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Mormon Migration
A photograph of Zion’s Commercial Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) in Salt Lake City, with Native Americans on horseback, 1869.

A photograph of Zion’s Commercial Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) in Salt Lake City, with Native Americans on horseback, 1869.

Concerned about commercial competition and eager to achieve Mormon economic self-sufficiency, Utah territorial governor Brigham Young founded ZCMI as one of the US’s earliest department stores. ZCMI’s first downtown location was a block of stores known as Eagle Emporium, here shown in 1869 with a group of Native American and other men posing in front. The sign on the building reads “Holiness to the Lord,” a phrase affixed to the exterior of Mormon temples and other buildings dedicated for religious purposes.

Mormons believed Native Americans were part of the lost tribes of Israel, and they felt a responsibility to convert, educate, and assimilate them. Several tribes lived in the Utah Valley at the time Mormons arrived there, including Utes and Shoshones. The rapid influx of Anglo-Europeans sparked conflict not unlike that in other areas of the West, as local Indian peoples resisted religious conversion and dispossession of their lands. Native American persistence within and around Mormon settlements can be seen in this photograph.

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Citation Information
Carter, C.W., “Eagle Emporium,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/8722a15545fb3418c72784d94d530ba9.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of Utah State Historical Society via Mountain West Digital Library.

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Item 14 of 15 in the Primary Source Set Mormon Migration

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An 1846 map by Augustus Mitchell “of Texas, Oregon and California, with regions adjoining.”
An excerpt from a report from Illinois Governor Thomas Ford reporting on “Mormon difficulties,” December 1846.
A letter from Eliza R. Snow to Elizabeth Ann Smith Whitney and Vilate Murray Kimball, June 30, 1846.
A plan of Winter Quarters, Nebraska, during the winter of 1846 to 1847.
An excerpt from the trail diary of Mormon pioneer William Snow, 1850.
A paisley shawl brought by Eliza Kittleman from Philadelphia to Utah on the Ship Brooklyn, 1849.
An excerpt from a roster for Company A of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican-American War, 1846.
An 1897 map of the route of the Mormon pioneers from Nauvoo to Salt Lake.
An excerpt from William Clayton’s booklet, “The Latter-day Saints’ Emigrants’ Guide,” 1848.
A trail roadometer designed and used by William Clayton, 1847.
A color lithograph from 1866 called The Rocky Mountains: Emigrants Crossing the Plains.
An illustration showing a view of the Utah Valley in 1850.
A printed page showing the Deseret Alphabet, around 1850.
A photograph of Zion’s Commercial Mercantile Institution (ZCMI) in Salt Lake City, with Native Americans on horseback, 1869.
A photograph of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point, Utah, May 10, 1869.

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