Book Reviews

This Is the Place: Brigham Young and the New Zion

By ERNEST H TAVES (Buffalo, N.Y. Prometheus Books. 1991. 299 pp. $23.95.)

Ernest H Taves, an author of short stories whose work has appeared in Playboy and Galaxy, has written a sequel to his Trouble Enough Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon (1984) According to Taves, the current work, despite its tide, does not attempt "to present another biography of Brigham Young," nor is it "intended to be a comprehensive history of the Church from the assassination of Joseph Smith to the completion of the transcontinental railroad." Instead, "this narrative is intended to relate some interesting aspects of Mormon history in this period, as I saw them" (p. 14).

Taves's organizational framework underscores one of the basic problems of this flawed, superficial, cliche-ridden work The narrative revolves around a hodgepodge of vignettes arranged in roughly chronological order and concerned with such varied topics as the initial migration of Brigham Young and his followers to the Great Basin, the state of Deseret, the formation of the territory of Utah, the handcart experiment, polygamy, the Mormon Reformation, the Mountain Meadow Massacre, and the Utah War of 1857-58.

In relating these and other varied events Taves has drawn liberally from secondary works by certain experts, in particular those of Leonard J. Arrington, LeRoy R and Ann W Hafen, Eugene E Campbell, and Kimball Young But Taves has failed to utilize the significant works of other important writers in Utah/Mormon history For (Example, in discussing Mormon polygamy there is no mention of the writings of Lawrence Foster or Richard S Van Wagoner The author's account of Mormon-Indian relations fails to utilize or even cite the recent work of Lawrence G Coates, Floyd A O'Neil, or Howard A Christy Or in discussing such important and sometimes colorful characters as Emma Smith, William Clayton, Jedediah M Grant, Porter Rockwell and Joseph Morris, Taves fails to cite the definitive biographical studies of Valeen T Avery, Linda K Newell, James B Allen, Gene A Sessions, Harold Schindler, and C LeRoy Anderson.

Indeed, Taves appears completely unaware of this and other recent scholarship of the so-called new Mormon history But, more serious, the author appears oblivious to what could be termed the spirit of the new Mormon history—that is, the attempt by serious scholars to carefully examine Mormonism's past in a thorough, dispassionate manner. Instead, Taves's own work has the tone of polemic written by an apparently disaffected individual. Thus, Joseph Smith, in terms of his motives and behavior, is pictured as "curiously indecisive" and "making wild stabs at solutions to problems beyond his ability to solve" (p.31). Turning to plural marriage, it, according to Taves, "became church doctrine as an accommodation to Joseph's physical and emotional needs" (p 147).

Brigham Young (whom Taves patronizingly refers to by his first name throughout the text) does not fare any better The Mormon leader is pictured as vulgar and demeaning in his attitudes, particularly relative to women. In one memorable passage Young is quoted as saying that "all their [women's] counsel and wisdom . . . don't weigh as much with me as the weight of a fly turd," a quote that Taves places in direct, contrasting juxtaposition with an enlightened quote of Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard University, that extols pioneer women as "the most heroic part" of any civilized Western community (pp. 79-80). In discussing the 1856 handcart disaster in which a significant number of pioneers perished in the early winter snows, Taves quotes Young as proclaiming that "if any man, or woman complains of me let the curse of God be on them and blast their substance with mildew and destruction. . ." Taves then editorializes with biting sarcasm: "No sir. Brigham Young could not be accused of mismanagement Didn't gold, silver, houses, and land multiply under his management* Wasn't he the equal of any financier they [the Saints] ever knew.^ His skirts, he said, were clear of the emigrants' blood" (p. 143). In another place Taves attempts to prove Young's tendency of resorting "to physical violence" and "his ferocious brand of exhortation" through an analysis of one of the Mormon leader's dreams. Taves pursues this tack, despite his own confession that he "understands full well the danger in the analysis of dreams at a far remove" in "that we cannot be scientific" But then he admits that "here the temptation is too great" Taves then goes on for two pages, characterizing his dream analysis as "an illuminating glimpse of Brigham's mind at work" (p 43-44)

This Is the Place is a seriously flawed work that students of Utah/Mormon history should approach with extreme caution There is little new information here Individuals interested in the Utah pioneer period would be much better served by consulting previously published works, particularly, Leonard Arrington's Great Basin Kingdom (1958) and Brigham Your^: American Moses (1985) and Eugene Campbell's, Establishing Zion: The Mormon Church in the American West, 1847-1869 (1988).

