W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2009 Utopian spaces: Mormons and Icarians in Nauvoo, Illinois Sarah Jaggi Lee College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, Geography Commons, History of Religion Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Lee, Sarah Jaggi, "Utopian spaces: Mormons and Icarians in Nauvoo, Illinois" (2009). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623544. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-2x4q-vh31 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Utopian Spaces: Mormons and lcarians in Nauvoo, Illinois Sarah Jaggi Lee Logan, Utah Master of Arts, The College of William & Mary, 2004 Bachelor of Arts, Brigham Young University, 2001 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the College of William and Mary in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy American Studies Program The College of William and Mary May 2009 APPROVAL PAGE This Dissertatiqn is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ;?~. App h 2009 Committee C ir Associate Profe sor Maureen A. Fi erald, American Studies \ The College of W~li m & Mary u' - J ~lure and Religion University of Richmond ABSTRACT PAGE Nauvoo, Illinois was the setting for two important social experiments in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormons, made this city their headquarters of their rapidly expanding church from 1838 until 1846. Only three years after the departure of the Mormons, a group of Frenchmen calling themselves lcarians came to the same spot to realize a system of communal living and brotherhood that lasted in Nauvoo until 1856. While several studies have been devoted to these groups, as yet none have combined a study of the two communities who shared the same space. This study focuses on the physical communities as envisioned by their leaders and as constructed and inhabited by the members of each group. In "reading" the city each community constructed at Nauvoo, we can understand their unique utopian agendas and how those were realized or compromised in the everyday living out of each groups' individual utopian vision. I offer one perspective, grounded in an interpretation of the cultural landscape of Nauvoo, which examines only a few of the numerous aspects of Mormon and lcarian society, including commitment mechanisms, ideological centers, leadership and authority, gender and conflict. This study seeks to compare the two communities at Nauvoo in ways that will not only elucidate their agendas and experiences, but will help shed light on the nature and experiences of utopian communities in general. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements 11 List of Illustrations lll Chapter I. Introduction Chapter II. Utopian Space 8 Chapter III. Centers 57 Chapter IV. Texts and People in the Construction of Utopia 112 Chapter V. Structures of Authority 151 Chapter VI. Gender and Family 198 Chapter VII. Inside and Outside Nauvoo 244 Chapter VIII. Conclusion 292 Bibliography 301 Vita 329 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my profound appreciation to Maureen Fitzgerald for her patient direction, criticism and encouragement. I am also indebted to Professors Christopher Grasso, Lynn Weiss and Terryl Givens for their reading and invaluable criticism of an imperfect manuscript. I also wish to thank those at the Center for Icarian Studies at Western Illinois University for their patient guidance and assistance. Additional thanks to Sister Latham and the missionaries at the Nauvoo Land and Records Office in the fall of 2006 for their kindness and help. I am also grateful for Ronald Read's repeated help in locating obscure images. Finally, and most of all, a huge thanks to my husband Daniel for his patience and much-needed encouragement, to my son Peter for the added incentive to finally finish this project, and to my family for their unfailing interest and understanding. 11 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration Page 1. View ofNauvoo 3 2. Daguerreotype ofNauvoo 5 3. Nauvoo from the Mississippi, Looking Down the River 14 4. Map ofNauvoo 29 5. Map oflcaria in Nauvoo 32 6. Map of Commerce and Nauvoo 35 7. Plat of Zion for Independence, Missouri 37 8. Daguerreotype ofthe Nauvoo Temple 68 9. Nauvoo Wards 73 10. William Weeks's Architectural Sketch of a Nauvoo Temple Column 76 11. Original Sunstone from the Nauvoo Temple 77 12. Interior of the Nauvoo Temple 80 13. Sketch ofBaptismal Font 82 14. First Floor of the Nauvoo Temple 85 15. Third Floor of the Nauvoo Temple 85 16. Ad for the Temple 90 17. Icarian Property in Nauvoo 94 18. Temple Mormon de Nauvoo 95 19. Ruins ofthe Nauvoo Temple 