The Mormons are perhaps the only American ethnic group whose principal migration began as an effort to move mil of the United States. Moreover, this migration of the main body of Mormons from western Illinois to the Rocky Mountains in the late 1840s imprinted upon the group a self-consciousness gained through prior experience in the Midwest. The Mormons have been influenced subsequently by ritual tales of privation, wandering, and delivery under God’s hand, precisely as the Jews have been influenced by their stories of the Exodus. A significant consequence of this tradition has been the development of an enduring sense of territoriality that has given a distinctive cast to Mormon group consciousness. It differentiates the Mormons from members of other sects and lends support to the judgment of the sociologist Thomas F. O’Dea that the Mormons “represent the clearest example to be found in our national history of the evolution of a native and indigenously developed ethnic minority.”
The Mormons are the product of a religious movement begun in 1830 by Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-44), third son in an upstate New York farming family. Disturbed by the competing claims of various churches to divine favor» Smith in 1810 prayed for guidance. The ensuing religious experiences reported by Smith served to unify his own family and those of his friends in a new faith seen by his followers as a “restoration of primitive Christianity in preparation for the return of the Savior. Within a short time Smith had gone beyond the millennialist and restorationist concerns of such contemporaries as William C. Miller and Alexander Campbell. He claimed that as part of his prophetic mission he had been instructed to restore “all things,” by which he meant God’s most significant communications to people, from all previous Judeo-Christian revelatory epochs or “dispensations.” In maintaining that Christ’s earthly ministry was pivotal but not an all-encompassing or final revelatory epoch, Smith made himself a pariah among the divines of millennialist and restorationist sects.
Rapid assimilation of ethnic groups entering the Mormon Zion has led to considerable uniformity in cultural expression. European immigrants were not moving out of their old life into relative freedom, as happened elsewhere in the American West, but rather into tightly structured, hierarchical, closely knit villages where pressures to conform were great.
Most forms of creative expression were sponsored by the church, related to religion, and stressed group rather than individual achievement. Even in contemporary Mormon society there is discernibly greater emphasis on the performing arts than on the visual arts. There is widespread emphasis on group singing, in choirs and in congregations; the well-known Mormon Tabernacle Choir is a great source of local pride and the epitome of Mormon cultural expression. Musical ensembles, especially bands, have been widespread among the Mormons since the mid-nineteenth century. The brass bands that were used to encourage members of immigrant trains crossing the plains became a symbol of determination and cheerfulness in the face of hardship. Musical training programs begin early in Utah public schools and are well developed in high school curriculums.
Plays and theatrical productions have also been a favorite cultural activity of the Mormons. The Salt Lake Theater, built in 1861, was long the center of drama in the Rocky Mountain West, a source of so much community pride that Salt Lake City now boasts two replicas of the original structure. The church continues to sponsor theatrical productions by the youth of each congregation and until the 1980s subsidized the Promised Valley Playhouse in down, town Salt Lake City. Church members in several areas produce extravagant pageants depicting the Mormon past. The most famous is the pageant at the Hill Cumorah near Palmyra, New York, reported by Joseph Smith as the site where he acquired the records from which the Book of Mormon was translated.
Dancing has also been popular since the nineteenth century both as a social activity and as a form of creative expression. The city’s five dance companies have made Utah a center for dance in the West. Ballet West and the Utah Repertory Dance Theater have national reputations for excellence.
A related set of doctrines has strongly influenced the development of a Mormon ethnic consciousness. Mormons have believed since the 1830s that Christ will soon return to the earth to initiate a millennial reign. Therefore, the “restoration” of the true church and authority, lost from the earth through apostasy, was accomplished expressly for the purpose of preparing a covenanted people to administer world government under Christ. The Saints were selected from the nations so that they might he trained in moral precepts and necessary administrative skills. Missionary work has always been the primary vehicle of this selection process. In the nineteenth century the missionaries taught that the faithful should physically remove themselves from worldly influences and gather to Zion, where, concentrated in one geographical area, they could be instructed and reinforce one another in preparing to live the Law of Consecration and Stewardship and other celestial laws. The religious hierarchy extends into every Mormon household, even those not involved in church activity.
The primary unit of church organization is the “ward,” or local congregation of three hundred to six hundred members. A bishop oversees each ward and counsels his congregation in both religious and secular affairs. He is assisted by the Women’s Relief Society, first organized by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, and by the men and boys as members of the various priesthood quorums—high priests, seventies» and elders in the higher, or Melchizedek, priesthood and priests, teachers, and deacons in the lower, or Aaronic, priesthood. Boys enter the hierarchy at the age of twelve as deacons. Each rank has specific responsibilities; most assist in “home teaching”—making visits in pairs at least once a month to an assigned four or five families and reporting back to the bishop. Thus the ward, whether rural or urban, is like a village, with geographic boundaries (not commitment to church activity) defining membership and with considerable mutual solicitude…
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