Scholars of rhetoric and speech communications have suggested that the study of a women's rhetoric should focus on the "distinctly female modes of leadership" that may be found among women in "out-groups" that challenge established political authority. Such leaders must be especially inventive to be effective, and are thus likely to be talented rhetoricians. In looking for such leaders, the religious and political rhetoric of early Latter-day Saint women provides a noteworthy, unique study. Nineteenth-century Mormon women not only battled discriminatory political norms—arguing fervently for both universal woman's suffrage and for the freedom to practice polygamy—they did so from their position as members of a stigmatized and persecuted religious community.One exemplary figure is Sarah Melissa Granger Kimball (1818-1898). A founding member of the Church's Female Relief Society in 1842, Kimball was later instrumental in reestablishing the organization in Utah. In Salt Lake City she was called to be president of her ward's Relief Society; she served over 40 remarkably influential years in that position, while instituting and organizing programs church-wide. During the same four decades she also served in two General Relief Society presidencies, as a member of the territorial committee of the People's Party, and as a national delegate and President of the Utah Woman's Suffrage Association. Kimball was a leader dedicated to stimulating thought in and provoking action from her Relief Society sisters and her fellow citizens, and she developed her own powerful voice as a communicator.Kimball used her rhetorical skills and leadership strategies both to "educate and agitate" and to "instruct and happify" her audiences. This thesis is a historiography which examines Kimball's public discourse within its social contexts, analyzing samples of her rhetoric from several different genres: autobiographical sketch; political rally; ceremonial speeches; formal encomium; official minutes from weekly Relief Society meetings; and the text of her own life's actions. These various texts survey the broad range of Kimball's social and spiritual concerns, and showcase her discursive skill among her contemporaries. This textual analysis illustrates the strategies she developed to establish her noted effectiveness as a rhetor and widespread influence as a leader.

Abraham Alonzo Kimball was born of Heber C. Kimball and his plural wife, Clarissa Cutler Kimball, in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois on April 16, 1846. At this time the Mormons were being expelled from Nauvoo so young Abe was taken to Winter Quarters with the major portion of the Mormon refugees. Clarissa Cutler Kimball refused to come West with the Mormons. Instead, she took her young son to Iowa to join a break-off church founded by her father, Alpheus Cutler, called the True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Abe's mother died about three years later and he was brought up in Iowa by his grandparents, Alpheus and Lois Cutler.

This thesis is a study of the development, use and value of a method of teaching the scriptures called Seminary Bowl from its beginning in 1964-65 to the present day.The objective of this study was to determine the extent to which the full-time teachers of the seminary program are using Seminary Bowl and to have teachers and students evaluate this method of teaching the scriptures.The results of this study have shown that both teachers and students alike feel very favorably towards Seminary Bowl as a method of teaching the scriptures. The results also show that although there are many areas where Seminary Bowl can be improved, it is helping to accomplish many objectives of the seminary program.

This study provides Central Utah school and recreation leaders with local data on which to base their program development by collecting and analyzing data on adolescents' use of time, and to compare local statistics with national data. The research included participants from Nephi, Spanish Fork, and Provo schools. Each participant completed 7 days of a leisure time diary, which detailed daily activities. Single sample t-tests on the data revealed that Central Utah adolescents' time use is significantly different from national statistics. The differences in the statistics indicate that school and recreation leaders need local data on which to base adolescent programs.

The problem of this study was to determine the relative levels of physical fitness of male L.D.S. Missionaires who were commencing and those just concluding their missionary service. The study was conducted with 50 randomly chosen subjects in each group.The following conclusions were drawn based on the findings of the study:1. Returning missionaries were found to have experienced a significant decrease at the .01 level in the following areas: leg and back strength, total strength score, strength quotient, total seconds ran, total endurance score and over-all fitness score.2. Returning missionaries increased in gripping strength at the .01 level of significance.3. There was no significant difference at the .01 level between the two groups in the areas of body weight or arm strength.4. Ninty percent of the returning missionaries were found to be below McCloy's National Strength Norms at .01 level of significance.5. Eighty-six percent of the returning missionaries were classified as being in poor over-all condition as opposed to 26 percent prior to their departing for the mission field.

From this thesis we gain new insights into nineteenth and early twentieth century Mormonism. The life of Lewis Warren Shurtliff was typical of other Latter-day Saints in the formative period of the Church and Shurtliff contributed in many ways to Mormonism's growth and development. The New England background of the Shurtliff family is informative in determining the influences of Calvinist New England theology on early Mormons.Shurtliff's vocations of pioneer, colonizer and freighter contributed to the building of a mountain empire in the Great Basin. His courtship, marriages and families and his attitudes and beliefs concerning plural and eternal marriage influenced many members of the Church. His more than fifty years of service as a regional Church leader sheds new light on the role of wards and stakes in the Latter-day Saints Church. President Shurtliff's life and personality contributed to the acceptance and assimilation of Mormonism into the mainstream of American life.

The first known party of white men who entered the area that became Utah included a Franciscan Friar, Silvestre Velez de Escalante. This expedition passed through the Milford Valley in the fall of 1776 and it was when they were camped at San Brigida, near or on the present site of Milford, that the important decision to turn back to Sante Fe was made.Near the hot springs which are 15 or 20 miles farther south, Escalante recorded that the territory of the bearded Indians they had first encountered at the Sevier River extended to that point. It is not known for a certainty just what relationship these Indians had with those found in the same area nearly three-fourths of a century later, but the Indians found in the Milford Valley particularly, in the 1850's, were clans of the Paiute Tribe. The Toy-ebe-its had their headquarters near Milford and they claimed the area to the north nearly to the shores of Sevier Lake. The Pah-moki-abs whose headquarters were at Minersville, claimed the rest of the valley from Milford south.

This thesis was designed as a follow up of a study completed in 1959 which developed nine criteria for measuring religious maturity. The objective of this study was to develop a scale based on the nine criteria and administer it to seminary teachers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to explore the possibility of measuring differences in religious maturity. It was assumed that younger teachers who obtained a degree in a human behaviorally-oriented field of study would show the greatest level of religious maturity.

The History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New Zealand begins with the arrival of Mormon missionaries in New Zealand in 1854. They established themselves firmly among the Maori people during the 1880's. Their success was influenced by certain Maori prophecies and by the translation of the Book of Mormon into Maori. The LDS church made successful efforts in educating it's members by establishing schools as early as 1886. The mission established the Maori Agriculture College in 1913 and the Church College of New Zealand in 1958. A highlight in the history of the mission was the building of a temple near Hamilton. Both the Church College and the temple were built by labor missionaries.Material for the thesis was obtained from the LDS Church Historian's Office in Salt Lake City, and from the Brigham Young University Library in Provo, Utah.

Samuel H. Smith lived at a period of time when American society was undergoing great change in its economic, religious, and social institutions. Increased transportation facilities provided new opportunities for the common man. There was increased mobility on the part of Americans and the West offered many new opportunities. A renewed interest in religion and the repudiation of existing Christian institutions were characteristic of that period of time.