Outcomes
In order to successfully complete this course, the student will:
1. Acquire an understanding of the development of the LDS Church within the context of American religious movements; evaluate the reasons the church hierarchy felt compelled to move; identify religious and social forces which attracted European and American converts to join the church and relocate to remote frontiers. ASSESSMENT: may include class discussion, presentations, writing assignments, or tests.
2. Identify the reasons for the conflicts between the Mormon migrants and their gentile neighbors in the various communities in which they settled; the church’s relationship with state and federal governments; and their causal relationship to the migration. ASSESSMENT: may include class discussion, presentations, writing assignments, or tests.
3. Acquire understanding of the Mormons’ successes and failures from 1845-1890 on the trail between Illinois and Utah during what was the largest group migration within the larger American "Great Migration" which espoused the philosophy of "Manifest Destiny." Examine the Mormons’ unique utilization of the western trails as lucrative economic development tools. Discuss the Mormon trailside activities and population centers and their impacts on other migrants and westerners. ASSESSMENT: may include class discussion, presentations, writing assignments, or tests.
4. Understand and assess the complex and sometimes-violent interplay between Mormon and Native American cultures they encountered on the trail and in Utah. ASSESSMENT: may include class discussion, presentations, writing assignments, or tests.
5. Identify and compare the various Mormon and non-Mormon definitions, interpretations, perspectives, and mythical, romanticized imaginings of the Mormon Migration in the region’s history of the last two centuries. ASSESSMENT: may include class discussion, presentations, writing assignments, or tests.
6. Analyze and discuss the Mormon place in the expansion, and economic and demographic development of the American West, including analysis in terms of the religion’s role in the larger history of the United States, and in terms of American foreign relations with neighboring states. ASSESSMENT: may include class discussion, presentations, writing assignments, or tests.
7. Investigate the basic precepts of historiography and the methodological tools of the historian. Employ appropriate approaches to the study of history, and utilize both traditional and more contemporary, technologically-based methods to complete research assignments. ASSESSMENT: may include class discussion, presentations, writing assignments, or tests.