Reading List: Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-Day Saints 1930-1900
Since I do so much reading, and have to produce some notes on the books I read, I thought I would go ahead and post them here for anyone interested. These are not official reviews, may or may not be written in review format, and aren’t always ready for prime time. They just get my thoughts on paper on what I’m currently reading. This first one is in a series of books I am reading about the economic history of the Intermountain West. Please enjoy.
Arrington, Leonard. Great Basin Kingdom an economic history of the Latter-Day Saints, 1830-1900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958.
Arrington’s aging text is a brick-by-brick account of early Mormon economic efforts in the Great Basin. His thesis – that Mormonism is as much an economic philosophy as a religion – he supports well, especially for the period described in the book. There are however a number of interesting quirks about the book that make this a good starting point for understanding how Utah’s economy developed, but not a stand-alone guide.
The book opens with a philosophical history of Mormonism, where Arrington notes, “Of the one hundred and twelve revelations announced by Joseph Smith, eighty eight dealt partly or entirely with matters that were economic in nature (p. 5-6). This led another scholar to proclaim that, “Mormonism, though a religion, is largely, if not primarily, an economic movement” (p. 6). Arrington supports that contention by laying out the economic organization of early Mormon settlements in Jackson County, MO, Kirtland, MO, and then the ill-fated Nauvoo, IL colony where Joseph Smith perished at the hand of a mob.
While still leading the nascent Mormon group, Smith ingrained in his disciples seven ideals, or revelations, that governed the economic life of his saints: 1) the gathering – that they were all called to gather together in a primary place; 2) the Mormon Village – a network of villages (probably like the California missions) that would support Mormon colonization efforts; 3) property as stewardship; 4) redeeming the earth – a classic western sentiment; 5) frugality and economic independence; 6) unity and cooperation; and, 7) equality, or economic justice. These were the principles enacted most completely as the Mormons settled the Great Basin.
The collectivist sentiment identified by Arrington, and his analysis of it in relation to U.S. history, is one of the most fascinating assertions in the book. Arrington writes,
But the character of Mormon economic organization, as early as 1847-1849, and more certainly in the succeeding half-century, suggests the feasibility of regarding Mormon institutions as the more typically early American, and the individualistic institutions of other Westerners as the more divergent. The Mormon response to the problems imposed by the settlement of the Great Basin – a response which becomes ever clearer in succeeding decades – suggests that Mormon economic policies bore a greater resemblance to those of the ante-bellum northeast than did the economic policies of the West during the years when the West was won (p. 62-63).
This truly interesting comparison of Mormon economic policies to ante-bellum development policies places Utah outside of the traditional economic history of the West. Where I naturally hoped Arrington would go then was toward making some claims about how this initial period of economic development shaped future expansion in the State, lead to early leads over rivals such as Idaho, or simply delved deeper into his findings. He does not, and perhaps that was not the place of the book.
The meat of the book is the detailed descriptions of the early Utah settlements - classic historical data gathering and reporting by a very fine historian. Perhaps most interesting in this section was the Mormon plan of sending missionaries out to recruit converts whose talents and treasure they could put to use back in the Great Basin. The Perpetual Emigrating Company existed expressly for this purpose. The Mormons found that recruiting converts was easier than translating their talents back in the barren Great Basin, however.
The ideal of self-sufficiency led the Mormons to attempt to industrialize on their own efforts, for example, by using rags as inputs in their paper producing machinery brought over by an English convert. Like many of their industrial experiments, the paper making experiment was unsuccessful. Here too one hoped that Arrington, writing as an economic historian, would have at least mentioned mercantilist economic thought, which passed out of favor as largely untenable with the writings of David Hume and Adam Smith. This though goes unmentioned, so one is left to wonder whether well-read gentlemen like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were familiar with sixteenth century economic theory. One surmises they were but proceeded on with their experiment nonetheless.
The closing portions of the book – “The Raid” – focuses on federal efforts to force Mormons to conform to U.S. social norms. This the feds did through legislation, which stripped the Church of the ability to own property, and made polygamy and cohabitation illegal. Church leaders transferred much Church property to individual church leaders, still economic tolls were high. The social costs were higher yet. As federal authorities sought to root out those practicing polygamy, many church leaders, including the President and the members of the First Presidency, went into hiding. Church President John Taylor, in fact, died while in hiding. The story of the federal crusade against the Mormons is one of the more bizarre moments in American history, and this section of the book is worth reading in its entirety.
The book has a few oddities. One of the most well known American politicians U.S. Senator Reed Smoot, himself a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, gets exactly this mention in the book: “He served a long and distinguished career in that body” (p. 406). That seems a bit of an oversight even for a book ending in 1900. The death of Brigham Young is barely mentioned, nor is the process that led him to the Governorship. Institutions such as the state legislature appear out of nowhere. Finally, for those outside of the Church it is difficult to understand the distinction between the Church controlling and directing the economy, and individual Mormons controlling and directing economic institutions. Most, I think, feel those are one in the same. Yet Arrington makes, indeed laments that situation in his chapter, “Aftermath.” The distinction between conditions pre and post Raid seem to me to be more between collectivism and command and control policies, and laissez faire economics.
For those interested in the early founding of the Great Basin Kingdom, this is a fascinating text. Again, perhaps I am hoping for too much, but I wish that Arrington would have made a few more claims about the importance of this mercantilist experiment and how it shaped the state of Utah for years to come. We get only a small sense of that as he closes the book with statistics on how the Church has grown. But he has left for other historians the task of relating this early history to the State and region of the present.
Tags: READING
Book Reviews | admin April 7, 2010
