The obelisk stands 38 1/2 feet high – one foot for every year of Joseph’s life. It is difficult to understand why a Church that had only recently found financial independence and was struggling to assimilate into American life and culture would go to the expense of building a monument in such an out-of-the-way place
The monument was built in 1905 for the centennial of Joseph’s birth – the early 20th century was a particularly turbulent time in Church history. Polygamy had been officially removed fifteen years earlier through President Woodruff’s Manifesto, but polygamous marriages had continued to be performed by both Church members and leaders. In 1904, after Apostle Reed Smoot (and the entire Church by extension) had come under heavy fire in Washington D.C. about whether or not he should be seated as one of Utah’s elected senators, President Joseph F Smith had been forced to publicly reiterate the end of polygamous marriages by issuing the “Second Manifesto” and by removing two of his close friends from the Quorum of the Twelve. The country and Church members had defined the Church as a polygamous organization for so many generations that it was difficult for Church culture to know what to hold onto as a defining characteristic. However, in 1905 (and in a process that had begun years before, probably ever since 1890) as the Church celebrated the centennial of Joseph Smith’s birth, Mormon scholar Kathleen Flake explains, “In the First Vision, Joseph F. Smith had found a marker of Latter-day Saint identity whose pedigree was as great as—and would be made greater than—that of plural marriage for the twentieth-century Latter-day Saint” (Kathleen Flake, The Politics of Religious Identity, 118). Joseph Smith had always been a part of the Mormon story but now his calling as a prophet and his place in the Church filled the void left behind by polygamy (later enforcement of the Word of Wisdom would also step in as another defining characteristic). Flake explains:
“The effort to celebrate the legacy of Joseph Smith was meant to signal that the movement he founded had both the intentions and the resources necessary to carry on and to do so on a grand scale.
“Of course, this message was intended for those critics who declared that ‘the Smoot case will abolish Mormonism without war.’ Yet the outside world was not Joseph F. Smith’s only audience. The monument to Joseph Smith also sent a message to the believing but demoralized Latter-day Saints. It was serendipitous that the centennial of Joseph Smith’s birth occurred when the faithful needed something to celebrate — particularly to celebrate Joseph Smith as first in a succession of modern prophets. That Joseph F. Smith seized this occasion is remarkable for two reasons. First, the church was generally defensive about accusations that it worshiped Joseph Smith, not Jesus Christ, and celebration of Joseph Smith’s birth could support such charges. This may have been a contributing factor to the monument’s design, which was not of Smith’s face or form, but an obelisk. Second, for its first celebration of Joseph Smith outside the Mormon culture region, the church chose an occasion unrestrained by any theological or ecclesiastical associations except those the dedication party would bring with them. Memorialization of a birth is, after all, the blankest of slates upon which to write retrospective meanings. The monument erected in Vermont was susceptible to embodying not only the nature and permanence of the Latter-day Saints’ claims about their founding prophet, but their claims about the nature and permanence of their church. These claims were both inclusive and exclusive. The dedication ceremony celebrated the Latter-day Saints’ identity with, as well as their difference from, their host nation?” (Flake, 112).
(This post was written from (read: stealing) a post by Greg Call at Times and Seasons.)