The Mormon Role in the Settlement of the West

The Mormon Role in the Settlement of the West
RICHARD H. JACKSON, editor
Charles Redd Monographs in Western History Series No. 9
Paperback. 184 Pages. / 0-8425-1321-3 / $6.95

Central to this volume is an attempt to avoid stereotypes and assumptions about the settlement of the Great Basin by Mormons. Richard Jackson examines the overland diaries of immigrants and discovers that most pioneers found the experience of crossing the plains to be tedious but not arduous as popularly conceived. On the other hand, Melvin T. Smith recounts the exploration and settlement of the lower Colorado River area and finds that it was more heroic than people imagine.

Lynn A. Rosenwall looks at the approximately seventy-five Mormon settlements that were inaugurated and failed. Alan H. Grey compares the founding of Salt Lake City to the settlement of Christchurch in New Zealand; he finds abundant similarities. Charles S. Peterson studies the impact of agriculture on the pioneer landscape. Other contributors look at population patterns in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Richard H. Jackson is a professor of geography at Brigham Young University. He is the author of Land Use in America, coauthor of World Regional Geography, and coeditor of the Historical Atlas of Mormonism, among other works.