NEWELL G BRINGHURST College of the Sequoias

One House, One Voice, One Heart: Native American Education at the Santa Fe Indian School

By SALLY HYER (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1990. xii -I- 108 pp. Cloth, $29.95; paper, $22.50.)

When readers thumb through the glossy pages of this slim volume, they will be impressed with the photos that capture changes in clothing, facilities, and activities that span the hundred years of existence of the Santa Fe Indian School Scenes of little children in military uniforms and students captive of a foreign lifestyle give way to the appearance of self-assurance and ethnic pride. What appears at first glance to be a nicely designed compilation of school yearbooks turns out to be a carefully developed microcosm of government policy towards Indian education as recounted from the Native American point of view.

From the time the first nine students enrolled on November 15, 1890, to the 500 students attending today, the Santa Fe Indian School has taken giant steps in the direction of self determination The initial goal of the government's educational policy was to destroy the Indians' tribal identity by hacking away at cultural roots Uniforms, marching, rigid discipline, segregation of the sexes, and a speak-only-English policy supposedly encouraged assimilation into the white world, though, as interviewees point out, the policy generally failed. Instead, the students often turned to each other and built upon their own cultural values of sharing, cooperation, and respect for authority to weather the storms of cultural genocide.

By the 1930sthejohn Collier administration in the Bureau of Indian Affairs stirred anew breeze of reform. Regional identity, cultural pride, and a sense of community became the focus of ideas that allowed Native Americans to breathe a sigh of relief through self expression Vocational trades, arts and crafts, and athletic programs fostered pride in "Indianness" while preparing a generation for the future Setbacks occurred when, in the 1950s, assimilationists desired to mainstream Indians into the job market and terminate the reservation system Neither plan succeeded but did encourage the closing of SFIS for a short time.

The final period of 1963-90 is best summarized by the chapter heading "This School Belongs to the Pueblo People." The All-Indian Pueblo Council renovated the school's facilities, introduced a curriculum compatible with Indian goals, insisted on high standards in academic courses, and gave the Native American community a prominent voice in decision-making. The result a large student enrollment, a low (4 percent) dropout rate, a steady gain in student achievement, and a strong message that self-determination for Indian peoples works.

Oral interviews and a collection of 1,100 photographs provided the basis from which this study evolved The central narrative voice comes from the population of nineteen pueblos, located primarily in New Mexico, though other tribal groups are also mentioned Much of the text is anecdotal, derived from those who experienced education during the various periods of change Although there is a little nostalgia reflected in some of the testimony, the book is generally balanced in presenting both sides of an issue without being vindictive It is recommended for anyone interested in Indian education and the boarding school experience.

ROBERT S MCPERSON College of Eastern Utah-San Juan Campus

The Magnificent Mountain Women Adventures in the Colorado Rockies.

By JANET ROBERTSON (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990 xiv-I-220 pp $21.95.)

The few Colorado mountains named for women use only a woman's first name rather than her surname This observation symbolizes the rare documentation of women's activities in those mountains. Janet Robertson has remedied this in her interesting book The Magnificent Mountain Women.

The first women known to hike to the summit of some of the state's highest peaks usually wore uncomfortable and cumbersome clothing, were guided by men, and had to have the determination and spirit to confront prevailing nineteenth-century attitudes not only that such demanding activity was inappropriate for a lady but also that women were not physically capable of it By ignoring or defying the conventions and following the urge that led them to climb, they became eligible for inclusion in this book There are similarities among the women: many were single at the time of their accomplishment, most were well educated, particularly for the time, and they were city dwellers. Robertson points out that they were all white women there is no documentation of Hispanic, African American, or Indian women climbing mountains although obviously some did.

The book is divided into chapters that describe different types of women's mountain experiences The first female achievements as mountain climbers include Isabella Bird's famous ascent of Long's Peak, Julia Archibald Holmes's extraordinary 1858 climb up Pike's Peak—and Victoria Broughm's lonely hike up the difficult Long's Peak, another first.

