Trivial Trivia - taking trivia to new levels

[Wild Bill]

At the risk of alienating a lot of people in the Forum, audience and participants alike, I did an extensive study of Mormonism and Utah about 50 years ago, 34 pages of historiography, a dozen pages of foot notes, and a 12 page bibliography. I also lived in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona in what is called the Mormon Strip, that part of Arizona above the Grand Canyon. So most of what I say is very dated. But I found the Mormons quite engaging and good friends as I lived, worked, and loved among them. I never converted, but I never scoffed at their religion and society either. I still have many good friends in Utah, most of them old cowboys from my Grand Canyon days.

Sidney B. Sperry The Book of Mormon Testifies (1852) present the Book of Mormon in an approved Church analysis. Mark Twain, Roughing It (2 vols., various printings) presents an outsiders scoffing at what Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon meant to him as he rode across the Great American Desert between Great Salt Lake City and Carson City. I have a book of Mormon that is underlined by a missionary friend with the intent that I should find the truth and light I never did. More sober is the analysis of Christopher Lasch, "Burned Over Utopia," In NY Review of Books, 8 (Jan.15-18. 26, 1967),

Milo Quaife, in his intro to Dale Morgan's The Great Salt Lake (1947), calls the treatment of Mormon History the severest test of the capacity of American Historians for objectivity. A good general study is Leonard Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom (1958). More specific to members of the Surratt Society might be Robt. J. Dwyer, The Gentile Comes to Utah (1941); Everett L. Cooley, "Carpetbag Rule: Territorial Government in Utah Utah Hist Qrtrly, 26
(1958),107-29; Gustave O. Larson, "Utah and the Civil War," ibid., 33 (1965), 55-77; George U. Hubbard, "Abraham Lincoln as Seen by the Mormons,: ibid., 31 (1963), 19-108; Vern L Bullough, "Polygamy: An Issue in the 1860 Election?" ibid, 29 (1961), 119-26.

The Mormon War of 1858 is always of interest and it affected the Pierce, Buchanan and Lincoln Administrations to varying degrees. Try Richard D. Poll, "The Mormon Question enters National Politics, 1850-1858," Utah Historical Qrtrly, 25 (1957), 117-31; Norman Furniss, The Mormon Conflict (1960); Juanita Brooks, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (1962), there was a movie on this about 5 years back; Leroy and Ann Hafen (ads.), The Utah Expedition (1858); Charles P. Roland, Albert Sydney Johnston (1964); Otis E Young, The West of Philip St. George Cooke (1955), I studied my M.A. under him.

This ought to get you started. Don't forget to look up more modern sources, with newer interpretations. I am too lazy to do that for you, as usual.