Process Paper I chose the topic Polygamy in the Mormon Church because I knew that I wanted to focus on an alternative

lifestyle within America and was interested in religion. I decided that focusing on the Mormon Church would be interesting, especially in regards to polygamy, and after doing some preliminary research on the religion I decided to focus on just the Manifesto of 1890; however this proved to be too narrow of a topic, and I expanded my research to looking at the creation of polygamy and the reasons behind issuing the Manifesto. I focused more on the political and social aspects of the topic in order to ensure that the topic was not too broad. I completed the research for this project but first going to the library and checking out books the history of the Mormon Church. This provided the basic information I needed, and which legal cases were important. By doing this I discovered the important legislation and court cases that I wanted to focus on, namely the Edwards Acts (1882 and 1887) and Reynolds vs. United States (1879). Additionally this research helped me focus in on the theme, and examine how polygamy was a revolution and the Manifesto was a reform that grew out of the publics reaction. Therefore, I also wanted to focus on the public reactions, not only the political reaction. After completing my research which included looking at primary source documents such as photos and videos I started to make my website. I decided to make the pages fit the theme, labeling them Revolution, Reaction, and Reform,; however, in addition to fitting the themes, this also served as a timeline for polygamy. In the beginning it was a revolution; however a negative reaction by the rest of the country soon followed, leading to reform. I used a combination of quotes, picture and original text in all the pages to convey my message. This relates to the all three concepts in the theme. It relates to revolution, as the church viewed polygamy as a revolution. Reaction due to the publics negative reaction to polygamy and the rise in anti-polygamy legislation and propaganda. Finally the Manifesto reformed the church by ending the practice of polygamy. This is important because it was the first religious group to be questioned by the government for their practices, and the decisions made in these cases are still used today.