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Tag Archives: Mormonism

On Jon’s Desk: Pictures of an Inland Sea – Every Book a Treasure

29 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by Jonathan Bingham in On Jon's Desk

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Alfred Lambourne, artist, Brigham Young, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, England, Great Salt Lake, Gunnison Island, immigration, Jon Bingham, Mormonism, Pictures of an Inland Sea, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake Theatre, Samuel E. Cassion, sketches, solitude, transcendentalism, treasure, Utah, Zion Canyon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Across the distance there comes a change. The horizon is melted away; the mountains are all blurred. Distant chains appear to part and to become peaked islands. The sky seems water; the water, sky. Soon substance and shadow are indistinguishable. In plainer words, it is the beginning of a noonday mirage.”

– From Chapter III “Sea Horizons,” Pictures of an Inland Sea, page 39

Title page of Portraits of an Inland SeaTitle: Pictures of an Inland Sea

Author: Alfred Lambourne

Published: Boston: Samuel E. Cassion, 1895

Call Number: xPS3523 A44 P53 1895

First edition

An entire month has escaped me. It seems to have fallen into a crevasse. It was mid-August and then suddenly here we are at the end of September. I looked at the calendar today and realized it has been a month since I wrote and published the last On Jon’s Desk post. Subsequently, having no idea whatsoever as to what I should write my next post on, I began scanning my desk to see what books I may find. That is when I found an amazing book. It just goes to show that every book is a treasure, waiting to be found. This book was on my desk because I needed to follow up on a question posed by someone who came to Special Collections to read it and was then waiting to be returned to its place on the shelf. Little did I know that this amazing book, only a few feet away from me this whole time, is such a gem. I had no previous knowledge of the author or this work. I am very happy that I now do. Here is what I found.

Portrait of Alfred LambourneAlfred Lambourne was born in Chieveley, Berkshire (on the River Lambourn), England, on the second of February, 1850. Alfred manifested artistic talent while young and his parents (William and Martha) encouraged him in the pursuit of this interest. During the 1860s, Alfred’s family converted to Mormonism and subsequently immigrated to the United States, residing in St. Louis, Missouri for a time before completing its journey to Utah. Alfred arrived in Salt Lake City at the age of sixteen (having kept a sketch book of scenery along the way from Missouri to Utah) and upon arriving in Salt Lake City began painting set scenery for the Salt Lake Theatre. In 1871, he accompanied Brigham Young (then President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and former Governor of Utah Territory) to Zion Canyon, where he made the first known sketches of that area. During his mid-life, Alfred traveled not only throughout the West but also across the continental United States painting many natural settings and geologic features he visited. In his later life he concentrated on writing, sometimes illustrating his books. He wrote fourteen works in total before he died in Salt Lake City on the sixth of June, 1926.

Page twenty-three from Portraits of an Inland SeaWhen most of us think of the Great Salt Lake, we think of a stinky place with lots of bugs. Alfred was enthralled by the Great Salt Lake, referring to the body of water as an “inland sea.” It was a source of adventure and joy for him and his preferred place for solitude. It also acted as a source of artistic inspiration for him. His relationship with the lake spanned decades and resulted in a body of beautiful works, of which this book, Pictures of an Inland Sea, is one. He sketched and painted the lake from multiple vantage points. At the same time, his paintings focused on his favorite aspects of the lake: travel by boat, soaring birds, and of course the ever-changing water, sky, and atmospheric phenomena of the lake.

List of sketches in Portraits of an Inland SeaPictures of an Inland Sea is a transcendentalist work that provides both factual information on the lake from a nineteenth century vantage point and images of divinity sketched out for us by Alfred both visually and textually. This book is a treasure because through it we are drawn into a world of natural phenomenon that he could see and with this work interprets for us. So next time you catch an unsatisfactory whiff of the Great Salt Lake and fail to appreciate its fascinating existence, just look to Alfred and his sketches and you may find it just a little easier to appreciate our inland sea.

~ Contributed by Jon Bingham, Rare Books Curator

 

Twilight of Marshes Sketch from Portraits of an Inland Sea

 

 

 

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We recommend – Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness

25 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Reading

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citizenship, history, Mitt Romney, Mormon, Mormonism, Mormons, New York, Oxford University Press, polygamy, Protestant, race, racial, religion, The University of Utah, United States, W. Paul Reeve


Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness
W. Paul Reeve
New York: Oxford University Press, 2015

The Protestant white majority in nineteenth-century United States was convinced that Mormonism represented a racial – not merely religious – departure from the mainstream and they spent considerable effort attempting to deny Mormon whiteness. Being white equaled access to political, social, and economic power, all aspects of citizenship in which outsiders sought to limit or prevent Mormon participation. At least a part of those efforts came through persistent attacks on the collective Mormon body, ways in which outsiders suggested that Mormons were physically different, racially more similar to marginalized groups than they were white. Medical doctors went so far as to suggest that Mormon polygamy was spawning a new race. Mormons responded with aspirations toward whiteness. It was a back and forth struggle between what outsiders imagined and what Mormons believed. Mormons ultimately emerged triumphant, but not unscathed. A portion of the cost of their struggle came at the expense of their own black converts. Mormon leaders moved away from universalistic ideals toward segregated priesthood and temples, policies held firmly in place by the early twentieth century. So successful were they at claiming whiteness for themselves, that by the time Mormon Mitt Romney sought the Presidency in 2012, he was labelled “The whitest white man to run for office in recent memory.” Mormons once again found themselves on the wrong side of white.

W. Paul Reeve is Associate Professor, History, The University of Utah.

BX8611-R44-2015-cover

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