Equal Rites: The Book of Mormon, Masonry, Gender, and American Culture

Both the Prophet Joseph Smith and his "Book of Mormon" have been characterized as ardently, indeed evangelically, antimasonic. Yet in this sweeping social, cultural, and religious history of nineteenth-century Mormonism and its milieu, Clyde Forsberg argues that masonry, like evangelical Christianity, was an essential component of Smiths vision. Smiths ability to imaginatively conjoin the two into a powerful and evocative defense of Christian, or Primitive, Freemasonry was, Forsberg shows, more than anything else responsible for the meteoric rise of Mormonism in the nineteenth century. This was to have significant repercussions for the development of Mormonism, particularly in the articulation of specifically Mormon gender roles. But the original vision of the "Book of Mormon," which boldly heralded the inclusion of women as active and equal participants in the Masonic rituals of manhood, gave way as Mormonism moved west and the practice of polygamy became more prevalent.