In researching the Latter-day Saint figures and events Lee Greene Richards painted in the murals for the Utah State Capitol in the 1930s, I was surprised to learn that just a couple years later, another state unveiled a mural project in its capitol that included an image from Mormon history: Missouri. It’s a very different context. Rather than celebrating Mormon contributions to settlement, like Utah’s, Thomas Hart Benton’s murals at the Missouri Capitol reference the violent displacement of Mormon settlers from Missouri in the late 1830s. Also unlike Richards’ murals, which were received with widespread acclaim, Benton’s sparked a major uproar.
Benton was commissioned to fill the House Lounge in the Missouri State Capitol with murals representing the history of the state. He titled his work “A Social History of the State of Missouri.” One of the leading “Regionalist” painters, Benton believed that the authentic character of a people was expressed in their traditions, folklore, and social interactions. To represent his subject honestly and with integrity, Benton believed that he couldn’t shy away from darker aspects of his home-state’s past. In addition to the typical scenes of pioneering farmers, railroad builders, political events, religious gatherings, and local heroes, he also represented the dispossession of Native Americans, the brutality of slavery, and the exploits of outlaws and criminals.
A small section on one of the walls represents the conflict between Latter-day Saints and other Missourians in the late 1830s, culminating in Governor Lilburn Boggs’ order that Mormons “must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace,” resulting in the forced displacement of approximately eight thousand Latter-day Saints. Rather than depicting a specific historical moment, Benton represented a generic scene of mob violence. A man and a woman look back in horror as they flee, watching a woman rushing out from a burning homestead, a black cloud billowing overhead. To their right, one mob member restrains a Mormon man, stripped naked, while two others cover him in tar and feathers. Benton doesn’t seem to have had a particular interest in Mormonism, however the centennial of Latter-day Saint settlement may have influenced his decision to include the scene in the mural. He may or may not have been familiar with the limited role that his great uncle and namesake had played in the Mormon conflict as one of Missouri’s US Senators (the older Benton avoided entangling himself by largely ignoring Latter-day Saint pleas for protection).
Benton’s mural pairs scenes of religious and racial persecution. A mirrored panel across a doorway shows early lead miners whipping enslaved workers, while on the left margin of the panel showing Mormon persecution, a well-dressed white couple greets a barefoot and shirtless African American. Benton’s intent has been debated, but it seems likely to represent a counterpoint to the intolerance and violence of the surrounding scenes, suggesting that not all historical Missourians were devoid of compassion. The scene may also suggest the irony, from Benton’s perspective, that early nineteenth-century Missourians would persecute fellow white settlers. These and other scenes showing heartless people using unjust power to oppress minority populations reflect Benton’s populist politics. Matthew Baigell argued in “The Missouri Murals: Another Look at Benton” (Art Journal, Summer, 1977) that the mural cycle makes “a serious indictment of the effects of unbridled individualism and predatory capitalism on the American people.”
Immediately after their unveiling, Benton’s murals elicited controversy. The problem stemmed less from the specifics of Benton’s political views, and more from his decision to represent unseemly and tragic events of the state’s past. A number of critics, including several influential legislators, felt that a more appropriate perspective for a public building would convey a positive message of triumph and progress. Others praised Benton for not shying away from the darker aspects of the state’s history. The argument became fairly heated in newspaper editorials and even on the floor of the Missouri House of Representatives. When a House member offered a resolution to provide brass rails to protect the murals from visitors, another representative proposed whitewashing over them instead. In the ensuing debate, yet another referred to Benton’s work as “manurials” (as reported in the Kirksville Daily Express, March 16, 1937). The Sikeston Herald offered a particularly colorful take, claiming that to say that the murals “had as much place in Missouri’s State capitol—one of the finest and most beautiful buildings in America—as does a pig in a parlor, would be to insult the pig.” (Mar 9, 1939).
Another aspect of Benton’s work also elicited criticism. Although he claimed to be an adamant opponent of racism, Benton’s representations of non-white people often reflect stereotypes of the era. Before he had completed the Missouri Capitol murals, another white artist wrote in 1935 that Benton’s “gross caricatures” of African Americans undercut his stated intent, working instead as anti-Black propaganda (Stuart Davis in Art Front, Feb., 1935). Some African American Missourians also expressed concern, even arranging a meeting with Governor Guy Park to protest the representation of brutality against enslaved people. Park, apparently seeing the image only as a representation of historical injustice, told the group that the image did not reflect poorly on their community (Mexico, MO Daily Intelligencer, Aug. 12, 1936). Benton’s representations of anti-Black violence are still shocking in the twenty-first century. While the Missouri Capitol murals have been the subject of limited debate, Benton’s depiction of a Ku Klux Klan rally in a mural at Indiana University has sparked significant discussion. Benton despised the organization and meant the mural to celebrate the Indiana press’s successful efforts to dismantle its power in the state in the 1920s, but since nothing in the mural clearly expresses that context, the image is understandably disturbing to many contemporary viewers.
Benton’s depiction of Latter-day Saints in the Missouri Capitol mural seems not to have drawn much attention. The scene was noted by a number of critics, but only as an example of the various negative aspects of the state’s history that they would have preferred he omit. Nor does Benton seem to have been interested in the subject beyond its broad historical contours—the image is fairly sparse and lacks any details that would tie it to specific historical figures or events. I haven’t found any indication of what Latter-day Saints in Missouri might have felt about the mural. Several Utah newspapers noted the mural project and the ensuing controversy, but none of them mentioned the scene representing Mormon persecution.
Despite its minor role in the overall mural project, Benton’s image of Latter-day Saint history stands out for representing a subject seldom addressed in public artworks sponsored by states outside the Mormon settlement region in the Intermountain West. There are a handful of artworks commemorating Latter-day Saints along the Mormon Trail, and communities in a number of states have erected monuments to the Mormon Battalion, but images depicting other aspects of Latter-day Saint history are rare. I would love to hear of any other examples you might have come across!