Review

Title: Frontier Religion: Mormons & America, 1857-1907
Author: Konden Smith Hansen
Publisher: University of Utah Press
Genre: Religious Non-Fiction, History
Year Published: 2019
Number of Pages:351
Binding: Hardbound
ISBN: 9781607816898
Price: $45.00

Reviewed by Kevin Folkman for the Association for Mormon Letters

It is likely that most members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would not recognize the church as practiced in Utah during the middle of the 19th Century. Deacons could be white-haired old men, bishops often served for decades, polygamy was practiced openly, and lack of attendance at church meetings was not necessarily a sign of a lack of faith. As historian Jan Shipps pointed out in Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (University of Illinois Press, 1987), expressions of faith during this period were more often tied to digging irrigation canals and other collective ventures that emphasized membership in the larger group rather than individual evidences of piety. Indeed, John Taylor, third President of the Church, once remarked that “…there must be an entire absence of individuality, covetousness and selfishness, and we must operate, under God, in the interests and for the benefit of all with whom we associate, for we are building a kingdom that will stand forever” (Notes, p. 231). In his efforts to build up a “Kingdom of God,” Brigham Young asserted his right to centralized control over most aspects of church members’ lives, including economics and politics.

There have been many articles and books written about this transition from a religion and people attempting to build a theocracy on the frontier to the modern church that emphasizes individual faith and autonomy in matters not directly connected to the Church’s organization. None that I have read have made quite the argument that Konden Smith Hansen asserts in Frontier Religion: Mormons & America, 1857-1907.

Smith Hansen uses Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis as presented at the Columbian Exposition and World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893 as a model for how both American attitudes about religion were changing, and how the Church itself changed. To try and summarize Turner’s ideas in a sentence or two is pointless. It’s enough to say that to Turner, the frontier represented “…a figurative and symbolic meeting place where Americans hashed out what they meant when they thought of themselves as Americans.” (p129) This included American Exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, and the triumph of Protestantism in the public square. At the same time, the nation was undergoing a transformation towards the scientific study of everything, including comparative religion. America was moving into the Progressive era where religion was less of a public initiative and more of a private practice. Women were demanding the vote, and the country was developing a greater tolerance for religious and cultural diversity . As Mormonism moved towards assimilation into the broader American culture, it was often at odds with the more conservative sense of America as a White, English-speaking nation where Protestant Christian values informed government and social activity.

Hansen focuses on four events to show how the Church transitioned from a theocratic Kingdom in the West to become not only more American, but “quintessentially so.” The Utah War of 1856-1857 pitted Brigham Young and his people, united in their sense of an impending Millennium and Kingdom of God on Earth against a federal government and mainstream Protestantism that abhorred the practice of polygamy and viewed Young’s theocratic vision as treasonous. The campaign against polygamy dominated the post-civil war period through the 1890s. Then at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 Apostle B. H. Roberts was barred from addressing the Parliament of Religions at the World’s fair, while Mormon women leaders, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and the economic, artistic, and agricultural accomplishments of Utah Mormons in the highly successful Utah pavilion were warmly received. Finally, the hearings over seating Apostle Reed Smoot as a US Senator from 1903 to 1907 dredged up old arguments about theocracy and polygamy, only to have them rejected by both the public and politicians, including President Teddy Roosevelt, as unbecoming the nation’s new Progressive era.

Any one of these four events have been the subject of books and articles themselves. Smith Hansen’s intriguing linkage of these events is what gives this book its power to provoke thought and discussion. I found myself while reading this book subconsciously creating a mind map that began to resemble one of those conspiracy-driven whiteboards where pictures and newspaper clippings are all connected together with colored yarn and hastily scrawled notes. I was drawing connections from events and ideas in Smith Hansen’s book to some of the current partisanship and divisiveness in 21st century America.

Take for example the half-masting of American flags in Utah towards the middle of the 19th century as protests against the federal government’s attempts to marginalize Mormonism as unamerican. I couldn’t help but think of the similarities to the controversy raging around 21st century professional athletes kneeling in protest for the national anthem before football games. Both involved American citizens who felt that they were not recognized as fully American seeking a redress of their grievances. The Progressive attitude towards the privatization of religion at the turn of the 19th century in opposition to protestant hegemony also seems reflected in the culture wars of the late 20th and early 21st century, with its urban/rural and educated-elite/working-class conflicts.

The best histories offer us both a better understanding of the past in its own context, and hold up a mirror to our more complex present. Smith Hansen’s book serves up both in ample portions. Take a deep breath, dive in with a willingness to think about his arguments, and be prepared to engage in some dialogue about our differences as a nation of diverse peoples. It may seem like we are in uncharted territory these days, politically, religiously, and culturally, but we have been there before. We came through then, and we just might do it again.