Riders of the Purple Sage

[rodheadlee]

Does anybody know anything about this novel and movie by Zane Gray? My father is watching it and he said it put the church in a bad light. He is not a member and I don't know enough about the Church of those days.

[Calm]

It is of the old antimormon school where a church leader is trying to force a young woman into his harem (plural marriage).  Pretty much how most novels of the time portrayed LDS.  Conan Doyle used the same premise for his first Sherlock Holmes story, though it is the aftermath of a failed attempt (the woman died after her adopted father is murdered and she is forced to marry the son of one of the Church’s Council of Four….I am guessing Conan Doyle was referencing the Quorum of the 12 there, he was completely clueless about the Church at the time).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Study_in_Scarlet

Riders of the Purple Sage considered a classic of the Western genre.  I have never read it, so I don’t know how bad it is, but I suspect it is awful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_of_the_Purple_Sage#:~:text=Riders of the Purple Sage is a story about three,fictional town of Cottonwoods%2C Utah.

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Riders of the Purple Sage is a story about three main characters, Bern Venters, Jane Withersteen, and Jim Lassiter, who in various ways struggle with persecution from the local Mormon community led by Bishop Dyer and Elder Tull in the fictional town of Cottonwoods, Utah.

Jane Withersteen, a born-and-raised Mormon, provokes Elder Tull because she is attractive, wealthy, and befriends "Gentiles" (non-Mormons), namely, a little girl named Fay Larkin, a man she has hired named Bern Venters, and another hired man named Jim Lassiter. Elder Tull, a polygamist^[3] with two wives already, wishes to have Jane for a third wife, along with her estate.

The story involves cattle-rustling, horse-theft, kidnapping and gunfights.

Quote

he Rainbow Trail, a sequel to Riders of the Purple Sage that reveals the fate of Jane and Lassiter and their adopted daughter, was published in 1915. Both novels are notable for their protagonists' strong opposition to Mormon polygamy, but in Rainbow Trail this theme is treated more explicitly. Both plots revolve around the victimization of women in the Mormon culture: Riders of the Purple Sage centers on the struggle of a Mormon woman who sacrifices her wealth and social status to avoid becoming a junior wife of the head of the local church, while Rainbow Trailcontrasts the fanatical older Mormons with the rising generation of Mormon women who will not tolerate polygamy and Mormon men who do not seek it.

https://www.millennialstar.org/zane-grey-and-mormonism-today/

Quote

The story takes place in 1871 in southern Utah. A woman, Jane, has inherited her father’s wealthy ranch. She is LDS, loves her bishop, and is being pressed to marry one of the elders.  Meanwhile, rustlers are stealing large herds of cattle, including Jane’s herd.

We quickly see interesting twists in the book. Mormons are pretty much either evil or pressured to comply by the Mormon leadership, who are not above doing evil things They drive off Jane’s herds, work in conjunction with the rustlers, steal her prize horses, kidnap her adopted daughter, etc.

Meanwhile, the two leading Gentile men, Venter and Lassiter are justified in killing others. Jane falls for Lassiter, while Venter falls in love with a young woman that ran with the rustlers.  All four seem to be redeemed by their rejection of rustler and Mormon, alike.

The bishop and elder end up being powerful beings that have sweet smiles, but black hearts. It appears all Mormon leaders are of the same ilk, deserving to be gunned down by Lassiter.

 

Edited November 2, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

There are quite a few comments online discussing the book.

https://www.quora.com/How-accurately-does-Riders-of-the-Purple-Sage-by-Zane-Grey-reflect-Mormon-culture-of-the-time

Grey was apparently not full out antimormon or even halfway antimormon since his heroes were often Mormon.  His Mormon villains appear to be the bog standard version of greedy men with ever expanding harems (preferably heiresses to add to their empires) from a quick skim but he had other quite admirable devout Mormon characters as I understand it.

I kind of doubt a movie made in 1918 from the book would have any such subtlety.

This looks interesting if you want to know more about Grey’s relationship and actual view of Saints.

Edited November 2, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

As far as actual history at the time….whether women were forced into marriage or not, it is known Brigham Young handed out divorces to any woman in a plural marriage who wanted out of it.  Utah was the divorce capital of the US for a time because of its laws allowing for easy divorce.

