ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes a new perspective to feminist art history and Mormon women's studies by exploring how images participated in this discourse, not only documenting, but actively shaping Latter-day Saints' experience of gender and sexuality. Shortly before Christensen first showed the panorama, a very different image of a Mormon woman began circulating in Utah Territory. The discussion then turns to images created by Mormon women, addressing how female Latter-day Saints' self-representations engaged with the wide range of social arenas in which they participated, including images that subverted patriarchal structures and even reimagined Mormon scripture. Nineteenth-century Mormon artists recognized the critical importance of creating their own images of Mormon womanhood to counter widely circulating stereotypes. Elizabeth Rachel Cannon employed both text and images to expand the narrative of the Book of Mormon to include the contributions of women. Cannon’s accompanying photograph is similarly ambivalent, promoting women’s heroic potential while reinforcing traditional conceptions of idealized femininity.