As attitudes began to change in the early twentieth century, many more women used the mountains on their own terms Eleanor David Ehrman learned climbing techniques, and she and her male teacher/climbing partner recorded first ascents in the state, including Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle in 1916. And skier Marjorie Perry demonstrated time and again that difficult cross-country travel on horseback and skis need not deter a woman.

At the time of its creation in 1906 Mesa Verde National Park was called the "women's park" because the drive to create it had been led by women. Virginia Donaghue McClurg and Lucy Peabody, through the Colorado Cliff Dwellers Association, lobbied and raised funds nationally to make the park a reality.

For some women, Colorado's mountains provided a haven and refuge where they could live an independent life Susan Anderson became Eraser's "Doc Susie." Trained as a physician at the University of Michigan, one of thirteen women in her 1897 class of sixty-four, she found it difficult to support herself and at one point had to work as a nurse After moving to Eraser she served for over fifty years as physician for the entire region. St Louis's Katherine Garetson, after proving up on her Estes Park area homestead in 1917, wrote that if she had known how difficult it would be she would never have attempted it.

In the 1880s botany was considered something of a lady's field. Alice Eastwood took it and made it her own, collecting her first plants in Colorado's mountains. She became curator of botany at the California Academy of Sciences Other "lady" botanists followed, using the mountains as their laboratories.

The final chapter covers the modern recreationists and the growth of technical climbing. It describes through the personal stories of individual women the difficulties female climbers experienced in emerging from the shadow of men.

This is an interesting and in many ways compelling book By including the stories of many women, it has a cumulative impact; yet it is rich in detail. The censure Julia Archibald Holmes received for climbing in bloomers and the loneliness of Katherine Garetson's homesteading winters convey thestrength ofcharacter and commitment these women had to have. But above all, the sense of danger permeates the narratives. Caroline Welton and Agnes Vaille died on their climbs, Jean Ruwitch Goresline suffered brain damage in a climbing accident, and the high altitude winter research of botanists Katherine Bell Hunter and Emily Dixon Fose left them emotionally and physically affected for life.

Robertson's research is excellent, and she explains the details of technical climbing well At times, though, the transition from one section to another is confusing.

I recommend this book to those with an interest in the mountains and their power over humans and as a compilation of women's commitment to making their way in the high country.

KATHERINE KANE Colorado Historical Society Denver

The Colorado Front Range: A Century of Ecological Change

By THOMAS T VEBLEN and DIANE C. LORENZ.(Salt Lake City University of Utah Press, 1991. xvii -I- 186 pp. Paper, $19.95.)

Range managers in the West use dramatic words when speaking of the battle to increase livestock forage. Trees invade, shrubs take over Plants dominate, compete, decline, and recover from disaster Ecologists once thought of such changes as a stately succession toward "climax" communities Today they see a more complicated world; botanists speak of "vegetation dynamics." Are trees invading grassland where they have never before grown, or are they simply retaking historic range lost through clearcutting or fire?

To make judgments about real changes, "repeat photography" constitutes a useful tool. Modern researchers search for the exact perspective of a given pioneer photograph, then match the original with a modern photo of their own. Starting differences inplant communities often distinguish the two photos, inarguably documenting change.

Veblen and Lorenz have assembled 69 matched pairs of photos from the northern Front Range of Colorado—including Rocky Mountain National Park In thirty additional pages of text they offer a clear summary of current thinking about plant community dynamics and forest ecology, along with a careful introduction to the natural and human history of their study area. Their writing is straightforward—not highly technical but with no touches of lighter personal narrative. Their bibliography quickly leads the reader to the crucial primary sources.

The matched images give the reader an exhilarating sense of time-travel The originals mostly date from the years following white settlement in the Front Range: 1880-1915 These old photographs show mining towns that no longer exist and montane forests devastated by fire and logging, particularly in the mining areas The modern photos make clear that fire suppression activities in the twentieth century have allowed the forests to regenerate even-aged stands (mostly 60-100 years old) far denser than their 1880 counterparts (And they show, too, how susceptible these newly dense stands are to spruce budworm.)

Lodgepole pines have increased in abundance since the big fires of the last century. Ponderosa pines have increased at the expense of grasslands, evidently linked to a combination of causes: overgrazing in the nineteenth century; a wetter climate favoring pines over drought-resistant grasses; and the new fire regime. In higher subalpine spruce-fir forests, more old trees (at least 200 years in ag^ survive.

