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Show duality in the Mormon landscape has not been previously recognized and its implications cannot be ignored. The inherent conflict between the homogeneity of the LOS town and the heterogeneity of its housing tradition is revealing for it means that the order that is clearly manifest in the town was not dependent upon conformity in other aspects of Mormon social life. That the building of the Kingdom of God was foremost in the minds of the Saints is a fact that has been consistently recognized by Mormon historians; but what has been less well understood is that this work progressed with or without orthodoxy in all things. Saints were made, that is, regardless of their willingness to build houses just like their neighbors'. Diversity in architectural design, the failure of the communitarian economic program, the persistence of immigrant folkways--these features of early Mormon life must cease to be viewed as signs of weakness in the LOS social fabric for it is evident . that the sources of community strength and unity in the nineteenth century lay elsewhere. Saints were "made," not so much by what they did or did not do in their everyday lives, but through their active belief and participation in the principles of the gathering and the building of In several recent articles, the historian Jan Shipps has explored in detail the specific nature of the Saint-making process. 6 Zion. Drawing upon a theory of social boundaries similar to that employed by Fredrik Barth in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, 7 Professor Shipps recognizes that one of the principal ways in which particular groups--whether they be ethnically, culturally, or religiously motivated--define themselves as groups is through the generation and maintenance of boundaries that separate them from others. Such boundaries are necessarily social and are formed through the 295 |
