THE IGRt\TION HISTORY NEWSLETTER Volume X, No. 2 November 1978 righted. Permission to reproduce in any form Copyright © Immigration History Society, 1978 must be obtained from the editor and the author. Editor: Carlton C. Qualey c/o Minnesota Historical Society The two principal .articles in this issue are 690 Cedar Street longer than the usual essays, but the editor St. Paul, Minnesota 55101 has concluded that to cut them would eliminate useful and significant material. Dues: $3.00 per calendar year, payable to the Immigration History Society. Mail to the editor-treasurer. MORMON SOURCES FOR IMMIGRATION HISTORY EDITORIAL William~lder, Department of English University of Utah Your attention is called to the appointment by President Moses Rischin of two new chairmen of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day committees: NOMINATIONS COMMITTEE - Professor Saints, better known as the Mormon Church, has Louise C. Wade, Dept. of History, University of been since its founding in upstate New York in O~egon, Eugene, OR 97403. She and all our of­ 1830 a vigorous missionary church, intent on ficers hope for greater participation in the preaching the "Restored Gospel" to all nations nomination and election of officers, especially before the great winding up prophesied in Reve­ to the Executive Board, three members of which lations. In the nineteenth century, particularly, come up for election at each annual meeting. Mormonism preached and promoted "the gathering" Please send your nominations to Professor Wade, of the faithful to America as the Land of Zion preferably long before the annual meeting in in preparation for the Second Coming. Conversion April 1979. PROGRAM COMMITTEE - Professor Max­ was tantamount to emigration, or at least the ine S. Seller, SUNY-Buffalo, 428 Christopher expectation of it. In their several removes Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260. Suggestions for westward across the United States the Mormons ac­ programs and papers at meetings of the AHA, OAH, commodated themselves to a succession of centers WHA, AHA-PCB, SHA and other organizations should for the ingathering (at Independence, Missouri, be mailed to Professor Seller as soon as pos­ at Nauvoo, Illinois, and finally, in 1847, in sible. the Valley of the Great Salt Lake), proselyting with evangelical fervor in the United States it­ Members are reminded that the IRS does not have self and in Canada and missions opened in Great the facilities to bill on a regular basis. It Britain (in 1837) and northern Europe (Scandina­ is therefore important that members mail in via in 1850). At the same time they marshalled their dues for each year. Some have solved the the practical means for bringing their convert­ problem by paying for several years in advance. emigrants on a massive scale to Zion. At the bargain rate of $3.00, that presents no Millennia! expectations have abated and "the great financial burden. gathering" is no longer preached nor practiced,! but the records of missionary and immigration ac­ The IRS continues to be grateful to the Minneso­ tivity are extraordinarily complete: "the gather­ ta Historical Society for its hospitality. ing" has left a rich historical legacy engraved · on Mormon memory and imagination and preserved in Readers are reminded that articles appearing in thousands of documents at the headquarters of the the Immigration History Newsletter are copy- church. From the mission and emigration records 1 assembled there, t he names of Mormon convert­ expression in the administrative structure emigrants may be followed from the membership and, almost symbolically, in the assignment of and minute books of mission congregations, space in the new high-rise General Church Of­ with their notation "Emigrated to America," to fice Building at 50 East North Temple Street, the emigration ledgers kept at mission head­ across from Temple Square in Salt Lake City: quarters (Copenhagen for Scandinavia, Liver­ the Historical Department and the Genealogical pool for England), to the log of the journey Department (synonymous with the Society) occupy kept by the clerk appointed in every shipboard opposing, symmetrical wings. They are private company, to the passenger lists copied from institutions with a philosophy of public ser­ the National Archives of vessels arriving in vice. Their specialized collections are open the United States, to the announcement in the to qualified users without charge. ~ Guide to Deseret News .of the arrival of emigrant compa­ the Historical Deparbnent and a comparable nies in Salt Lake City, and finally to their ~ealogical Library Guide quickly acquaint the entry as "members of record" in one of the con­ visitor with the resources of each, their or­ gregations in Zion. Mormon shipping lists, ganization and