A History of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers

Most individuals who have grown up in Utah have at least one memory of a pioneer “relic hall” from childhood. Perhaps it was a roadside museum in a pioneer-era log cabin or a fourth-grade school trip to the local museum to learn more about the history of Utah's settlers. These museums capture attention for their overwhelming displays of artifacts, stacked on top of one another or side by side, showing the entire spectrum of pioneer life: wedding dresses, butter churns, masonry tools, obstetric implements, musical instruments, and—perhaps most surprisingly—Victorian mourning wreaths crafted out of actual human hair. Visitors to these small museums found across the Wasatch Front also usually encounter one of the state's oldest and most influential historical societies: the Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP). Formed in 1901, the DUP is a women's heritage organization responsible for running museums, collecting historic artifacts, organizing Days of ’47 scholarships, and more. They operate an estimated 16 percent of Utah's museums and have membership numbering in the thousands.1 But how did they rise to such influence, and what is the driving force behind the women volunteering their time and efforts to this important organization? Considering their motto of “Our Heritage—Our Responsibility,” this essay will show how the DUP have risen to be among the most influential history organizations in Utah, out of a desire to cultivate familial connection to the past and a shared sense of belonging in Utah.The DUP is a volunteer-run group with 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. The women involved with the DUP are mostly descendants of the settlers who came to Utah between 1847 and 1869, although this genealogical connection is not required to gain “associate” membership status. Across the state of Utah, into Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and even internationally across the world, registered members of the DUP meet regularly either in person or on video calls to follow preplanned lessons that are compiled by the organization's governing board in Salt Lake City, Utah. This State Central Board is located at the Pioneer Memorial Museum, a six-floor museum built in 1950 using both state and DUP funds. The DUP is governed by a president as well as committee leaders who oversee general projects such as tracking membership, guiding the museum's library, managing a vast archive of pioneer histories, planning lessons, and running the Days of ’47 scholarship program.At first glance, the DUP might appear to be just like any typical public history organization or heritage group. However, many Utahns—particularly those who work in history, museums, and archives—know that the DUP do something different. They do things their own way. At DUP museums, there is minimal exhibit design or historical interpretation, a fact that scandalizes some but that the DUP argues is a part of their museums’ overall charms. One article from Slug Mag, an indie magazine published in Salt Lake City, talks about the DUP's headquarter Pioneer Memorial Museum's unique approach to history: “The floors are organized in no obvious chronological order or by any obvious logic,” the article reads, “but that's also the museum's charm. Some cases are devoted to specific families, while others house collections of specific objects.” Reflecting on the overwhelming amount of nineteenth-century hair art, the author writes, “At the museum, pioneer thrift and Victorian Americana intersect in the peculiar.”2 Visiting the DUP museum for many today is a look into an odd, foreign past. Pat Bagley, a famous political cartoonist based in Salt Lake City, also enjoys visiting DUP museums, calling them “the cheapest/best history thrill you can hope for in all of Utah. Nay, the entire Western Hemisphere.” Having visited the DUP museum himself as a child, Bagley says returning is a nostalgia fix and that every time “the two-headed lamb and lock of Joseph Smith's hair were still right where I remembered.” Bagley, too, focuses on the hair wreaths, saying “the results resemble tarantulas on a bad LSD trip.”3 Most historians agree with the famous saying “the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”4 At DUP museums, the mostly female volunteer force aims to make the past familiar again by connecting people with history in a visceral, unmediated manner that prioritizes familial connection and enshrines the pioneer legacy in Utah history as a kind of religion of its own.The concept of a “civil religion” was first articulated in 1967 by scholar Robert N. Bellah, and it is an idea that is easy to apply to the relationship between the public and history here in Utah. Bellah argued that in the US, saints and martyrs are made out of the Founding Fathers, and “holy days” such as Memorial Day are celebrated. “The American civil religion,” Bellah wrote, “is not the worship of the American nation but an understanding of the American experience in the light of ultimate and universal reality.”5 Although people with many religious backgrounds live in America, Bellah argues that they all still take place in the civil, “lived religion” of the United States as an idea, set of values, and place. Compelling as this idea may be, religion can still be a difficult topic for historians. Kathryn Lofton observed in her essay “Why Religion Is Hard for Historians” that religion is rarely appreciated as an agent of change itself because it is “the disease that secular history was born to heal.”6 For this reason, everything from politics to economics to the law are assumed to be inherently separate from religion, which is itself viewed as backward, superstitious, and absent from the “real life” of our government and public institutions. In reality, religion, and particularly the dominance of White Protestantism, permeates nearly every aspect of American culture. It is something we need to consider as inherent to past approaches to Utah history.At the DUP, history is, in fact, a spiritual pursuit in a number of ways. To begin, although the DUP is nondenominational and not connected to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church) in any official capacity, their membership and organizational structure was influenced by the church over the course of the twentieth century. LDS church leaders attended their meetings and advised them on certain matters, Daughters prayed and sang Latter-day Saint hymns at their meetings, and DUP members for political in a that with the LDS the and of the LDS church in the of DUP members is as the church more internationally based and DUP membership of the of and history is a part of the to the work of the DUP in Utah to the idea of “civil religion” because of how they have crafted a sense of belonging and Utah's 1847 the of the American Utah published an article on the of in the Utah In observed how historic and from Utah history are not for “the of but the of the past into that can be and In the pioneer about Utah history is also a civil religion that like or the Days of ’47 and This idea is not unique to Utah, as all of the United States the past a to some no on a organizational history of the DUP and its who were the of Utah's civil religion the twentieth century. the DUP as an this article will approach the history of the DUP as it to of their