Ryan Reeder
History 390R
Derr and Esplin
March 8, 2001
1. To a certain extent, it appears that those events that become embedded in the popular consciousness are those that have the greatest impact on the greatest number of people. Bitton's article comments that three such events that have become ritualized are the organization of the Church, the martyrdom, and the move west. How much influence do historians have on the popular consciousness in determining and ritualizing what constitutes a significant historical event? For example, the Mountain Meadows Massacre only affected directly a few hundred people and their descendants, yet it has become a major part of the history of Utah Territory during this period, perhaps largely due to the efforts of Juanita Brooks.
2. What were the demographics of acceptance of the manifesto? What were the differences in acceptance among men and women; general authorities, local leaders, and lay members; pioneer generations, those who grew up under polygamy, and those coming of age at the time of the announcement; metropolitan Wasatch communities, rural Wasatch communities, and outlying colonies in southern Utah and elsewhere; and those that lived in polygamous relationships and those that did not?
3. What was the effect of the manifesto on missionary work? Jan Shipps seems to support Leon Festinger's idea that "disconfirmation leads to increased rather than decreased missionary activity as a group that has experienced a disconfirming event seeks to bolster its beliefs through convincing others of their truth" (Shipps, 25; Packet, 420). She then cites statistics to "superficially confirm" this idea, showing that the 1900s and 1910s showed a greater conversion rate than surrounding decades. Yet C. C. A. Christensen observes in January 1911 that the missionaries in Scandinavia in the 1850s had much more success than at present - "the first missionaries saw more fruit of their labors in six months than ten of our missionaries now see in two years" (Packet, 440). This comment suggests the Godbeite proposition that the Church had lost something-the days of one missionary baptizing a thousand converts and high levels of spiritual manifestations and gifts seemed to be missing. How did the end of polygamy affect missionary work? Was it like Festinger's and Shipps' idea that the Church needed to reconfirm to itself its raison d' vivre (first time I've used that expression) through garnering additional converts? Was it simply that the doctrine of the Church appealed to many, but they were distanced by polygamy? Was there a higher emphasis and/or capacity for missionary work once the difficulties of anti-polygamy prosecution had passed? Did fewer baptisms in certain areas mean that the time of harvest was past, and the elect had already been gathered? What conclusions did Church authorities draw from these trends?
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