98 20. Icarian Schoolhouse 100 21. Conjectural Drawing of the Icarian Refectory 107 lll 22. Interior of the Icarian Refectory 107 23. Icarian Chair 108 24. Sketch ofBuildings on Temple Square 110 25. Joseph Smith 156 26. Etienne Cabet 159 27. Cabet's House 191 28. Icarian Apartment Buildings 229 29. Floorplan oflcarian Apartments 229 30. Mormons Crossing the Mississippi on the Ice 245 31. View ofNauvoo from the West Bank of the Mississippi River 248 32. View ofNauvoo and the Temple from across the River 250 33. The Nauvoo House 253 34. Postcard ofNauvoo 254 35. La Colonie de Nauvoo 263 36. Heber C. Kimball Home 284 37. Icarian Communities in the United States 295 38. The Rebuilt Nauvoo Temple 296 39. The Mix Home 298 IV 1 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION On 4 February 1846 a train of covered wagons sheltering shivering families and holding their meager belongings stretched along the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. These were Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, forced to leave all they had built-the city Nauvoo, their temple, and their homes of seven years-never to return. As they faced the partially frozen Mississippi River and the Iowa shore on the other side, the Saints cast a parting glance back at their beloved city and temple. Priddy Meeks, one of the Mormon pioneers who left in the winter of 1846, wrote, "While crossing over a ridge seven miles from Nauvoo we looked back and took a last sight of the Temple we ever expected to see. We were sad and sorrowful." After the Mormons' departure, the city ofNauvoo, once a thriving, bustling city on the banks of the Mississippi, became what journalist Thomas Kane described as a "Dead City," consisting of empty houses, abandoned workshops, and the temple standing stark against the sky on the bluff overlooking the river. 1 Nauvoo was only one in a succession of communities founded by Mormons, or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Church was officially organized ip 1830 in upstate New York, following important visions by the prophet Joseph Smith and the publication of the Book of Mormon. Less than a year later, the 1 Priddy Meeks quoted in Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A Place ofPeace, A People ofPromise (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company and Provo: BYU Press, 2002), 619. 2 focus shifted west to Kirtland, Ohio where the Mormon Saints were called to gather? Thousands of believers eventually gathered to Kirtland where they built their first temple. Shortly after the announcement to·gather in Ohio, Smith issued another revelation regarding the "land of the [Saints'] inheritance." Zion was "a land of promise ... flowing with milk and honey."3 Joseph Smith later declared that Zion was located at Independence, Missouri, and the Mormons began moving there with plans to build temples and a great city. Violent conflict in Missouri prevented the Saints from realizing their grandiose plans. At the end of 1833, they were expelled from Independence and Jackson County. The Saints moved to Clay County, where the cycle of persecution and flight was repeated. Three years later they moved to northern Missouri where a new county was created to accommodate the Mormons. After a brief hiatus, violence erupted again. Hostile Missourians burned Mormon farms and homes, killing and driving out believers. The Saints tried to defend themselves; they sought aid and redress from the government, but mobs drove them out, again in the middle of winter; this time they had to leave the state of Missouri altogether under threat of extermination. Nearly destitute, sick and suffering, with their prophet in jail on trumped up charges of"murder, treason, burglary, arson, larceny, theft, and stealing," the Saints returned to the east and camped along the Mississippi River, where many were sheltered by residents of Quincy, lllinois.4 Upon Smith's release in spring of 1839, he decided to relocate the Mormon community to a piece of swampy land along the Mississippi River 2 The Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981 ), 37:3. 3 The Doctrine and Covenants 38:18-19. 4 Joseph Smith, History ofthe Church ofJesus Christ ofLatter-day Saints, ed. B.H. Roberts. 2d ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1980), 3:315. 3 Figure 1 View of Nauvoo. Unknown artist, oil, 1848-1850. Courtesy LDS Church History Library/Archives. in Illinois. In spite of their previous failures in establishing communities in Ohio and Missouri, the Saints fell to city building in Illinois with enthusiasm. Nauvoo soon rose from the riverbank to become the second largest city in Illinois.