Sports in Zion: Mormon Recreation, 1890-1940

5. To Make the Most of Leisure: Recreation Responds in a Depression Decade

chapter five To Make the Most of Leisure Recreation Responds in a Depression Decade On the social side, when unemployment is widespread business becomes demoralized, social and industrial strife in the form of riots and strikes are prevalent and the social institutions on which our civilization rests—the home, school, church and form of government—are undermined and eroded by the dark fear and unrest that grips the people. From the standpoint of the individual , the effects of unemployment may be seen in the breakdown of self-respect and morale, and in the loss of regular habits and of health through the lack of proper living incentives, food, clothing, medical care and recreation. —a. s. cannon, “Social Planning—And a Public Employment Service” (1934) It appears that, given freedom through leisure, the majority of men will accept one of three alternatives. They will let down and become a watcher of somebody else, they will be enticed to antisocial conduct which will be the beginning of a career of crime, or they will acquire interests which will react to the benefit of the individual and society as a whole. The answer to this problem is the answer to the question. Can man be trusted with leisure? —jay b. nash, “What Will You Do with Your Leisure Time?” (1933) In the months following the stock market crash of 1929, as the United States entered the most severe economic crisis in its history,1 Mormons in Salt Lake City staged an impressive festival to mark the centennial of the church’s founding. The week-long celebration in April 1930 included the illumination of the Salt Lake Temple with floodlights and the presentation of B. H. Roberts’s multivolume Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A pageant written especially for the anniversary, “Mes- recreation responds in a depression decade 163 sage for the Ages,” entertained thousands of church members and visitors in nightly performances for a month. Though church leaders recognized the gravity of the nation’s economic situation, they also strongly believed that the celebration was a fitting way to close out the church’s tumultuous first century and to symbolize its bright future. Turning their backs on the Depression , at least for a time, the Mormons celebrated. It would take more than an economic depression to deter the Saints from gathering together for friendship and fun. The long-held perspective in the church that valued recreation for its educational and social benefits played a role in the Mormon approach to solving some of the problems of the Great Depression. The large-scale recreation programs of the 1930s act as a case study of the LDS recreation movement. Conscientiously employing organized recreation programs to offset increasing amounts of leisure time, church leaders in the 1930s used each of the major components of Mormon recreation developed in the first third of the twentieth century: a recreation ideology specific to the needs of Depression-era Mormons was developed; and programs in athletics and the great outdoors were emphasized. Mormon recreation programs flowered during the 1930s. Combining a diffuse methodology with a clearly defined mission to ameliorate the social problems caused by a failing economy, church leaders used every weapon in their arsenal to combat the increased leisure time facing LDS members during the Depression decade of the 1930s. Controlling Leisure Time From Joseph Smith’s stick pulling and wrestling to evening dances held along the Mormon Trail, recreation historically played a conspicuous though informal social role for Mormons. Between 1900 and 1930, however, churchsponsored recreational activities gradually became an institutionalized element of Mormon group life, especially for the youth.2 During these thirty years, the church developed a leisure-time ideology, officially affiliated with the Boy Scout program, built a large number of camps for Young Women, sponsored a variety of athletic events, supported the construction of the Deseret Gymnasium, and used athletic heroes to “sell” a new interpretation of the Word of Wisdom. By the advent of the Great Depression, a wellorganized Mormon recreation program was an integral component of general church activity. Regarding the economy, by 1930 Utah had been in the throes of depression for almost a decade. Slow economic growth, low per-capita income, and a steady migration from farm to city had combined to forestall recov- 164 sports in zion ery after the post–World War...