This finely researched historical volume is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature focusing on Mormonism's slow march to modernism. This study is placed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a time that led to the great migration outward from Utah for both work and education. Thousands of Mormons attended prestigious state universities in California, Michigan, and Minnesota; private campuses with night schools, such as George Washington University or New York University; and eventually top-drawer institutions like Stanford, Harvard, Chicago, and Columbia. Outmigrants received training in higher education, certifications in the professions, and graduate instruction in law, medicine, and the sciences. As the twentieth century rolled on, Mormon students established notable reputations while participating in moot courts, conferences, debates, and other activities.
Thomas W. Simpson's book touches on the earlier portion of this outmigration, detailing the experiences of some of these students. Simpson emphasizes the impact Wilford Woodruff's 1890 Manifesto had on the out-migration. Woodruff, as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), issued the Manifesto to abolish the practice of sanctioning new polygamous marriages. This served as a major turning point for Mormonism, lifting imposed federal sanctions, allowing Utah to become a state in 1896, and opening up opportunities for Mormons to study elsewhere. Though academic outmigration occurred before the Manifesto, experiences “varied widely,” and “the Mormon path to modernization was neither narrow nor fixed, and external pressure alone could not have produced modern Mormonism” (p. 5).
Simpson's narrative includes remarkable stories from the 1870s of women pursuing medical training and sister-wives supporting one another, highlighting that even before the Manifesto, Brigham Young invited women along with men to pursue medical degrees to bring relevant knowledge from the world to Zion (p. 27). Simpson highlights the ideological basis for “Mormon populism” that included “profound reverence for the wisdom of ordinary people like the young, untutored Joseph Smith, whose humble quest for truth and righteousness, uncorrupted by the learning of ‘the world,’ had guaranteed his access to truth and salvation. Decades of persecution only reinforced Mormons’ populist self-reliance” (p. 29). This conflict, according to Simpson, between populism and intellectualism continued onward. Students attempted to balance faith with university knowledge that fostered some skepticism and doubt (p. 37).
Near the turn of the twentieth century, positive interactions for Mormons came from university presidents and educators like Charles W. Eliot and William James of Harvard, James B. Angell of Michigan, and David Starr Jordan of Stanford. Prominent scholars, including G. Stanley Hall of Clark University and John Dewey of the University of Chicago, were invited to visit Brigham Young Academy in Provo for summer school to expand the horizons of Mormon and non-Mormon teachers. The events of the early twentieth century emphasized the relationship between science and religion, alternately colliding and blending.
Simpson's narrative brings to light key figures influencing the history of education in Utah: Benjamin Cluff, George Brimhall, Adam S. Bennion, and many others. The narrative also highlights the “modernist controversies” at BYU in 1911 when the role of academic freedom at the university became clear: the university must follow the standards laid out by the LDS church leadership (pp. 80–82). Simpson argues that some of these controversies continue to the present.
The fourth chapter, “Anti-intellectualism Rejected and Reborn, 1920–1940,” may be considered the heart of the book. A small, but critical, mass of Mormon scholars began to emerge during this period, writing increasingly relevant and penetrating dissertations and theses (appendix E). In our opinion, due to the Union Pacific Railroad's direct train from Ogden to Chicago, an increasing number of Mormons traveled to Chicago, the nearest large academic city, to earn their advanced degrees. Los Angeles emerged later as an important hub, but not until after 1945, when the rush for higher education expanded.
From the mid-1920s, Mormons migrated to the University of Chicago Divinity School (p. 100). The experiences and conclusions often differed and were perhaps a microcosm of what happened at other universities. Russel B. Swensen “revered his professors” (p. 103), while other Mormon scholars, like T. Edgar Lyon, changed their course of study to focus on “church history rather than theology or biblical studies … to create a comfortable distance between [themselves] and the professors who infuriated [them]” (p. 105). While students like Lyon experienced frustration in their programs, they were, for the most part, able to successfully complete their studies.
Simpson argues that “by examining the full extent and history of Mormon student migration, we can see how badly, and for how long, Mormons have wanted to be as ‘scientific’ and ‘progressive’ as other Americans, even as they have maintained a strong sense of cultural distinctiveness” (p. 7). While Simpson's argument is likely true, “examining the full extent and history of Mormon student migration” cannot be covered in just this one book; nevertheless, it does deeply scratch the surface. Simpson's cited works draw on aptly selected unpublished diaries and correspondence from archival sources in Utah but does not specifically take the wider geographic Mormon corridor context into account. Extending from Utah through Idaho up to Calgary, and in the opposite direction from Utah through Arizona down to northern Mexico, the Mormon heartland was much larger than Simpson leads the reader to believe. Mormons outmigrated and reverse-migrated all along these geographic regions. Some would also never reverse-migrate, finding education and employment opportunities that kept them permanently outside the corridor.
With the actual narrative of the book at only 125 pages, Simpson accomplishes succinctness and cogency. Simpson's admirably extensive references and bibliography illustrate a high standard of research and care. The chronology section genuinely adds clarity to names and specific events over a long period of time. The appendices include an extremely interesting sampling of Mormons who attended Harvard, Michigan, Chicago, and Columbia.
We do offer a few considerations. More information about the rivalry between the University of Utah and Brigham Young University (BYU) onward from the 1890s would have helped supply a broader narrative. In reality, most people recognized the University of Utah as a full university, whereas BYU was perceived as only an aspiring college rather than a university until the arrival of President Ernest Wilkinson in 1951. We also feel more emphasis should be placed on Franklin S. Harris, who had a major impact on BYU and its intellectual life. An analysis or discussion of the broader urban movement by early twentieth-century Mormon urban pioneers moving into urban centers would also enhance the scope of this study. And the conclusion is informative but reads more like a brief epilogue, in that much of it focuses on post-1940 content and lacks synthesis of key arguments from the narrative into the broader context of American history.
In a sense, it's a romantic story. Mormonism became more American as adventuresome individuals sought higher education away from home. The next part of this story should be the way they became spokespersons for the value of Mormonism in the cities they outmigrated to and, if they reverse-migrated, advertised the benefits of distant locations. Winner of the 2017 Best Book Award from the Mormon History Association, Simpson provides an excellent prologue of a critical period leading to the coming of age of modern Mormons.
