page_title: Mountain Meadows massacre and the media
section_title: Early Depictions
hierarchical_section_title: Mountain Meadows massacre and the media / Early Depictions
caption_attribution_description: Frontispiece for book Mormonism Unveiled
context_page_description: Although the Mountain Meadows massacre was covered to some extent in the media during the 1850s, its first period of intense nationwide publicity began around 1872. This was after investigators obtained the confession of Philip Klingensmith, a Mormon bishop at the time of the massacre and a private in the Utah militia. National newspapers also covered the John D. Lee trials closely from 1874 to 1876, and his execution in 1877 was widely publicized. The first detailed work using modern historical methods was published in 1950, and the massacre has been the subject of several historical works since that time.
  In historical fiction, the massacre inspired a genre of frontier crime fiction in the 19th century. The massacre has been portrayed in several plays, and in a 2007 motion picture, September Dawn. The Massacre has also been of subject of several film documentaries including, Burying the Past: Legacy of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and The Mountain Meadows Massacre.
context_section_description: One of the earliest depictions of the massacre was written by a massacre participant, John D. Lee, and was entitled Mormonism Unveiled; or the Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop, John D. Lee . This Confession was published in 1877, and expressed Lee's opinion that George A. Smith was sent to southern Utah by Brigham Young to direct the massacre.
  In 1872, Mark Twain commented on the massacre through the lens of contemporary American public opinion in an appendix to his semi-autobiographical travel book Roughing It.
  In 1910, the massacre was the subject of a short book by Josiah F. Gibbs, who also attributed responsibility for the massacre to Brigham Young and George A. Smith.
  The trial of John D. Lee, which was highly publicized at the time, put an idea of an out-of-control theocracy into the public imagination. And, beginning in the late nineteenth century, the tragedy found place in a whole genre of historical treatments, novels—even two silent films. While the historical works among these critiqued (often in polemic fashion) early Utah's religious teachings and rhetoric, a caricature drawn from out of their criticisms came to find its place, in stereotype form, in popular fiction and entertainment.
caption: Mormonism Unveiled; or the Life and Confessions of the Late Mormon Bishop, John D. Lee, was Lee's account of the massacre, published soon after his execution in 1877.[1]
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