Imperial Zions: Mormons, Polygamy, and the Politics of Domesticity in the Nineteenth Century.

Pacific Islands;Missionary Work;American Religious History;Mormonism;Native Americans;colonialism;History (General);Humanities;History

Hendrix-Komoto, Amanda LeeIsrael, Kali A K ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Pacific Islands;    Missionary Work;    American Religious History;    Mormonism;    Native Americans;    colonialism;    History (General);    Humanities;    History;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/113526/hendrixa_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

This dissertation addresses how discussions of Mormon domesticity intersected with the imperial and racial politics of the nineteenth century. Analyzing missionary correspondence, official LDS church records, church publications, and personal diaries, it tracks Mormon missionaries as they move through imperial spaces such as Great Britain, the United States, and the South Pacific. In identifying Great Britain and the United States as missionary spaces, it argues, Mormons challenged the expectation that the white, middle classes would be the bearers rather than the recipients of missionary work. This was not the only way in which Mormons challenged nineteenth-century conceptions of race. This dissertation argues that in willingly entering polygamy, Mormons advocated for a form of marriage many people believed was more suited to people of color. As a result, Mormon women and their husbands were frequently racialized and portrayed as existing somewhere between white and non-white. In turn, Mormons did not reject racialized or imperial thinking in their defenses of polygamy. Rather, this dissertation concludes that they drew upon civilizing discourses, arguing that polygamy provided a better system for domesticating sexuality than monogamy because it gave men multiple outlets for their sexuality.Finally, this dissertation connects abstract discussions about sexuality and imperialism to individual lives. It explores the tensions that Mormon missionary work created both for white women whose husbands temporarily abandoned them for evangelizing missions and for indigenous women who married white Mormon men as plural wives. In connecting Mormon missionary work and domesticity, this dissertation makes an argument for the imperial nature of nineteenth-century Mormonism. Although Mormonism has been imagined and synthesized as an American faith, it has a long history of missionary work and participation in American colonialism. By exploring this idea, the dissertation illustrates how historical conceptions of Mormonism should be fully integrated into the larger history of the United States and the world.