Date of Award:

12-2022

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Arts (MA)

Department:

History

Committee Chair(s)

Patrick Mason

Committee

Patrick Mason

Committee

Rebecca Anderson

Committee

Susan Grayzel

Abstract

This thesis examines religion as practiced in the Latter-day Saint home during a period of religious transition between 1890 and 1930. Using the family of June A. Bushman and Hyrum Smith as subjects, we examine how families managed the religious reforms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during this period. As individuals who came of age at the turn of the twentieth century, June and Hyrum’s lives intersected with their church’s transition from an isolated religion to a modern, American church.
Administrative modernization, priesthood reforms, reimagined family relationships, and other ecclesiastical changes came into tension with the everyday lived religion of Latter-day Saints. Against the emergent construct of the “ideal home,” this thesis reveals how the home functioned as a site of spiritual negotiation where religion is reconstructed to offer meaning and stability within a church in flux.

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