Some sites have changed in species composition, gradually moving through successional stages; others have the same species seen in the pioneer photos Elevation and moisture gradients have affected such changes just as ecologists predict

The authors emphasize that fire suppression activities in our own era may powerfully affect the forests. Before settlement, frequent ground fires set by lightning or Native Americans kept the stands open but did not kill mature trees. With modern fire control, small trees flourish; any fire today has sufficient fuel to carry the flames into the crowns of larger trees, ravaging the stand.

Although this book will not excite its readers, its unique documentation of change provides valuable information to anyone interested in the ecological history of Front Range forests as well as critical data for those managers who must decide the future of those forests.

STEPHEN TRIMBLE Salt Lake City

The Autobiography of B. H. Roberts.

Edited by GARYJAMES BERGERA (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990. xviii -h 266 pp. Paper, $12.95.)

In the foreword to this book Sterling McMurrin focuses the reader's attention on the key issues of B. H. Roberts's life and identifies him as the primary intellect in Mormonism's second generation. And though he was a man who lived much of Mormon history, Roberts's own skills and materials were too limited for a definitive effort to explain Mormonism in its broad historical and intellectual setting.

Roberts wrote his Autobiography at the end of his long and illustrious life from the biased perspective of the best-informed student of Mormon history and theology anywhere in the early 1930s, as evidenced by his masterful A Comprehensive History of the Church. His Autobiography thus becomes a history of his history in the Mormon church.

For example, at the age of four years, Roberts was left in England with an abusive Mormon family when his mother emigrated to Zion; however, from them he learned how to survive in a hostile world There he first heard his "soul voice," and there he learned first of early Mormon history.

Roberts notes episodes of crossing the ocean, the trip west to the Missouri River, his barefooted trek to Zion, his reunion with his mother, and their abject poverty in the promised land He would spend three youthful years in the Oquirrh mining camps before he came under a benign patronage that moved him toward his course in life as a scholar, church missionary, and leader.

Once Roberts learned to read, a new world opened to him. He briefly covers these watershed years, noting his studies, the powerful influence of John R. Park, and the impact of the challenging young peoples' study group, a precursor of the YMMIA. Roberts emerged as a leader wherever intellect and logic came into play.

Readers simply become aware in his Autobiography that he is married. Family life and details seem too incidental for mention, though he notes the influence of Apostle Erastus Snow and his second wife on him, seeing therein for the first time in his life a loving husband and wife relationship Roberts married a second wife soon afterwards.

Roberts's first mission call to Iowa came in 1880 He soon moved to the Southern States Mission where he later served as acting mission president while still a very young man. It was he who retrieved the bodies of the three slain elders, including John Gibbs, who had first come to his attention on board ship en route to America. And who but one possessed with a sense of history would have have thought to have his picture taken in the disguise he used to get through hostiles to retrieve the elders' bodies? That picture graces the cover of his Autobiography.

Roberts elected to use the speaker's podium to present his message His public lectures and debates began his work of studying and writing to defend his own and his church's beliefs. In a debate with Parson Alsop he first heard arguments made by Alexander Campbell against the Book of Mormon Roberts would later write his own three-volume defense of that scripture in his New Witness for God. . . .

Poverty faced Roberts and his families always. Though he was offered non-church options for making a living he chose to write for church publications, and he accepted additional church callings. He was a Seventy. Proudly he saw his work as a missionary and mission president as a "divine" calling, and he guarded that definition for the Seventy vigorously.

While president of the Eastern States Mission he organized a centennial celebration of the visit of the Angel Moroni to Joseph Smith He introduced new and better training to prepare his missionaries to preach the gospel, not, however, without challenges from fellow general authorities.

Roberts wrote at length on his political life. First was his part in the Utah Constitutional Convention where he argued against women's suffrage within the Utah State Constitution. He was also concerned with the role of church leaders in the political process, feeling that he had been victimized by it. To him the worlds of religion and politics were separated completely.

He also explained and defended himself as the polygamist denied his seat in Congress. His rejection was a bitter pill, so he took pains to note that responsible, respectable voices nationally had defended him.

