Photographs of the Interior of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, December 1905
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BYU Studies Quarterly Volume 57 Issue 2 Article 6 2018 Photographs of the Interior of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, December 1905 Richard Neitzel Holzapfel Brigham Young University Ronald L. Fox Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq Part of the Mormon Studies Commons, and the Religious Education Commons Recommended Citation Holzapfel, Richard Neitzel and Fox, Ronald L. (2018) "Photographs of the Interior of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, December 1905," BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 57 : Iss. 2 , Article 6. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol57/iss2/6 This Artwork is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in BYU Studies Quarterly by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Holzapfel and Fox: Photographs of the Interior of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, December Figure 1. Salt Lake Tabernacle, December 1905, photographer unknown (PH 91 8.1, 15 cm × 10 cm, contact print), Church History Library. The Latter-day Saints celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of Joseph Smith’s birth in December 1905. Joseph F. Smith, the Prophet’s nephew and sixth President of the Church, dedicated a granite memorial at Joseph Smith’s birthplace in Sharon, Windsor County, Vermont, on December 23, 1905. On the following day, twenty thousand Latter-day Saints gathered in the historic Salt Lake Tabernacle in two meetings to remember the Prophet. This photograph highlights a view of the interior of the Tabernacle, decorated for the centennial celebration of the Prophet’s birth. The bright light in the ceiling comes from the skylight. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018 1 BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 57, Iss. 2 [2018], Art. 6 PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE PHOTOGRAPHIC Photographs of the Interior of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, December 1905 Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Ronald L. Fox he United States government’s war on The Church of Jesus Christ Tof Latter-day Saints came to a sudden end with the issuance of the Manifesto in 1890.1 The cessation of the conflict produced a period of goodwill between Latter-day Saints and their neighbors in Utah and with politicians in Washington, D.C. However, the fragile truce began to show cracks in 1896 when Utah achieved statehood, and by 1900, with the election of B. H. Roberts2 to the U.S. Congress, the final ves- tiges of the armistice had all but disappeared. Four years later, in 1904, with the election of LDS Apostle Reed Smoot3 to the U.S. Senate, the conflict widened and deepened. In 1905, the year after Reed Smoot won the senatorial election, he was battling to retain his seat in the U.S. Senate.4 This investigation in 1. On the complexities of the 1890s for the Church and the U.S. government, see Thomas G. Alexander,Mormonism in Transition: A History of the Latter- day Saints, 1890–1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 3–15. 2. Brigham Henry Roberts (1857–1933) was a prolific writer, active in Utah politics supporting the Democratic Party, and a member of the Council of the Seventy from 1888 until his death in 1933. 3. Reed Smoot (1862–1941) was a prominent businessman, member of the Utah state legislature, U.S. senator from 1903 to 1933, and a member of the Quo- rum of the Twelve Apostles from 1900 until the time of his death in 1941. See Milton R. Merrill, Reed Smoot: Apostle in Politics (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1990). 4. Finally, on February 20, 1907, a motion to remove Smoot from the U.S. Senate was defeated. BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 2 (2018) 53 https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol57/iss2/6 2 Holzapfel and Fox: Photographs of the Interior of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, December 54 v BYU Studies Quarterly Washington, D.C., really focused on LDS beliefs, practices, and history.5 Never before had the Church been so thoroughly investigated by an offi- cial federal government body and criticized and lampooned in public lectures, newspaper articles, editorials, and political cartoons.6 During the year, Reverend T. C. Iliff, superintendent of the Method- ist Church Mission in the Rocky Mountains and a major leader in the effort to remove Senator Smoot, delivered his lecture “Mormonism, a Menace to the Nation” to packed venues across the country.7 The wide- spread attention his lectures received often elicited editorial rebuttals in the Church’s newspaper, the Deseret Evening News.8 During 1905, two Utah newspapers, the Salt Lake Tribune and Goodwin’s Weekly, contin- ued their unrelenting attacks on the Church and its leaders, especially Joseph F. Smith, the sixth president of the Church.9 By October 1905, two LDS Apostles, John W. Taylor10 and Matthias F. Cowley,11 were forced to resign from the Quorum of the Twelve in the wake of the Smoot hearings.12 5. See Kathleen Flake, The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seat- ing of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). 