Item Detail
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5826
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2
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0
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English
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Myth and Reality : Environmental Perception of the Mormon Pioneers
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Rocky Mountain Social Science Journal
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January 1972
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9
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33-38
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Proposes that the Mormon leaders' perception of the Great Basin environment led them, consciously or unconsciously, to revise the history of the Mormon settlement. Explains how Brigham Young gained his preconception that the land south of the Salt Lake Valley was more adaptable to settlement than the area north of the valley. Concerning the Mormon leaders' revisionism, covers such factors as knowledge of the church's destination, problems encountered in crossing the Great Plains, initial reaction to the valley envrionment and origin of irrigation techniques. Further suggest that later historians have kept those distorations alive by failure to utilize eye-witness accounts of the early Mormon settlers. Primary and secondary sources.