UROP Project

History, Religion, Emotion, Mormonism, Government

Research Mentor: Will Perez, he, him
Department, College, Affiliation: Religion - American Religious History, Arts and Sciences
Contact Email: wgperez@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor):
Research Assistant Supervisor Email:
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:

Looking for Research Assistants: No
Number of Research Assistants: 2
Relevant Majors: Open to all majors
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
Research Assistant Transportation Required: No, the project is remote
Remote or In-person: Fully Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 6-7,
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link: Not participating in the Roundtable

Project Description

Short Summary:
I am interested in identifying what "happiness" was in nineteenth century antebellum America and how it was manifest in religion and politics. To "pursue happiness" is at the heart of American identity, but because happiness is a contested emotion, its pursuit has led to longstanding conflict and even violence. My main case studies in this research project are white American Christians in the 1800s and Mormonism (The Church if Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Both groups are pursuing happiness in diverging ways and are responding to what they perceive as threats to happiness, and ultimately to democracy. This study has relevance for our own social and political moment. The UROP researcher will assist with this project by helping to sift through relevant historical material and find the sources needed to better understand happiness in America and to tell the story and make the argument intended by this dissertation.

Dissertation Summary:
The concept of happiness was forever etched into the American psyche when Thomas Jefferson proposed that its pursuit was a self-evident and God-given right. As the new republic fashioned for itself a model for happiness, it endowed that emotion with religiopolitical significance, associating it with notions of democracy, enlightened individualism, and the burgeoning “American dream.” While happiness came to be understood as a predominantly private endeavor, a collective fear of its suppression kept its pursuit a matter of public interest. Americans’ fear of losing happiness was often manifest in various forms of violence perpetrated against perceived threats to its attainment. Appeals to preserving and perpetuating happiness served as a disciplining force that established standards for citizenship, public performance, race relations, and gender roles. In this dissertation, I will establish the white mainstream antebellum understanding of happiness—specifically how this understanding was entrenched in religiopolitical rhetoric. I argue that in many ways, the American pursuit of happiness became the mainstream’s governance of happiness.
In exploring this governance, I will refine the concept of religiopolitical identity, primarily as it relates to the aim of securing happiness. This merging of ideology with theology played a central role in American popular democracy’s enforcement of appropriate avenues by which to pursue happiness. It was also key in outsider attempts to subvert and reroute those avenues. The early Mormon movement, spurred by its own fears that happiness was at stake in the wake of increased industrialization and secularization, provided an alternative religiopolitical identity with which to pursue it. I argue that this difference in the understanding of happiness and its pursuit was at the heart of America’s generally negative response to Mormonism in the nineteenth century. Mormons pursued happiness through means that were more collectivistic than individualistic, seemingly anti-democratic, and that entailed a reconfiguration of race relations and gender and family dynamics. Mormonism embraced an older framework of communal republicanism that feared the nation was descending into anarchy. On the other hand, the American public feared that Mormonism was a slippery slope by which the nation could crumble into monarchy. The battle between the Latter-day Saints and the religiopolitical collective of the American people makes clear that, despite it being an unalienable privilege, in the antebellum United States there was a right and a wrong way to pursue happiness.
Almost from the beginning, Americans’ general disdain of monarchy, authoritarianism, and deceit brewed fear among non-Mormons and contributed to the branding of Mormonism as fraudulent. By extension, this also meant for them that Mormonism’s version of happiness and the means whereby it should be attained was duplicitous and insincere. As Mormons sensed internal and external forces closing in on their own prospects for happiness, they doubled down on their efforts to secure it. I argue that these efforts are reflected in early Latter-day Saint lingo as to the means of happiness and its roadblocks in their experience, their efforts at militancy and alternative forms of government, and expansive attempts to gather and link the human family for time and eternity. The resulting theology and practice showcase how the early Latter-day Saints presented a divergent approach to prevailing formulations of happiness. In the end, this approach would not be tolerated.
Throughout the nineteenth century, both the Latter-day Saints and the American majority fomented anxieties and acted out of fear that the other party would make happiness unattainable. Ultimately, as early Latter-day Saints pursued happiness in heterodox ways, they helped reify mainstream understandings of what was and what was not authentic American happiness. Lastly, I argue that the Latter-day Saint assimilation into the mainstream was not just one of orthodoxy and patriotism, but of proving an emotional compatibility with the status quo.


Research Tasks: Tasks are primarily the reading through primary source material archived online (i.e. nineteenth century women's diaries, historical newspaper, etc.) and extracting content that is relevant to the study at hand pertaining to Mormonism, Americanism, Christianity, and happiness.

Other tasks include proofreading drafts of thesis/conference presentation work, finding/checking sources, etc.

Skills that research assistant(s) may need: Required - Basic internet/database search proficiency.
Required - Ability to organize material and maintain accurate lists of sources.
Required - Ability to relay material/information in a professional and timely manner.