6. See Gary L. Bunker and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Graphic Image, 1834– 1914: Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1983), 57–70. 7. See James David Gillilan, Thomas Corwin Iliff: Apostle of Home Missions in the Rocky Mountains (New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1919), 73–96. 8. For example, see “Conflicting Rumors,” Deseret Evening News, Decem- ber 30, 1905, 4. 9. See, for example, “Why Reed Smoot Will Be Kicked from Senate,” Salt Lake Tribune, December 21, 1905, 1; and “The Infamy of the Things,” Goodwin’s Weekly, December 9, 1905, 2. 10. John Whittaker Taylor (1858–1916) was the son of the third president of the Church, John Taylor (1808–1887), and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles until he resigned in 1905. See Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia: A Compilation of Biographical Sketches of Prominent Men and Women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History, 1901–36), 1:151–56. 11. Matthias F. Cowley (1858–1940) was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles until he resigned in 1905. He was the father of LDS Apostle Matthew Cowley (1897–1953) and FBI agent Samuel P. Cowley (1899–1934). See Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:168–72. 12. See Victor W. Jorgensen and B. Carmon Hardy, “The Taylor-Cowley Affair and the Watershed of Mormon History,” Utah Historical Quarterly 48 (January 1980): 4–36. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2018 3 BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 57, Iss. 2 [2018], Art. 6 Salt Lake Tabernacle, December 1905 V 55 The Commemoration in Sharon, Vermont During this challenging year, Joseph F. Smith13 turned his attention to the upcoming one hundredth anniversary of Joseph Smith’s birth in December 1905. Church leaders commissioned the production of a commemorative bronze medallion by the “well known painter and sculptor” Mahonri M. Young.14 A description of the medallion was pub- lished in the Deseret Evening News: “The medal shows on its face a bust portrait of the prophet, with the date of his birth, and the date of its hun- dredth anniversary. On the obverse side is a sketch of the monument erected this year on the site of his birthplace, of the house in which he was born and an inscription explaining the nature of the occasion which the medal commemorates.”15 Earlier in the year, Church leaders had also authorized Junius F. Wells16 to locate and purchase the site of Joseph Smith’s birth in Sha- ron, Windsor County, Vermont, with plans to erect a monument in the Prophet’s honor. By May 1905, Wells had purchased the site and “submitted a design pro- posal to erect a monument and memorial in time to celebrate the centen- nial of Joseph Smith’s birth in December.”17 The plans for the monument 13. The First Presidency consisted of Joseph F. Smith as president with John R. Winder (1821–1910) and Anthon H. Lund (1844–1921) as counselors. 14. “Will Honor the Prophet Joseph,” Deseret Evening News, December 13, 1905, 1. Mahonri Mackintosh Young (1877–1957) was the grandson of Brigham Young and a well-known and celebrated American sculptor and artist who created the This Is the Place Monument and Seagull Monument in Salt Lake City. See Norma S. Davis, A Song of Joys: The Biography of Mahonri Mackin- tosh Young, Sculptor, Painter, Etcher (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Museum of Art, 1999). 15. “Will Honor the Prophet Joseph,” Deseret Evening News, December 13, 1905, 1. 16. Junius Free Wells (1854–1930) was the first head of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association (YMMIA) and the chief organizer of the LDS Church’s efforts to build a number of historical monuments in the early 1900s. See Paul Thomas Smith, “Junius F. Wells,” inEncyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 4:1560–61. 17. Keith A. Erekson, “Memories, Monuments, and Mormonism: The Birthplace of Joseph Smith in Vermont,” in Born in the U.S.A.: Birth, Com- memoration, and American Public Memory, ed. Seth C. Bruggeman (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012), 135. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol57/iss2/6 4 Holzapfel and Fox: Photographs of the Interior of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, December 56 v BYU Studies Quarterly were published in a lengthy essay by Wells in the Deseret Evening News in July 1905.18 Not surprisingly, given the explosive atmosphere at the time, the public announcement that the Church would erect a monument in Ver- mont generated negative attention.19 For example, Fredrick M.