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001 ocn609710726
003 OCoLC
005 20170823052706.7
006 m o d
007 cr cnu---unuuu
008 100427s2009 utuab ob 001 0beng d
019 647885330
020 9780874217582|q(electronic bk.)
020 087421758X|q(electronic bk.)
020 |z9780874217568|q(cloth ;)|q(alk. paper)
020 |z9780874217575|q(paperback;)|q(alk. paper)
035 (OCoLC)609710726|z(OCoLC)647885330
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043 e-uk-en|an-us---
049 CKEA
050 4 BX8695.W38|bW38 2009eb
082 04 289.3092|222
100 1 Watt, Ronald G.
245 14 The Mormon passage of George D. Watt :|bfirst British
convert, scribe for Zion /|cRonald G. Watt.
264 1 Logan, Utah :|bUtah State University Press,|c[2009]
264 4 |c©2009
300 1 online resource (ix, 293 pages) :|billustrations, maps
336 text|btxt|2rdacontent
337 computer|bc|2rdamedia
338 online resource|bcr|2rdacarrier
504 Includes bibliographical references and index.
505 00 |t"On the Lord's business" --|tEarly life in Britain --
|tJourney to America and Nauvoo --|tMission to Britain --
|tAcross the wide Atlantic and on to Zion --|tLife and
times in Utah : politics in the territory --|tReporter for
Zion --|tDeseret alphabet --|tFamily and life in Salt Lake
City --|tA man for all seasons : intellectual activities -
-|tSermons of obedience : traveling with Brigham Young and
to Britain --|tLife-changing events : leaving the office,
businessman --|tSpiritual wanderings : apostasy and
spiritualism --|tFamily and farm life in Davis County.
520 "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.
588 0 Print version record.
600 10 Watt, G. D.|q(George Darling),|d1812-1881.
600 10 Watt, G. D.,|d1812-1881|q(Watt, George Darling)
650 0 Latter Day Saint converts|zEngland|vBiography.
650 0 Ex-church members|xChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints|vBiography.
650 0 Ex-church members|zUnited States|vBiography.
650 0 Spiritualists|zUnited States|vBiography.
650 7 BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY|xReligious.|2bisacsh
650 7 RELIGION|xChristianity|xChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-
day Saints (Mormon)|2bisacsh
650 7 HISTORY|zUnited States|xState & Local|xWest (AK, CA, CO,
HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY)|2bisacsh
776 08 |iPrint version:|aWatt, Ronald G.|tMormon passage of
George D. Watt.|dLogan, Utah : Utah State University Press,
©2009|z9780874217568|w(DLC) 2009038729|w(OCoLC)430839589
914 ocn609710726
994 92|bCKE
