How History Unfolds on Paper: Important Americana from the Eric C. Caren Collection, Part X

Locations vary, ca. 1842-1879. Group of 13 printed items related to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, including, five issues of the printed periodical Times and Seasons (Nauvoo, Illinois: 1842-46); printed periodical American Penny Magazine and Family Newspaper (Vol. 1, No. 47, December 27, 1845); printed newspaper Life Illustrated (August 15, 1857, Vol. IV, No. 16); printed pamphlet Circular of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1877); printed newspaper Salt Lake Daily Review (August 9, 1871, Vol. 1, No. 1); three issues of the printed newspaper Woman's Exponent (Salt Lake City, 1877-79); printed newspaper The Sun, (August 30, 1877, Vol. XLIV, No. 364). Size and condition varies.

Following the 1838 Mormon War and their expulsion from the state of Missouri, Joseph Smith led his church to Illinois, where they bought a small town which they renamed Nauvoo and settled into what proved to be a short-lived period of relative tranquility. Within a few years, however, tensions arose between the Mormons and their neighbors once again. Joseph Smith was murdered by a mob in 1844 and the largest sect of his followers, now led by Brigham Young, fled to the Utah Territory. For the next forty years the Mormon Church remained locked in a statehood dispute with the United States government, mainly over the church's practice of polygamy. This dispute is generally acknowledged to be the main reason why Utah was not admitted as a state until a formal ban was written into the state's constitution, a practice which all other western states were forced to add into their own constitutions as well.