Life in Utah (1847-1890)

Mormons created a distinctive culture separate from and sometimes in conflict with the cultures of later immigrants and sojourners. As the first settlers who constituted a majority of the population throughout the nineteenth century, Mormons built their own institutions and society, often in ways that set them apart from subsequent non-Mormon arrivals. Polygamy and economic cooperatives especially set Mormons apart, though so too did the geographic separateness of railroad and mining towns from the agriculturally based Mormon communities. This was not the case in Salt Lake City, where the growing non-Mormon population contested the leadership of Mormon church leaders, and by the end of the territorial period institutional barriers between the two groups began to break down. (Kathryn Daynes)