Mormon Press in Missouri, 1833
Fire and Sword : A History of the Latter-day Saints in Northern Missouri, 1836-39
Fort Limhi : The Mormon Adventure in Oregon Territory, 1855-1858
Frontiers of Progress and Paradox : Building Canals, Railroads, and Manhood in the American West
Giant of the Lord : Life of a Pioneer
God's Country, Uncle Sam's Land : Faith and Conflict in the American West
Hearken, O Ye People : The Historical Setting for Joseph Smith's Ohio Revelations
Hell on the Range : A Story of Honor, Conscience, and the American West
Hereditary Descent : Or, Depravity of the Off-Spring of Polygamy among the Mormons
History of Caldwell and Livingston Counties, Missouri
History of Indian Depredations in Utah
History of the Late Persecution Inflicted by the State of Missouri Upon the Mormons
House of Mourning : A Biocultural History of the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Illustrated Periodical Images of Mormons, 1850-1860
Immigration and the 'Mormon Question' : An International Episode
Innocent Blood : Essential Narratives of the Mountain Meadows Massacre
John Hyde, Junior-An Earlier View
John W. Gunnison's Letters to His Mormon Friend, Albert Carrington
Joseph Smith : Rough Stone Rolling
Joseph Smith, An American Muhammad? An Essay on the Perils of Historical Analogy
Joseph Young's Affidavit of the Massacre at Haun's Mill
Journals, Volume 1 : 1832-1839
Kidnapped from that Land : The Government Raids on the Short Creek Polygamists
Late Persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints
Leaders in the Mormon Reform Movement
Liberty to the Downtrodden : Thomas L. Kane, Romantic Reformer
Light on the 'Mission to the Lamanites'
Making Space on the Western Frontier : Mormons, Miners, and Southern Paiutes
Manuscript Revelation Books
Massacre at Mountain Meadows : An American Tragedy
Meetings and Migrations : Nineteenth-century Mormon Encounters with Asians
Ministering Minstrels : Blackface Entertainment in Pioneer Utah
Mischievous Puck and the Mormons
Missouri's Failed Compromise : The Creation of Caldwell County for the Mormons
More Wives than One : Transformation of the Mormon Marriage System, 1840-1910
Mormon 'Physiology,' 1850-1875
Mormon Doctrine
Mormon Land Rights in Caldwell and Daviess Counties and the Mormon Conflict of 1838 : New Findings and New Understandings
Mormon Persecutions in Missouri, 1833
Mormon Polygamy : A History
Mormon Redress Petitions : Documents of the 1833-1838 Missouri Conflict
Mormon and Asian American Model Minority Discourses in the News and Popular Magazines
Mormon-Indian Relations In Deseret : Intermarriage and Indenture, 1847 to 1877
Mormonism : Its Leaders and Designs
Mormonism : The Islam of America
Mormonism Unvailed : Or, a Faithful Account of That Singular Imposition and Delusion From Its Rise to the Present Time
Mormonism and Blacks
Mormonism in Transition : A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930
Mormonism's Negro Doctrine : An Historical Overview
Mormonism's Problematic Racial Past and the Evolution of the Divine-Curse Doctrine
Mormons and Muslims : Spiritual Foundations and Modern Manifestations
Mormons and Native Americans : A Historical and Bibliographical Introduction
Mormons at the Missouri, 1846-52 : 'And Should We Die'
Mountain Meadows Massacre : The Andrew Jenson and David H. Morris Collections
Naked Truths about Mormonism
Negro Slavery in Utah
Neither White nor Black : Mormon Scholars Confront the Race Issue in a Universal Church
Non-Mormon Views of Mormonism
On Zion's Mount : Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape
On the Mormon Frontier : The Diary of Hosea Stout [1844-1861]
On the Way to Somewhere Else : European Sojourners in the Mormon West, 1834-1930
Open Hand and Mailed Fist : Mormon-Indian Relations in Utah, 1847-52
Out of Obscurity : The LDS Church in the Twentieth Century
Parley P. Pratt : The Apostle Paul of Mormonism
Performing American Identity in Anti-Mormon Melodrama
Phrenology among the Mormons
Political Cartooning and the Reed Smoot Hearings
Polygamous Eyes : A Note on Mormon Physiognomy
Polygamous and Monogamous Mormon Women : A Comparison
President Young Writes Jefferson Davis about the Gunnison Massacre Affair
Reed Smoot : Apostle in Politics
Reed Smoot : The First Modern Mormon
Religion and Sexuality : The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community
Religious Accommodation in the Land of Racial Democracy : Mormon Priesthood and Black Brazilians
Report of the Subject of the Massacre at Mountain Meadows in Utah Territory...
