Conclusion

Speaking for his missionary colleagues of half a century, near the end of his life Orson Pratt told a London audience, “We have sought diligently, year after year, to publish glad tidings of great joy, to all the different people on the face of the earth. . . .”¹

No doubt Orson Pratt was rendering an account for a kind of stewardship that he had received in 1830 from a revelation that had commanded him to preach the gospel far and wide. For Orson and his co-workers, the written word was as important as the spoken word, and the early growth of Mormonism was a product of both. Even if early missionaries did not write tracts themselves, as missionaries they used, distributed and sold the various products of the early press.

The products of the early Mormon press were important in various ways. This study has shown the diversity of this literature as well as the variety of individuals who were responsible for it. The Pratt brothers were the most influential. This study has shown wherein their prominence lies, and that Parley has been under-rated and Orson has been somewhat over-rated. Several chapters of this study have provided a new look at both individuals in order to set the record straight.

The large number of lesser known pamphleteers have been studied through an examination of the lives and works of Benjamin Winchester, Richard Ballantyne, Jesse Haven, Charles Wandell, ^[396] and a variety of individuals who wrote defenses of polygamy. In addition to examining their lives and publications, a closer look was given to several major topics which can help the student of Mormon history to better conceptualize the role of the press in the early Mormon Church. For example, Winchester’s life and publications were closely associated with his urban missionary work. In addition, the institutional and doctrinal growth of the Church were examined to provide the context for his writings and missionary work. Even though the resulting stresses and strains drove Winchester from the Church he so ably defended, his story gives us another window through which early Mormonism can be seen.

In an international setting, pamphlets also played a key role in early missionary work. While most of these works were generated as replies to anti-Mormon attacks, a study of them can help modern students of Mormonism judge and evaluate the education and understanding the author’s had of their Church and its doctrines. It also reveals an important aspect of nineteenth-century missionary work that has generally been ignored in scholarly studies of the subject.

The analysis of the defenses of plural marriage traced the public introduction of a key Mormon doctrine as well as the subsequent defenses of that doctrine in the pamphlet literature. While polygamy was one of the most obvious and controversial of Mormon doctrines in the nineteenth century, a study of the pamphlet literature could help students of Mormonism to trace the emergence of other doctrines as well. ^[397]

This study has shown that early Mormon pamphleteering was a gradual movement from a freelance and informal press to more formally controlled productions. Much of this evolution paralleled the rise of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the early hierarchy. This development was well underway before Joseph Smith’s death, but the succession crisis solidified the control of the Twelve over the Church, and especially its publications. The published works of the Apostles after 1844 moved increasingly toward standardization and systematization. The Pratt brothers were especially important in this process. By the mid-1850s this movement was well underway, but a variety of factors, including the over-production of tracts, the increasing financial strain on the Church and her missionaries, and the growing problems in Salt Lake City, all combined to end the first generation of Mormon Pamphleteering. Brigham Young’s move to halt the publishing of tracts came by the end of the 1850s and grew out of these concerns as well as his own fears that too much written analysis of Mormon doctrine would destroy its spirit of openness, as well as potentially undermine the need for living leaders for the movement. This may help explain why the one major publishing project that continued after Brigham Young’s death was the Journal of Discourses, a series that made available to the Saints on a regular basis the sermons of Church leaders. Thus, with Brigham Young’s encouragement and support, this publishing project, begun in 1854, stressed the living word as the more extended written analyses were being halted.²

After Brigham Young’s death, a new generation of Mormon ^[398] pamphleteers arose. Much of the literature and theological outlook of modern Mormonism dates from this later period. Today Mormons use literature that came from the pens of authors like Charles W. Penrose, George Q. Cannon, James E. Talmage, John Nicholson, and B. H. Roberts. While these authors used material created by an earlier generation, their outlook and theology were a generation removed from the formative period of Mormonism. This gap has never really been bridged, nor has it received the scholarly attention it deserves. This study has hopefully begun the process. ^[399]