A Radical Convergence: Latter-day Saints and Their Utopian Socialist Origins

During the nineteenth century, socialists and workers from outside the United States converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and flocked to Mormon communities to build a social utopia. By 1890, working-class immigrants or their children comprised two-thirds of the LDS population in Utah. Erik J. Freeman uses the lives of radical converts to explore the international socialist politics that permeated the early Church. These energetic newcomers fueled LDS expansion even as they laid the foundation for a global religion. At the same time, utopian socialists within the Church helped lay the groundwork for later political and social movements and progressive ideas. The Church in the United States pivoted toward capitalism after the turn of the century, but socialist thought remained—and remain—an important thread throughout LDS communities around the world. Provocative and sweeping, A Radical Convergence tells the surprising story of utopian socialism's place in Church history.