BYU Studies Quarterly
Keywords
Mormon studies, printing press
Abstract
The years flanking the start of the twentieth century represented a time of transition for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Seventy years old in 1900, the Church and the larger Mormon society in which it resided still displayed much of their traditional character. Although some members congregated in urban densities that edged out along the Wasatch Front from Salt Lake City (Utah’s capital and the Church’s headquarters), most still lived in small, relatively self-contained agricultural communities in the Great Basin’s interior. Wherever they lived, however, they expected charismatic leaders to continue organizing the Church, directing devotional life, and keeping the federal government at arms length. That formula had held sway during the Saints’ half-century-long occupation of the Intermountain West, allowing a unique intermixing of civil and ecclesiastical institutions to develop. Change was in the wind, however, and indeed had been for decades.
Recommended Citation
Whittaker, David J.
(2015)
"Joseph B. Keeler, Print Culture, and the Modernization of Mormonism, 1885-1918,"
BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 54:
Iss.
2, Article 6.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol54/iss2/6