SOURCE: “Pioneers and Recapitulation in Mormon Popular Historical Expression,” in Usable Pasts: Traditions and Group Expressions in North America, edited by Tad Tuleja, Utah State University Press, 1997, pp. 175-211.

In the following excerpt, Eliason examines the role of the “pioneer myth” in Mormon history, recounting the events leading to the emergence of the religion and detailing the vast exodus across the American West made by early members of the church.

Few events serve better than a duress-induced migration to forge a people's identity and provide a defining historical touchstone for a nation. Through its representation in art and public historical displays, such a trek can galvanize generations if its drudgery is valorized, its most dramatic moments highlighted, and its embarrassing episodes forgotten. At least since the time Moses led the children of Israel to the biblical promised land, groups of individuals in various places at various times have...