and as an organization and their and “the of their in the of of this will show how Utah history itself a “civil religion” that and one where the DUP are the leaders and the DUP in 1901, their as the leaders of Utah's civil religion on the of the 1847 of the The Pioneer was a that in and for the and of people who in Utah in 1847 who were still a the However, the also came on the of Utah just the in The a in Utah a small in the to into a part of important part of this was the of the Utah State the Utah an organization that to the of the DUP the twentieth history at the Utah State how the the Pioneer to Utah's in the of American The were and of shared memory into historic religious At the first from the LDS of the how an between the religious of and the pursuit of history was at this At the of this important was a shared in Utah as a state and a and a civil religion Utah the state of Utah's civil religion and the of at the Pioneer a on many who found at a and political the twentieth century. the Pioneer I have with the and of the of the Pioneers in some kind of a group of women in her on At this the DUP was part because the women to the way. women in the twentieth were to in the of a of change and their to be no small They were at women in but to it as American women for and women of in an in but one important for the in and that Utah to these women was to to history and as a of and At this the women heritage the Daughters of the American women from from membership The and women of Utah at the of the a group of their they the DUP were by Utah and first were who about and these were in organizational that in from this group. 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Although the DUP the of Salt Lake and government in their work to the which was by the they to be their the of the of one of Utah's most and pioneer the DUP were In her and at the course of the DUP that a public in the but the public to the DUP a for the the will will the Daughters of Utah Pioneers the Salt Lake It was in this that the DUP to their efforts on and in a women's with the DUP into a of history and on the and built as and the twentieth particularly with the of the DUP their and to across the state to efforts on a with more and was in with at least to they on for their group at one these DUP apply to their own to their local history an to the state board and The first official DUP built this was in on It the of the first pioneer in by and on The was built with local and local Utah and the the American and local Daughters all the of the first the DUP's of a and and the of the Utah the of the first in DUP number as of with more and more are a familiar for many Utah with an in The DUP, as history and place have also efforts to be more and in their or to the past more and to more This was the with the in which the a and of the pioneer women who for the who out the The DUP in was to the of the on the of The was in place to how the and the place have of Utah public memory and of pioneer “civil religion,” work in as the DUP have still required some and over time as the of Utah itself In their of connecting the public to the the DUP have made an to to cultivate a of and at these In all of these there is a desire to even pioneer past in the as the The of these historic was for connected to Utah's civil religion and pioneer These also a of historic for part of DUP history to in this essay is the of of the DUP's most familiar and the of the organization's history, they have as of pioneer and a to the past At the the DUP at the an of in Salt Lake they and many of the pioneer-era that were in the Pioneer of a structure built just for the on and in Salt Lake in the LDS church the DUP to the because it need to be for the LDS as LDS or They were by the of the in Salt Lake at the Museum, the DUP more pioneer and they for cases with in the and they their to in However, they into with with another museum the Daughters that the that in their for For the DUP again the of LDS church who them to to the of on in to and the DUP to even came for the DUP the Utah State was in in they some to Utah state history to the while those to LDS church history at the of At this they more one in their In the their actual meetings place at the another LDS It is not what were to the and what were but the DUP found they to as managing that many was a and In they to every to the where they set up a with a who the and as an In of that they the idea of their own a to the Pioneers where the can be and the this not be This made for a of and that into a desire for from that the the the DUP at the Utah State was a on the part of the DUP to their as and displays a of and they made from Utah some and The Daughters were for the state of Utah, showing to on a volunteer The from the was a for the because it in for such as and and because it for their who the The work of and organizing history and work in the to the of and the DUP the first of in to among the with on the displays in that They a and a to magazine an in the a of their they also to returning to who their about to the DUP this their of this was part of a of the DUP's overall from to they as the of the state of Utah, even the Utah State at the their their in the of Utah the shared exhibit with the DUP at the in but the to their at the to the of some of their At some the the of their to the This was an that the DUP the and organizational to for the artifacts, while the was by with in and that them from their displays at the the of the DUP was all a of their This a for their state board in Salt Lake but also a itself to pioneer memory and just in time for the of the of the At that president was a to the of a Pioneer Memorial political and for pioneer to the most of any DUP built their It was on that the DUP the Utah state for for The in and their own local was among the first to to the DUP's some public for the and the organization's to history across the state to who the most pioneer to be published in of the which be to the state the DUP's for a on the a of at the top of and out like a of the just of the Utah State the the was the most of her from a history the DUP were a political force the public history the state of Utah up to that their the state the to the DUP for and the be the historic Salt Lake one of the first by the in as what of as an to a to Utah “civil religion,” the Pioneer Memorial Museum's pioneer and as the ultimate of Utah and This was in a that out the In the The Daughters of Utah Pioneers a the DUP for the of the that not it by house and change but it was also a of Utah state by using public to a The Utah with the DUP in the on the that their museum was to the public by the of Utah's settlers and in was not the LDS it was not an of any of religious the DUP museum was to a church or a in both its and in the the Pioneer Memorial was for pioneer and familial connection to the past One Is Daughters of Utah Pioneers by and talks about how DUP museums are of displays that the of museum The DUP displays across the state to the more LDS Church Museum's displays to make the that DUP museums more like or no or and overwhelming that an entire of butter churns, DUP museums are for DUP members who to their on This in to about Utah and history at the LDS Church Museum, which on the while also the It is because of this unique approach to history displays that the DUP museum in Salt Lake can be the history Pat Bagley and others