location, and the regulations manuscript mission histories, a manuscript his­ governing their availability and use. The re­ tory of "Church Emigration" providing a de­ search scholar will discover to his pleasure scription of each organized emigrant company that the physical facilities and finding aids to 1869, the records of mission congregations, are superb and the staff professional. and a growing collection of personal litera­ ture -- immigrant letters, journals, and mem­ THE HISTORICAL DEPARTMENT oirs -- may all be found in the Library-Ar­ chives Division of the Historical Department Several distinct sets of documents comprise (formerly known as the Historian's Office) of the holdings of the Library-Archives Division the church, their use facilitated by both tra­ of the Historical Department. The finding aids ditional card files and, increasingly, com­ appropriate to each are within easy reach in puterized indexes, guides, and registers, more the Division's Search Room, a spacious area fully described below.2 studious in atmosphere and appointments. The Mormon historical activity is matched by a "Journal History of the Church" is the most com­ genealogical program yielding an international prehensive general source, essentially, as the harvest of records of great interest and utili­ Guide to the Archives Search Room·:describes it, ty to the immigration historian. Although "a massive scrapbook with a day-by-day account large-scale immigration is over, the Mormons of happenings in the Church from 1830 to the pursue another kind of gathering in their present." By now it consists of more than a search for ancestors to complete family lines thousand chronologically arranged looseleaf they believe will exist in eternity and to volumes filled with newspaper clippings, excerpts give the unbaptized dead the opportunity to em­ from private journals, letters, biographies,. brace the truth in the spirit world by perform­ pioneer/immigrant company rosters. and histories, ing gospel ordinances for them on earth by and other documentary materials. A subject card proxy. The "work for the deadn bas given rise index presently filling dozens of drawers refers to a prodigious effort on the part of the Gene­ to the date of each entry. A microfilm of the alogical Society of the church to microfilm JH, as it is usually cited, is available for vital records around the world, as well as public use in the adjacent microfilm reading evecy conceivable document bearing on genealo­ room, as are microfilms of a Church Chronology gy.3 Microfilms of land grants, deeds, probate Card File and a microfiche Biographical Sketches records, marriage records, obituary and ceme­ Index. tery records, parish registers, military, nat­ In the reading room two useful emigration/im­ uralization, business, professional and college migration name indexes may be found on microfilm: records, personal papers, local histories, dia­ the European Emigration Card Index, also known ries, autobiographies, and correspondence, cen­ as the "Crossing the Ocean Index" (9 reels, from suses, immigration and ships passenger lists -­ Aagaard to Zysling) and the Utah Immigration Card everything of genealogical value -- are finding Index, also known as the "Crossing the Plains their way from dozens of countries into the So­ Index" (3 reels, from Aagaard to Zundel). Also ciety's Granite Mountain Records Vault, a vast there on microfilm are the emigration records of storage facility tunneled into the solid granite the Swedish Mission, 1905-1932; the Scandinavian of the Wasatch Mountains east of Salt Lake City. Mission, 1854-1886, 1901-1920; the Netherlands The vault, equipped with sophisticated systems Mission, 1904-1914; and the particularly valuable for processing, preserving, reproducing, and re­ records of the Liverpool Office of the British trieving the film, is designed to keep "the Mission (since Mormon emigration from Europe world's genealogical information recorded funneled through there, in 6 reels, from 1849 to through the ages . • safe from the ravages of 1925. nature and the destructions of man."4 Two manuscript sources of Mormon history, one The devotion of the church to history and general, the other specialized, are on microfilm genealogy, twin fields of endeavor intimately there: the Manuscript History of the Church, the related in Mormon thought and practice, finds work of scribes during the administrations of 2 Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, on which the amounts to eight shelf feet of records, the published Documentary History of th~ C~~~~ is General Files to three feet, the New York Of­ based, and the Manuscript History or-Missions, fice Files to 4 1/2 feet, and so on. The en- indispensable to immigration accounts. try in the Church Records Inventory (synonymous Other