After 150 Years: The Latter-Day Saints in Sesquicentennial Perspective

by Jan Shipps, Dean L. May, Thomas G. Alexander (Editor)

The most common theme in this collection of six essays is adaptation to change. Jan Shipps writes about the acculturation that took place in the 1890s as Mormons moved from living within a mythic world to accepting developments within the larger society. Dean May investigates the implications of the fact that 40 percent of the church decided not to immigrate to the Great Basin and remained in the Midwest and that the ranks of Utah settlers were augmented by foreign converts. Essays by Edward Geary and Eugene England survey self-portrayals of Latter-day Saints in literature. LaMond Tullis looks at the expansion of the church into Latin America. James Allen examines the impact of technological changes on LDS consciousness.

207 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1982

About the author

Jo Ann Barnett Shipps, known as Jan Shipps, was an American historian specializing in Mormon history, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century to the present. Shipps was generally regarded as the foremost non-Mormon scholar of the Latter Day Saint movement, having given particular attention to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Her first book on the subject was Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition published by the University of Illinois Press. In 2000, the University of Illinois Press published her book Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons, in which she interweaves her own history of Mormon-watching with 16 essays on Mormon history and culture.