| OCR Text |
Show Pitman, in his early survey of Mormon folk housing, wrote that "despite ethnic differences~ the same set of house form concepts was disseminated in every Mormon community because of mobility within the Mormon area, cultural isolation from the world beyond Mormondom, and a willingness among all converts to achieve a self-sustaining theocratic commonwealth through conformity to economic practices, social customs, and religious beliefs (emphasis added)." 1 Like other scholars who have written about LOS architecture, Pitman worked from a deeply-held assumption that Mormon ethnic identity during the nineteenth century was expressed in uniform social action, i.e., building houses that looked alike. Yet had he been willing to look more closely he would have discovered in the houses, as others recently have in economic practices, social customs, and religious beliefs, 2 a surprising lack of cong nsus and unity. The point here, however, has not been merely to supply negative evidence--to flail away at straw men, but rather, firs t to describe the diversity of architectural design that actually exists in one cluster of Mormon communities and then, to try to explain why it occurred. How can the individualized designs of the houses be reconciled with the concentrated and corporate character of the town settlement pattern? If Mormon society was not the cultura l monolith it has been thought to be; if town living did not in fact make all the Saints the same, it is nevertheless impossible to deny the group ' s internal strength and cohesion. What forces were there, to restate the question raised at the beginning of this study, that continued to foster a collective sense of group responsibility and re purpose? This question moves the study toward the second and mqs important of its objectives, namely, finding meaning in these old houses. 292 |
