Startling Mormon Historical Cartoons

A Time When The Mormon PR Machine Was Not As Effective!

A cartoon shows women labeled "sealed" walking into a skull labeled "Utah." Frank Leslie's illustrated newspapers on February 4, 1882. L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

Although History is a matter of the past, History is always used to impact and inform us about the present. In the same way, Mormon history can reveal much about modern-day Mormonism. The issues then are the same now.

The Keys To The Mysteries Of Mormonism. Enlarge this picture and note the multiple stories.

While The Watchman Sleeps.

From the 1840s, woodcuts and cartoons depicted Mormons negatively in anti-Mormon literature. During the second half of the 19th century, Mormon-related political cartoons satirized Mormon issues and events such as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, polygamy, and the death of Brigham Young in 1877. Mormons were often portrayed as an ethnic minority, which indeed they were at that time. Beginning in 1898, when B. H. Roberts was elected to U.S. Congress, and continuing through Reed Smoot's election to Senate, political cartoons focused on these politicians' ties to Mormonism and polygamy or Mormon Plural Marriage. After Smoot's hearing ended in 1904, cartoons about Mormons were less frequent.

The period from 1890–1930, including Utah statehood in 1896 through the Spanish-American war of 1898 and the infamous Smoot hearings of the early 20th century, was seen as a transition or Americanization of Mormonism. From that point, the barrage of political and anti-church cartoons slowed down as Mormons became viewed as mainstream Americans. However, anyone who studies Mormonism or is part of the Utah cult will acknowledge the issues we see in the following cartoons and pictures are still valid. The Mormon church has a very professional and busy P.R. department, including its media, tv, and radio stations that ensure the Utah desert is still seen as blooming like a rose.

Brigham Young and other men prepare women in dresses for war (presumably their wives). Harper's Weekly, volume v. 1, November 28, 1857, p. 768., L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

MORMONS: POLYGAMY, 1883.
'The only sure Way. An armed Uncle Sam approached the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City on stilts to enforce the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1882, which declared polygamy a felony and revoked the polygamists right to vote. Cartoon from an American newspaper of 1883.

Harpers Weekly — Political and religious humor surrounding polygamy.

Political cartoon from the October 1869 issue of Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, entitled: "Female suffrage: Wouldn't it put just a little too much power into the hands of Brigham Young and his tribe?" The cartoon depicts Brigham Young surrounded by women, presumably his wives and children. Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper, volume 2 Oct. 1869, p.56, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.

Reed Smoot, an Apostle of the Mormon Church, is fleeing two volumes of the Journal of Discourses in a 1906 comic. Protestants used quotes from the volumes of teachings of the prophets when asking Smoot questions about his religion. Paulos, Michael (2006). "Political Cartooning and the Reed Smoot Hearings." Sunstone: 36–40.

1880, Puck Political Cartoon Criticizing the Mormon Practice of Polygamy. This cartoon satirizes the ability of Mormons in Utah to resist federal efforts to outlaw polygamy.

'What It Is Bound To Come To.' 1873 Anti-Mormon Political Cartoon Of A US Soldier Forcing Brigham Young Into Divorce Court. Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act Of 1862 History

Political cartoon by Thomas Nast, c. 1860. Source: Library of Congress

' Pure White Mormon Immigration on the Atlantic Coast.' American cartoon, 1882, by Thomas Nast, characterizing the polygamist practices of the Mormon church as a means of exploiting immigrant women from Europe.

Brigham Young and his wives

"Uncle Sam's Troublesome Bed Fellows," The San Francisco Illustrated Wasp, February 8, 1879

19th Century Campaign To Declare Mormons' Non-White.'

Reynolds was charged with bigamy because he married another woman while still married to his current wife. This case became called into question because it was the first case in the United States involving polygamous relationships. It was ruled in favor of the United States; though it was Reynold's right to practice his religion, it still outlawed the practice of polygamy.

Detachment of 400 Mormon Women. Getty Images. An artist's imagination from Frank Leslie's Weekly, May 31, 1879.

The Mormon Prophet Joseph F. Smith and his polygamous family. He admitted having five wives and 42 children. He died in 1918. The idea that polygamy or plural marriage stopped in 1890 is false.

J.H. Beadle, the former editor of the Salt Lake Reporter and Clerk of the Utah Supreme Court, wrote an "expose of the secret rites and ceremonies of the deluded followers of Brigham Young" describing the endowment ceremony. He dedicated his book, Polygamy or the Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism (1882), to the "women of America, whose sympathies are ever active in behalf of their suffering and oppressed sisters in the hope that it will interest them in the condition of the women who are living in moral bondage in Utah."

Senate Investigation of Joseph F. Smith designated as a hostile witness. As an Apostle of the Mormon church, Reed Smoot would hold the first allegiance to his prophet, Joseph F. Smith.

Endowment Ceremonies Were Influenced By Masonic Rituals To Which Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith Was Exposed In 1842. Initiates Dressed In White Temple Garments To Participate In An Allegorical Drama Depicting Of The Events Of Genesis.

Brigham Young with his multiple wives and children.

The Crisis of a Life — Entering into Polygamy in Utah, circa 1880. Being Sealed or Plurally Married in the Mormon Temple.

'Shall Reed Smoot, A Mormon, Hold A Seat In The United States Senate?' The question was then, and still is, is the politician's allegiance first and foremost to the People and Government of the USA or the Mormon Prophet? Notwithstanding what the politician might say, even today, their allegiance is sworn in the Mormon Temple to God first. As interpreted by the Mormon prophet, God's law is the law.

'Brigham Young From Behind His Breastworks Charging The United States Troops.' Lithograph Cartoon, C1858.

The Danite' assisting' the sinner, well, the sinner as dictated by the Mormon prophet, on his road to Heaven by Blood Atonement.

A Mormon and his two wives and multiple children living in poverty on their way to the Celestial Kingdom.

Secret Society Mormon Danites Aiming at West Traveling Pioneers Moving Through Utah.

The reasons the Senate objected to Reed Smoot can be seen on the coat.

Brigham Young died in 1877. A very wide bed and many crying wives.

The original 9/11 massacre was in 1857 of a wagon train of U.S. emigrants by Mormons in Utah.

Brigham Young and some of his 55 wives. Upon his death in 1877, nineteen wives had predeceased him, ten had received divorces, four were unaccounted for, and twenty-three survived him, according to Jeffrey Ogden Johnson.

Plural marriage sometimes brought widowed mothers Into a daughter's marriage. More often, though, was the practice of plural marriage of multiple sisters.

Brigham Young preaching at the Great Mormon Tabernacle, Utah, 1874

Puck 1887. Woman slavery in Utah.

A modern-day version of these Mormon-based cartoons can still be seen from time to time. Although the extensive Mormon machine controls, directly and indirectly, much of the media in Utah and beyond, we occasionally see examples of political, religious, and cultural cartoons. In Mormon land, politics, religion, and culture are rolled into one. They are the same animal.

Image from The Advocate critical of LDS shock "therapy."

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