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Author Watt, Ronald G.

Title The Mormon passage of George D. Watt : first British convert, scribe for Zion / Ronald G. Watt.

Publication Info. Logan, Utah : Utah State University Press, [2009]
©2009

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Location Call No. OPAC Message Status
 Axe JSTOR Open Ebooks  Electronic Book    ---  Available
Description 1 online resource (ix, 294 pages )
text txt rdacontent
computer c rdamedia
online resource cr rdacarrier
Physical Medium polychrome. rdacc http://rdaregistry.info/termList/RDAColourContent/1003
Description data file
Note Includes index.
Contents "On the Lord's business" -- Early life in Britain -- Journey to America and Nauvoo -- Mission to Britain -- Across the wide Atlantic and on to Zion -- Life and times in Utah : politics in the territory -- Reporter for Zion -- Deseret alphabet -- Family and life in Salt Lake City -- A man for all seasons : intellectual activities -- Sermons of obedience : traveling with Brigham Young and to Britain -- Life-changing events : leaving the office, businessman -- Spiritual wanderings : apostasy and spiritualism -- Family and farm life in Davis County.
Note Description based on print version record; resource not viewed.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary "Nineteenth century Mormonism was a frontier religion with roots so entangled with the American experience as to be seen by some scholars as the most American of religions and by others as a direct critique of that experience. Yet it was also a missionary religion that through proselytizing quickly gained an international, if initially mostly Northern European, makeup. This mix brought it a roster of interesting characters: frontiersmen and hardscrabble farmers; preachers and theologians; dreamers and idealists; craftsmen and social engineers. Although the Mormon elite soon took on, as elites do, a rather fixed, dynastic character, the social origins of its first-generation members were quite diverse. The Mormon Church at its beginning provided a good study in upward mobility. George D. Watt was a self-educated English convert with both unusual, for the time and place of frontier Utah, clerical skills and ambitions to improve his status. A man with intellectual pretensions, he had little formal training but a strong will, avid curiosity, and appetite for knowledge. Those traits made up for what he lacked in schooling and drew him into what served as intellectual circles among the Mormon elite and, later, to the church's disenchanted fringe. They also made him, for a time, essential to Brigham Young as a clerk and reporter but sent him into religious and social exile, due to a contest of wills with his employer that Watt had no chance of winning. Reputed to have been the first of the many English converts to the LDS church, Watt's repeatedly demonstrated ability to learn quickly made him an early master of Pitman shorthand, just then coming into use. Employing this skill, he made two important contributions to Mormon literature: First, based on that shorthand, he, more than anyone, created the "Deseret Alphabet," which now is a curiosity but then was an innovation that, intended to create a unique Mormon orthography and pedagogy, stands well for the broad attempt to build in Utah the wholly self-sufficient culture of the Kingdom of God. Second, his efficient note taking allowed him to take down the sermons of Young and other church leaders and publish them in the Journal of Discourses, an indispensable historical record. In addition, Watt learned, thought, and wrote about a variety of subjects, from horticulture to spiritualism, which helped define him as a resident Utah intellectual. He eventually left the Mormon Church, but the records of his domestic life before and after that decision provide a rich portrait of the working of polygamous households, particularly complicated ones in his case. Despite his accomplishments, because of his potential, George Watt's story is at heart a tragedy. His breach with Brigham Young resulted in social isolation, poverty, and rejection by friends and associates. He never, though, lost his sense of independence or his avid mind. Whether facing an economic affront or pressing, in writing, his own conclusions about life and God, he engaged the challenge where he found it."--Publisher's description
Language English.
Access Legal Deposit; Only available on premises controlled by the deposit library and to one user at any one time; The Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations (UK). WlAbNL
Terms Of Use Restricted: Printing from this resource is governed by The Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations (UK) and UK copyright law currently in force. WlAbNL
Subject Watt, G. D. (George Darling), 1812-1881.
Watt, G. D. (George Darling), 1812-1881.
Watt, G. D. (George Darling), 1812-1881 https://id.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39PBJwp3hjg8vqr8RH6pGB773
Ex-church members -- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Biography.
Ex-church members -- United States -- Biography.
Latter Day Saint converts -- England -- Biography.
Spiritualists -- United States -- Biography.
Convertis saints des derniers jours -- Angleterre -- Biographies.
Spirites -- États-Unis -- Biographies.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Religious.
RELIGION -- Christianity -- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon)
HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY)
Ex-church members
Ex-church members -- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Mormon converts
Spiritualists
England https://id.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39PBJpYDdYvBpjXV6WpybK68C
United States https://id.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39PBJtxgQXMWqmjMjjwXRHgrq
Genre/Form collective biographies.
Biographies
Biographies.
Biographies.
Other Form: Print version: The Mormon passage of George D. Watt Logan, Utah : Utah State University Press, c2009. 9780874217568 (DLC) 2009038729
Online version: Watt, Ronald G. Mormon passage of George D. Watt (OCoLC)1296577247
ISBN 0874217563 cloth : alk. paper
0874217571 pbk. : alk. paper
087421758X e-book
9780874217568 (electronic bk.)
0874217563 (electronic bk.)
9780874217575 pbk. : alk. paper
9780874217582 e-book
087421758X e-book
Standard No. AU@ 000044745919
AU@ 000051396270
AU@ 000062429012
GBVCP 1008654108
NZ1 14252490
UKMGB 020149296

 
    
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