A Material Cultural Analysis Of The Foundational History Of Latter Day Saintism 1827 1844 PDF Download

This study is an interdisciplinary exploration of early nineteenth-century material culture and educational practices. The founders of the Latter Day Saint religious movement pursued a two-pronged strategy to promote their new theology in an age and region of intense religious competition. First, they created a "language of Latter Day Saintism" to express physically their values and beliefs, not only in their sermons and writings, but also in their visual imaging, choice of architectural styles in the construction of their significant built environments, and use of folklife practices. Second, church officials, recognizing the need for formal education in promoting their religion, embraced existing pedagogical practices and created unique educational institutions to inculcate their peculiar values and beliefs. This qualitative analysis explores numerous occasions in which the church leadership unconsciously used axiomatic principles of material culture studies to promote their quintessentially American religion. The Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith Jr., launched his movement by observing an important principle of material culture studies when he included the testimonies of witnesses who saw and touched the golden plates used to translate the Book of Mormon, the early movement's single most important literary work. In so doing, Smith employed the practice that "seeing is believing, but feeling is truth." Three fields of inquiry in the study of material culture -- structuralism, symbolism, and functionalism, -- provide a framework for this analysis. The pragmatic educational philosophy of church leaders allowed them to utilize existing educational institutions and to establish unique ones to instill proper thinking among Mormon membership. Although it is true "form follows function," ideas precede both form and function. Thus, the production and use of artifactual expressions of culture first arise in the human intellect. This dissertation investigates certain physical and cultural expressions of individual thought processes in the foundational years of the Mormon movement, and as such, is an exercise in intellectual history.