Item Detail
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28211
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1
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0
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English
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Elizabeth Kane's "Mormon Problem" : Another Perspective of Thomas L. Kane's Work for the Mormons
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Journal of Mormon History
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July 2017
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43
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3
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Champaign, IL
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University of Illinois Press; Mormon History Association
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68-95
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Elizabeth’s husband, Thomas L. Kane, had a relationship with the Mormons that has been praised by many over the years: as predicted, his name has been “held in honorable remembrance.” Because of her travel accounts, historians have also taken note of Elizabeth Kane. To understand and appreciate these travel accounts, however, it is helpful to put them in the context of Elizabeth’s personal struggle with the Mormons. As her statements quoted above illustrate, she initially had no natural sympathy with the Mormons. She was opposed to their religion, and in particular, their practice of polygamy. Despite her feelings, her husband had sacrificed significant time and resources (which were also her resources) for them. She had been forced, by the circumstance of her marriage, into a personal, although for many years indirect, association with them. This was Elizabeth Kane’s personal “Mormon problem.”
By examining Elizabeth’s previous experience with and attitude toward the Mormons, a more complex picture of her stay in Utah emerges, and the significance of the change she underwent becomes clear. Being among the Mormons and getting to know them personally
led her from having “contemptuous opinions” to being willing
to “eat salt with them.” [From the text]