Latter-day Saint and Catholic Interactions in the Restoration of Historic Nauvoo

Abstract

The rural Midwestern town of Nauvoo, Illinois, was once the center of an American religious narrative. As the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly known as Latter-day Saint or Mormon) in the mid-nineteenth century, the community suffered religious tension that culminated in the murder of the faith’s founder, Joseph Smith, and the expulsion of most of the group’s adherents. In this wake, a wave of largely Catholic immigrants arrived to occupy the vacant homes and create their own story, one of prosperous farms and vineyards and a stately private religious boarding school. In the twentieth century, however, religious tensions reemerged when the Latter-day Saints returned from the West, seeking to restore Nauvoo as a religious heritage site for their past. Through competition, and eventually collaboration, Catholic and Latter-day Saint interests merged to preserve a story of American religious life. In doing so, they modelled how diverse faith traditions can cooperate to craft a common future.