Abstract
Latter-day Saints and their critics have generally assumed that an opposition to the symbol of the cross has always existed in the Mormon mainstream. However, as is shown in this thesis, the aversion rather was a late development in Mormon history, first starting at the grass-roots level around the turn of the twentieth century, and later became institutionalized during the 1950s under the direction of LDS Prophet David O. McKay. This opposition to the symbol-which fundamentally had anti-Catholic basis-has been reinforced by apologetic arguments that were adopted and adapted from those once circulated by American Protestants of previous centuries. The arguments presented in this thesis-which relies on secondary and primary sources (including newspapers, artifacts, and private journals)-takes a multidisciplinary approach in explaining how and why the LDS perception of the symbol actually evolved to become what it is today. Key factors to be considered are Freemasonry, folk-magic, American Indian folklore, anti-Catholicism, and sociological phenomena of assimilation and entrenchment.