 I would imagine the same pressure to marry a wealthier man to achieve financial stability existed in Utah as it did elsewhere, the difference being with plural marriage more women had that as an option and many chose it.  I think it was Kathryn Flake who showed women who immigrated to Utah without families tended to marry plurally sooner than local women or immigrants with family married monogamously…easily understood as single women on their own at the time were likely living in poverty.  Flake saw plural marriage as a way to spread the wealth, iirc.

As to whether there were young women physically forced into marriage and not just convinced it was a smart thing to do, there are a few horror stories out there, some quite unbelievable such as the woman escaping by jumping from the top of Salt Lake Temple into the Salt Lake….obviously started by someone who had never been to Salt Lake City or probably even looked at a map, but I highly doubt if it did occur it was more than a few cases.  There were too many women verbally supporting it even if privately they weren’t as satisfied with their life as we would hope.  I doubt given the kind of women who were politically active supporting plural marriage, the women willing to go to jail rather than expose their husbands, etc, I doubt that there were common cases of such abuse as is described in Purple Sage.  I don’t think the strong, outspoken women of the Church at that time would have tolerated such abuse if common.

Edited November 3, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

I like this quora collection as it draws attention to how plural marriage pushed women rights’ activism in Utah (women had the vote in Utah till the feds took it away).  Plural marriage might not have been conducive to producing close romantic relationships between husband and wives, but it was likely great for creating independent women.

https://www.quora.com/How-did-Mormon-polygamy-in-the-19th-century-fuel-womens-activism

[Calm]

1 hour ago, rodheadlee said:

Does anybody know anything about this novel and movie by Zane Gray? My father is watching it and he said it put the church in a bad light. He is not a member and I don't know enough about the Church of those days.

Iow…tell your dad it made for a popular, but not particularly accurate in terms of history story.  Polygamist church elders were easy villains to write about and popular at that time as the West and Mormons were exotic and little was known of them which gave the author free rein.

If he wants to know more, feel free to post his questions here and I or others can dig up info on them.

[CV75]

Spoiler alert: lost scene from the end of the film:

[Malc]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

...

As to whether there were young women physically forced into marriage and not just convinced it was a smart thing to do, there are a few horror stories out there, some quite unbelievable such as the woman escaping by jumping from the top of Salt Lake Temple into the Salt Lake….obviously started by someone who had never been to Salt Lake City or probably even looked at a map, ...

The saints apparently had incredible engineering skills:

"Some of the allegations about kidnapping English women verged on the absurd. In the late 1800s, said Foster, a myth began to circulate in Europe that Mormons had built a tunnel to traffic young English virgins to polygamist families in Utah. The tunnel started in Liverpool and continued beneath the American continent to empty into the Salt Lake Temple, where the virgins would be immediately deflowered. News of the tunnel supposedly got around after an English woman jumped out of the window of the Temple into the Great Salt Lake (which is 20 miles away), swam to freedom and lived to tell her tale. Foster said that he heard the myth repeated as recently as 1980 in Belgium, where he was serving a mission."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/britain-puts-mormonism-on-trial/  (paywall ☹️)

I heard that myth in the 1960s in Scotland. 

[MiserereNobis]

The band "New Riders of the Purple Sage" had Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar in the early 70s (what Deadhead could pass up an opportunity  to point this out?).

Unfortunately, there is very little video of this that would be worth posting here.

However, check out this audio of "I Don't Know You":

 

And for those who like Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Jerry played pedal steel on the recording of their hit "Teach Your Children":

 

Finally, here is Jerry playing pedal steel in 1987 when Bob Dylan sat in with the Grateful Dead:

 

Enjoy!

 

Edited November 3, 2024 by MiserereNobis

[Bernard Gui]

On 11/2/2024 at 5:25 PM, Calm said:

Iow…tell your dad it made for a popular, but not particularly accurate in terms of history story.  Polygamist church elders were easy villains to write about and popular at that time as the West and Mormons were exotic and little was known of them which gave the author free rein.

If he wants to know more, feel free to post his questions here and I or others can dig up info on them.

Those were still dangerous times. Not all anti-Mormonism was literary. In 1884, the Salt Lake Tribune published “The Red Hot Address,” a sermon they made up in which a Mormon bishop supposedly had called on the Saints to rise up and kill all gentiles. It circulated nationwide, and that, along with a local rumor started by preachers and ministers that Mormon missionaries were abducting local girls and sending them to harems in Utah, led directly to a mob killing two elders and two young men at a church meeting in Cane Creek, Tennessee, and driving the missionaries and sizable branch out of the state. 