Roberts continued his church writings His study guide for the Seventies reflects his intellectual prowess but also his theological maturing He felt keenly the need to present and defend Mormonism openly, logically, and rationally. He chose not to ignore problems he saw with claims some church leaders made for Mormonism. However, he was unable to sell his rational defense approach to fellow general authorities. He was a remarkable Mormon.

Roberts wrote his Autobiography as "sacred history." That is, for him, God clearly participated in the affairs of mankind with the church of Jesus assigned a particular latter-day role. Roberts saw himself as an "instrument" guided by his "soul voice" to serve in his church and to keep God's message to the world clear, rational, and defendable This is the B H Roberts readers discover in this Autobiography. The private man, father, husband, and citizen must be discovered elsewhere.

MELVIN T SMITH Mount Pleasant

So Much to Be Done- Women Settlers on the Mining and Ranching Frontier.

Edited by RUTH B MOYNIHAN, SUSAN ARMITAGE, and CHRISTIAN E FISCHER DiCHAMP (Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 1990 xxii -I-325 pp Cloth, $32.50; paper, $12.95.)

In 1977 Christiane Fischer edited a collection of excerpts from the autobiographical writings of twenty-five women who lived in the nineteenth-century American West Most of the texts were from rarely available printed sources; some were from manuscript collections. Fischer's purpose was to Let Them Speak for Themselves most of them ordinary women but "rich and complex personalities"; most of them constricted by imposed or internalized ideas about traditional womanly behavior, though "few could be described as submissive."

Now, several years later, Fischer Dichamp, with collaborators Moynihan and Armitage, has coedited another such collection of writings of eighteen other western women, most of them Anglo-American intruders on Indian and Hispanic lands. (Different pages from Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins's autobiography, Life among the Piutes, are included in both texts). This collection becomes, then, a companion to the previous volume, both making more accessible westering women's diverse voices—sometimes poetic, sometimes humorous, sometimes frustrated—for use in classrooms and just as a good read.

In the years between volumes a plethora of texts about women in the West have been published, many of them listed in the helpful, though highly selected, bibliography of So Much to Be Done. Freed from ruling paradigms of historical inquiry by the new social history's excavation of daily life and provoked by the new considerations of gender as a category of historical analysis, scholars have used materials such as these women's writings to rethink notions about frontier individualism and family cooperation and diversity of cultures.

So much, in fact, has been written that the introductory pages offered by the editors seem spare and tentative, descriptive rather than analytical, and limited as a guide to that foreign place that is the past Protesting that no single interpretation can encompass all of western women's experiences, the editors suggest their selected texts support. Julie Roy Jeffrey's conclusion that Anglo women in the West refused to give up notions of Victorian domesticity and Sandra Myers's conclusion that westering women were often nonconforming and adaptive. (Jeffrey and Myers are both editors of the series in which this book is published.)

As she did in her previous text, Fischer Dichamp notes that in the women's narratives men often appear only peripherally. These women are writing about their own activities as primary, male endeavors are secondary. This is women's world past, maybe even the female frontier Glenda Riley proposes as an interpretive framework. Certainly it is a world complex, crazy,' sorrowful, heroic, funny-a world that needs to be taken into account by all wanting a more honest, a more complete understanding of this place the West.

The editors have presented one interpretation of the woman's West in their few comments and in their selection of texts. They propose that the woman's West is a place of So Much to Be Done. These western women do, work, and go west for the same reason as men in quest of economic opportunities. These women sustain their households with productive and reproductive labor, are vital participants in family economies, and are essential creators of community.

And yet, with the editors' selection of texts by women on the frontiers of the mostly male occupations of mining and ranching, we are left wondering if mining and ranching communities offered women more economic opportunities, more leeway for entrepreneurial strategies than did farming or military or urban frontiers. And the whole competing for resources with Native Americans and other non-Anglo western women is not even considered by the editors.

Nonetheless, Moynihan, Armitage, and Fischer Dichamp have found wonderful narratives for us And for all the popular attention given to Johanna Stratton's Pioneer Women, a 1981 text that used a collection of 800 women's narratives to describe the woman's West, Moynihiin, Armitage, and Fischer Dichamp were correct not to repeat Strattons' error of overexplaining and overanalyzing those narratives. The narratives are their own best reason for being published. This selection of texts is less wide ranging than Fischer's previous volume, but it is just as lively and provocative.

KATHRYNL. MACKAY Weber State University