Subduing the Mormons in Utah Territory: Foundation for the Insular Cases

The conflict between the US government and the Mormons in Utah Territory during the second half of the nineteenth century reflected shifts in the American territorial system. Through a repudiation of religious practices and dismantling of the Latter-Day Saints’ Church as an institution, the federal government demonstrated a willingness and ability to interfere with and regulate traditional local issues such as marriage and religion. This provided a foundation for the changes to the territorial system outlined by the Supreme Court in the Insular Cases. Scholars have overlooked the continuities between earlier territorial policy and the post-Insular Cases colonial system. Linking the struggle over authority in Utah Territory with the outcome of the Insular Cases as a component of territorial policy history fills this gap and helps to illuminate the policy connections between continental expansion and overseas expansion.

Our History, 1869–74

As the transcontinental railroad neared completion in 1869, the Protestant establishment of the United States seemed to be on a collision course with Latter-day Saint hegemony in Utah Territory. In Salt Lake City, Episcopalians consecrated St. Mark’s Cathedral three blocks from the Salt Lake tabernacle less than a month before the dedication of First Presbyterian Church just a block beyond that. The government-backed Protestant establishment seemed to be closing in on the Mormon establishment. In that context church historian Orson Pratt continued to function as the major narrator, repeating again and again the story of Joseph Smith’s first vision in ways that consolidated as a usable past in the context of an embattled present.

Polygamy, piousness, and the practice of medicine: Understanding Brigham Young and the predominance of female medical providers in early Utah

The nineteenth century Mormon Prophet, Brigham Young, has long been lauded as progressive for sending dozens of Mormon women from the Utah territory to receive a formal medical education at The Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. This manuscript comes to a contrary conclusion through close reading of diaries and journals created by these same women and the public speeches of the Prophet himself. These texts have historically been held up as evidence of Prophet Young's encouragement of women as physicians. This new interpretation of historical texts includes stringent study of his speeches, as they were originally reported, alongside later citations by historians from within the faith that decontextualized his words to fit the Church's predominant narrative. This manuscript concludes that, contrary to Church tradition, the historical record provides evidence of Young's desire to enforce limits and separations along traditional gender lines rather than showing an intent to change those cultural norms.