Episode 149: The Handcart Disaster

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:16)
Last time, we gave you some framework. It's as though there was some green wood cut from a tree, ready to be fashioned by people into something usable. Not super usable, but usable.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:30)
It doesn't matter if you're poor or if you're rich. Well, it actually does matter if you're poor or rich, but if you're poor, it doesn't matter because you can listen to this podcast, you can have a better life, you can find something in Zion.

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:45)
So last time we talked about the theoretical backdrop to the perpetual education, the Perpetual Emigration Fund, the PEF.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:55)
Do you know how many times a day that I do that when I'm talking about these two, I get them mixed up all the time.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:00)
We're used to talking about a different kind of P, so forgive us.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:04)
Sorry, Gordon Hinckley.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:06)
So, this Revolving Door Loan Fund, in theory, it's a great idea. You come, they help you get across, you repay your debt, and then your brothers and sisters back in Europe can also come. The problem is, is if you take a bunch of people who are poor in Europe, and then just put them in Utah, guess what? They're still poor, and Utah, surprisingly, is not the bustling economy that the Millennial Star often made it out to be. So, when you take all of these people and take factory workers and laborers from England, Scotland, Wales, all across Scandinavia, these people that can afford the expensive journey across the Atlantic and most of the North American continent, then you give them loans to cover the transportation costs and then tell them to repay this when they're settled in Utah, but they can't. And therefore, by the mid-1850s, the PEF is struggling under this massive mounting debt of about $100,000 because it's expensive. Buying oxen and wagons, especially as there's this shiny gold-colored stuff out in California that's rapidly eating up a bunch of supplies, it makes it really hard for many immigrants to repay their loans. The church needed a cheaper alternative to continue its mission of gathering converts to Zion and Brigham's old handcart system seemed to be the answer.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:25)
The solution was cheaper travel and Ikea handcarts. Brigham Young faced with-

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:31)
But we have Scandinavian converts, they can read the instructions.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:34)
They can read the instructions and Juanita Brooks' Scandinavian Swiss grandmother, who cried when she got to Utah, she was like, I left beautiful Scandinavia for this. People were like, Southern Utah was beautiful. She calls those ugly red hills, so sick of those ugly red hills. Brigham Young faced with the PEF's financial shortfalls, devised the handcart scheme to cut costs dramatically. The idea was simple. Immigrants would just pull their own belongings in a lightweight two-wheeled handcart, literally made like it was by IKEA, eliminating the need for oxen and horses. Who needs those? This approach reduced the cost of immigration by up to how much? Two-thirds, making it more feasible for the church to support a large number of immigrants. Cheap and easy. That's how we get like our gospel.

**Bryan Buchanan** (3:28)
Young promoted the handcart system as a faster, more economical way to gather Israel. His letter to Franklin D. Richards, president of the European Mission, says, hey, now that you're done with the pearl of great price, here's the new plan. We're going to get all your peoples there to Utah cheap. It was enthusiastically endorsed and published in the church's England-based periodical, The Millennial Star. Richards then framed the handcart plan as a divinely inspired solution, assuring all of his converts there that it's not only practical, but spiritually rewarding.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:59)
Did I say cheap and easy? I'm sorry. I meant cheap and hard, cheap and incredibly difficult. The PEF had already established a strong ethos of collective sacrifice and faith, and so church leaders framed this migration as an endurance test. It was an opportunity to demonstrate your faith through action. How much do you really want to be a Mormon? How faithful are you? The handcart plan becomes imbued with the same values. Converts were told that God would bless and protect those who embarked on the journey with faith and obedience, and the harder you struggled, the cooler you were going to be when you came to Utah. Many of these PEF-sponsored immigrants who were deeply committed to the church and eager to escape poverty and persecution and the cotton mills, embraced the plan as a divinely sanctioned warrior challenge.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:48)
As a parent, I think about this and I think, you know what, this plan would be really appealing to eight-year-olds. This is an adventure on the frontier. As a parent, you're like, oh, cool, I get to walk with a bunch of eight-year-olds, 1300 miles and try to get them there alive. Oh, and somehow we have to eat along the way.