Revelations and Translations
Sagwitch : Shoshoni Chieftain, Mormon Elder, 1822-1884
Saints, Slaves, and Blacks : The Changing Place of Black People within Mormonism
Seeking the 'Remnant' : The Native American during the Joseph Smith Period
Sermons and Missionary Services of Melvin Joseph Ballard
Sojourner in the Promised Land : Forty years among the Mormons
Solemn Covenant : The Mormon Polygamous Passage
Southern Paiute : A Portrait
Spanning the Priesthood Revelation (1978) : Two Multigenerational Case Studies
Special Report of the Mountain Meadows Massacre
Tarred and Feathered : Mormons, Memory, and Ritual Violence


That "Same Old Question of Polygamy and Polygamous Living" : Some Recent Findings Regarding Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Mormon Polygamy
The "Missouri Thesis" Revisited : Early Mormonism, Slavery, and the Status of Black People
The 'Americanization' of Utah for Statehood
The 1838 Mormon War in Missouri
The Antipolygamy Controversy in U.S. Women's Movements, 1880-1925 : A Debate on the American Home
The Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt
The Bone in the Throat : Orson Pratt and the Public Announcement of Plural Marriage
The Captivity Narrative on Mormon Trails, 1846-65
The City of the Saints and Across the Rocky Mountains to California
The Complete Discourses of Brigham Young
The Early Mormon Chain of Belonging
The Far Southwest : 1846-1912, A Territorial History
The History of the Saints : Or, An Expose of Joe Smith and Mormonism
The Joseph Smith Papers : Journals, Volume 2 : December 1841-April 1843
The Joseph Smith Revelations : Text and Commentary
The Lamanite Mission
The Legacy of Conquest : The Unbroken Past of the American West
The Letters of an Apostate Mormon to his Son
The Mormon Church on Trial : Transcripts of the Reed Smoot Hearings
The Mormon Conflict, 1850-1859
The Mormon Graphic Image, 1834-1914 : Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations
The Mormon Menace : Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South
The Mormon People :
The Making of an American Faith
The Mormon Priesthood Ban and Elder Q. Walker Lewis : "An Example for His More Whiter Brethren to Follow"
The Mormon Priesthood Revelation and the Sao Paulo, Brazil Temple
The Mormon Question : Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America
The Mormon Rebellion : America's First Civil War, 1857-1858
The Mormon Succession Crisis of 1844
The Mormon-Muslim Comparison
The Mormons : Who and What They Are
The Mormons at Home : With some Incidents of Travel from Missouri to California, 1852-3
The Mormons, or Latter-day Saints, in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake
The Mountain Meadows Massacre
The Mountain Meadows Massacre : An Analytical Narrative Based on Participant Confessions
The New Mormon History : Revisionist Essays on the Past
The Odyssey of a Latter-day Prophet : Wilford Woodruff and the Manifesto of 1890
The Persistence of Polygamy : From Joseph Smith's Martyrdom to the First Manifesto, 1844-1890
The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith
The Physiological Aspects of Mormonism, and the Climatology, and Diseases of Utah and New Mexico
The Pioneer Camp of the Saints : The 1846 and 1847 Mormon Trail Journals of Thomas Bullock
The Plains Across : The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60
The Politics of American Religious Identity : The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle
The Prohibition of Interracial Marriage in Utah, 1888-1963
The Prophet Joseph Smith's Views on the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States
The Prophet of the Nineteenth Century
The Territories and the United States, 1861-1890 : Studies in Colonial Administration
The Trial of Don Pedro Leon Lujan : The Attack Against Indian Slavery and Mexican Traders in Utah
The True Policy for Utah : Servitude, Slavery, and "An Act in Relation to Service"
The Utah Gentiles -- Who and What They Are
The Viper on the Hearth : Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy
The Vox Populi Is the Vox Dei: American Localism and the Mormon Expulsion from Jackson County, Missouri


The Walker War : Defense and Conciliation as Strategy
The Words of Joseph Smith : The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph
The women of Mormonism : Or, The story of polygamy as told by the victims themselves
Thomas Sharp and Anti-Mormon Sentiment in Illinois
Thoughts from the Farther West : Mormons, California, and the Civil War
To Utah with the Dragoons and Glimpses of Life in Arizona and California, 1858-1859
Two Perspectives : The Religious Hopes of "Worthy" African American Latter-day Saints Before the 1978 Revelation
Two Rare Missouri Documents
Under the Gun at the Smoot Hearings : Joseph F. Smith's Testimony
Utah and the Mormons : The History, Government, Doctrines, Customs, and Prospects of the Latter-day Saints
Utah's Black Hawk War
Vienna Jacques : Eyewitness to the Jackson County Persecutions
Walkara : Hawk of the Mountains
Walkara's Half Century
Wilford Woodruff's Journals
Women in Politics : Power in the Public Sphere
Zion Rising : Joseph Smith's Early Social and Political Thought
Zion is Fled : The Expulsion of the Mormons from Jackson County, Missouri