The Pinery Saints: Mormon Communalism at Black River Falls, Wisconsin

Historians have generally focused on the peak periods of Mormon communalism during the nineteenth century that occurred at two different times: the 1830s in Ohio and Missouri under the leadership of Joseph Smith and the 1870s and 1880s in Utah Territory, following the guidance of church presidents Brigham Young and John Taylor.In the 1830s, Mormons in Ohio and Missouri attempted to implement a system in which individuals deeded their property to the church and received needs and the needs of the community.Decades later, Mormons in Utah implemented communal economics that ranged from cooperative stores to systems of communal labor, production, and ownership.According to historians, following the economic experiments in the 1830s, Mormon attempts at communal living evolved into disparate cooperative efforts for the next several decades.Between these two eras, Mormon communal economics consisted of "informal cooperation" in migration, settlement, and irrigation or in "symbolic gestures" toward revival of the earlier stewardship system, but never in any successful efforts "to organize a compact United Order community."