![]() Jan Shipps, one of the most noted scholars of Mormon studies, wrote about the difficulty historians have in determining “what the public said, thought, and felt about particular individuals.” The remarkable rise of media and public opinion polls will facilitate future studies of historical figures, yet there still persist thorny problems with studying nonverbal messages from the early twentieth century. Smith was similarly satirized in the press with frayed clothing and a long, exaggerated beard during his seventeen-year tenure as President of the Church. There was an intentional look of otherness about them. A typical rank-and-file Mormon male, for example, was often portrayed in print culture as old, overweight, and out of style, wearing tattered clothing and surrounded by numberless women in ragged dresses or pantalets. Their dress and physical appearance were also depicted differently from mainstream Americans as well. The marriage system among the Latter-day Saints was only one of a number of distinguishing aspects of the Utah-based faith. Non-Mormons across the country would hear outrageous rumors of the polygamous marriages in Utah and wondered how a people could uphold such a doctrine. The Latter-day Saints’ contested struggle for acceptability intensified toward the end of the nineteenth century. Sometimes, however, the Latter-day Saints’ uniqueness-whether it was culture, doctrine, or population-led to unintentional contention with their neighbors, and conflict followed them from upstate New York to Jackson County to the Salt Lake Valley. Mauss, Mormons had to grapple over two predicaments: maintaining their peculiarity but also adopting cultural traits in order to be acceptable to society. Like other religious movements, according to Armand L. Smith, the Latter-day Saints struggled to assimilate into the American mainstream. This chapter will also explore ways in which Reed Smoot and his clean-cut countenance helped improve the public image of the Latter-day Saints when the Church stood trial for the practice of plural marriage from 1903 to 1907.īetween the tenures of Joseph Smith and Joseph F. ![]() Smith and other seasoned Latter-day Saint leaders’ long beards when such facial hair was noticeably outmoded in the rest of the United States at the turn of the century. Rather, this chapter is an attempt to understand the rise and fall of bushy beards in American fashion during the latter half of the nineteenth century and to provide context to the negative public perception of Joseph F. This chapter is not intended to criticize, tease, or lampoon any former Latter-day Saint leaders. Thus, to non-Mormons, long beards, which were noticeably outdated and unpopular in American culture, could be seen as another subtle expression of nonconformity with the rest of the United States and as a reflection of the Latter-day Saints’ isolation in the Great Basin. Outsiders believed that the Mormon headmen unlawfully practiced plural marriage, swore themselves to secret allegiances, and unethically used their ecclesiastical influence over other members. ![]() Smith became President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1901, shaggy beards graced only the “cheeks and chins of rustic sages.” Īt this time in early twentieth-century America, Latter-day Saints were already experiencing negative public opinion. Apparently this type of facial hair grew so popular during the American Gilded Age (1877–1893) that it became known as “the American beard.” Yet, by the early 1900s-seemingly overnight-this trend turned old-fashioned and out of style. Bray is an oral historian at the Church History Department in Salt Lake City.įollowing the Civil War, it became common for American men to sport a “natural, dignified beard.” These men’s whiskers were rarely muttonchops or mustaches but rather long, bushy chin fur. ![]()
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