The Mormon Culture Region: Strategies and Patterns in the Geography of the American West, 1847–1964

Abstract

The Mormons, a distinctive American subculture, have long dominated a large area of the Far West, but the extent of the region and the geographic relationships between Mormons and Gentiles ( non-Mormons ) have never been satisfactorily presented. Historical analysis of expansions, contractions, and reexpansions from the original Utah nucleus and of concurrent Gentile movements into and around Mormon colonies provides the basis for a refined definition of the Mormon culture region. That region is interpreted as having a core in the Wasatch Oasis, a domain over much of Utah and southeastern Idaho, and a sphere extending from eastern Oregon to Mexico. The most recent and important movement has been to the Pacific Coast cities, producing modifications in theology as well as geography, and suggesting the emergence of a Salt Lake City-Los Angeles axis as a pattern of profound influence in the present and future of Mormondom.

Religion, place and space: a framework for investigating historical geographies of religious identities and communities

“…Despite some promising beginnings (Sopher, 1967;Meinig, 1965;Zelinsky, 1961), it is only in the last ten to fifteen years that religion has attracted some attention from a few geographers interested i n the politics of identity, space as a social product and the interplay of secular and sacred meanings in place (Campo, 1991;Emmett, 1995;Graham, 1998;Graham and Murray, 1997;Holloway, 2000Holloway, , 2003Holloway and Valins, 2002;Levine, 1986;Pacione, 1999;Park, 1994;Stump, 2000;Winter & Short, 1993;Yiftachel, 1992;Zelinsky, 2001). Further, the literature related to 'geographies of religion' is located across a wide range of disciplines, but has yet to be adequately contextualised within geographical debates (Slater, 2004).…”

The Challenge of American Folklore to the Humanities

“…Migration patterns changed as settlers were discouraged by the rough conditions of the arid and mountainous West (Meinig 1971;Meinig 1993). Besides the identification of a Southwest border region heavily influenced by Hispanic and Native American culture, folklorists and cultural geographers have also recognized the "Mormon Culture Region" centered in Utah and covering parts of surrounding states (Dorson 2013;Eliason 2006;Francaviglia 2013;Meinig 1965;Yorgason 2003). Its name reflects the predominant population in the area belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but non-religious cultural practices have been considered as indicative of regional folklore.…”

Worlds in Space: American Religious Pluralism in Geographic Perspective

“…They staked out a vast space, tightly controlled that space by establishing a close relation between church and state-fully a theocracy until Utah's 1896 incorporation into the United States-and reified their religious world to a degree perhaps no longer possible for any group in pluralistic America (Meinig 1965;Jackson 1977;Francaviglia 1979;Bennion 2001;Francaviglia 2003;Silk and Walsh 2008: 162-169; see also Stump 2008: 232-234, 262). Other religious groups, arriving later and in smaller numbers, proved unable to make strong spatial claims of their own.…”