 

Edited November 5, 2024 by Bernard Gui

[sunstoned]

They re-made the movie in 1992. I rented it a few years ago and thought it was pretty good.  The plot did involve polygamy.  

 

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1996: Filmed in Arizona and Utah, including Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Moab, Colorado City, Littlefield, and Kaibab. It starred Ed Harris and was produced by Amer Productions, Rosemont Productions International, and Zeke Productions

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0117476/locations/

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, Malc said:

The saints apparently had incredible engineering skills:

"Some of the allegations about kidnapping English women verged on the absurd. In the late 1800s, said Foster, a myth began to circulate in Europe that Mormons had built a tunnel to traffic young English virgins to polygamist families in Utah. The tunnel started in Liverpool and continued beneath the American continent to empty into the Salt Lake Temple, where the virgins would be immediately deflowered. News of the tunnel supposedly got around after an English woman jumped out of the window of the Temple into the Great Salt Lake (which is 20 miles away), swam to freedom and lived to tell her tale. Foster said that he heard the myth repeated as recently as 1980 in Belgium, where he was serving a mission."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/britain-puts-mormonism-on-trial/  (paywall ☹️)

I heard that myth in the 1960s in Scotland. 

This is probably tied to the British fear of a tunnel to the continent leading to invasion which was a trope in some books in the 1800s and early 1900s.

[The Nehor]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

As far as actual history at the time….whether women were forced into marriage or not, it is known Brigham Young handed out divorces to any woman in a plural marriage who wanted out of it.  Utah was the divorce capital of the US for a time because of its laws allowing for easy divorce.

 I would imagine the same pressure to marry a wealthier man to achieve financial stability existed in Utah as it did elsewhere, the difference being with plural marriage more women had that as an option and many chose it (I think it was Kathryn Flake who showed women who immigrated to Utah without families tended to marry plurally sooner than local women or immigrants with family married monogamously…easily understood as single women on their own at the time were likely living in poverty.  Flake saw plural marriage as a way to spread the wealth, iirc.

Yeah, the offers for divorce probably only primarily helped those women who had another economic option like family that could take them in or someone else to marry. One of my college girlfriends had two parents in a lavender marriage (gay man and lesbian woman) who married for economic reasons because her options were sorely limited while single and he needed social respectability for his career. They liked each other though. Marrying out of desperation isn’t fun but it is very common for women particularly throughout history.

[Malc]

26 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

This is probably tied to the British fear of a tunnel to the continent leading to invasion which was a trope in some books in the 1800s and early 1900s.

About 2-3 years ago I read a more recent dystopian novel that included an attempted invasion of Britain via the Chunnel. Unfortunately I've forgotten the name, and cannot find by googling.

[Kenngo1969]

Here's a "money quote" from an article Cal linked to earlier about Zane Grey's relationship with a friend who was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints whom, apparently, he admired greatly, and who, consequently,  influenced his attitude toward members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in early Utah (and Grey's use and treatment of Latter-day Saint characters in his work) [use of the word "Mormon," below, sic, obviously]:

Quote

Out of respect for Emmett, then Grey moderated or apologized for Mormon villainy, balanced Mormon evil with good, justified the Saints in their conflict with the gentiles, and created a breed of Western heroes who were sons of the desert like Emmett himself.  "I had to love Emmett," Grey wrote [footnote omitted], and apparently he had to write about him and his way of life over and over again.

 

[Stargazer]

On 11/3/2024 at 1:46 AM, MiserereNobis said:

The band "New Riders of the Purple Sage" had Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar in the early 70s (what Deadhead could pass up an opportunity  to point this out?).

Unfortunately, there is very little video of this that would be worth posting here.

However, check out this audio of "I Don't Know You":

 

And for those who like Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Jerry played pedal steel on the recording of their hit "Teach Your Children":

 

Finally, here is Jerry playing pedal steel in 1987 when Bob Dylan sat in with the Grateful Dead:

 

Enjoy!

 

About Jerry Garcia...

 

[Dario_M]

On 11/2/2024 at 8:39 PM, rodheadlee said:

Does anybody know anything about this novel and movie by Zane Gray? My father is watching it and he said it put the church in a bad light. He is not a member and I don't know enough about the Church of those days.

Oh my. I really hate movies that bring the LDS community in a bad light. I just can't stand it. 🤷‍♀️

[MiserereNobis]

4 hours ago, Stargazer said:

About Jerry Garcia...

 

No no, he's not British, he's American. It's Jerry Gar-CIA.

If I disappear from the board, please know that they got to me to silence me.