Class Year
2024
Document Type
Student Research Paper
Date of Creation
Spring 2024
Department 1
History
Abstract
Nineteenth-century America saw the emergence of two seemingly parallel entities - the epidemic disease of cholera and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormon faith. To understand the intersection of Mormons and cholera, one must look within the interdisciplinary framework of Civil War-era history, religion, and epidemiology. Cholera epidemics in 1832 and 1849 coincided with the mass Mormon migration west, causing great suffering and death for Mormons traveling by land and sea. While their westward exodus exposed them to cholera, their religious teachings also contributed to why they contracted the disease. The Word of Wisdom, their religious doctrine received as a revelation from God, prohibited the consumption of “hot drinks,” referring to boiled water, tea, and coffee, and “strong drinks,” referring to alcoholic beverages. These drinks all have anti-cholera properties, and if consumed, could have alleviated cholera’s impact among the Mormon population and protected them from infection. In this paper, I will examine the unique relationship between cholera and the Mormon faith, and I will argue two specific tenets - that cholera helped shape Mormon history demographically and geographically, and that the Mormon religion itself affected this group’s understanding of the disease and also made them more vulnerable to contracting and succumbing to it.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Wein, Alexandra L., "A Latter-day Disease: Mormons and Cholera in the Nineteenth Century" (2024). Student Publications. 1126.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/1126
Included in
Epidemiology Commons, History of Religion Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons
Comments
Written for HIST 425: Seminar in the American Civil War