The Perpetual Emigration Fund (PEF) was a 19th-century program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) that provided economic assistance to emigrants seeking to join the main church community in the Salt Lake Valley and surrounding regions. The fund concept was launched in 1849, two years after the first Mormon pioneers arrived in Utah. In September 1850, based on proposals made in the church's general conference, the provisional government of the State of Deseret formally incorporated the fund as the Perpetual Emigrating Company.[1] Ultimately the fund and corporation operated under the name Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company (PEFC).

Fund practices and operations

The PEF used a combination of church resources and private contributions to provide initial aid for impoverished members of the LDS faith as they moved west. The design was to replenish the fund by having these members repay the assistance once established in their new homes.[2] Recipients would sign a promissory note to reimburse the company for their costs, and were often permitted to satisfy their obligation with commodities or labor in addition to cash. Over the life of the program, nearly 30,000 individuals received assistance, primarily with travel arrangements and outfitting.[3]

As the funding was never able to support all who might need assistance, priority was given to longstanding church members and those with useful skills needed in the Western frontier environment.[2] While proselyting efforts in Europe led to increasing numbers of new converts drawing on the PEF, the company only sometimes paid for a recipient's ship passage; more often it assisted with overland travel costs for those already residing or newly arrived in the US.[3] In the Utah economy, availability of cash remained a limiting factor. For members seeking to emigrate from Great Britain, church mission president Samuel W. Richards instituted a plan that the emigrants would pool their existing if meager resources into the PEF, then pay back the full amount of assistance regardless of whether they had also donated. As not all could be accommodated at once, this would help the earlier group of emigrants support those coming after.[4] The earlier growth of the LDS Church in Britain meant that a higher percentage of British members received PEF assistance than emigrants coming from elsewhere (primarily Scandinavia). Those who had relatives already in Utah were more likely to receive support, and donors to the PEF could also designate recipients with their contribution.[5]

Innovations and evolution of emigrant travel

Outdoor statue of a man pulling a handcart, with family members on foot around the cart
Statue of handcart pioneers, Mormon Trail Center, Omaha, Nebraska

Efforts to cut costs and make the program as inexpensive as possible for each emigrant continued over the PEF's lifetime. Beginning in 1856, instead of supplying covered wagons with oxen to cross the plains from the western railroad terminus, many were organized into handcart companies and provided with two-wheeled carts that the emigrants would pull themselves, like a very large wheelbarrow. The new approach allowed the PEF to support nearly twice as many emigrants as it had in 1855. The increased numbers were also problematic, however, as procuring the additional ships and difficulties in building sufficient handcarts caused travel delays. This led to two companies starting the handcart stage of their journey too late in the year, with significant loss of life when they were caught in an October blizzard before reaching Salt Lake City. A few more handcart companies followed in subsequent years, the last in 1860 as the final emigration stage reverted to wagon trains.[6]

For those coming from Europe, church agents engaged sailing vessels almost exclusively for the transatlantic crossing until 1868, to keep fares as low as possible (whether paid by the individual or the PEF). By this time, the majority of overseas immigration to the US had already shifted to steamships, and the church followed suit in developing a relationship with the Guion Line to carry its emigrants as steerage passengers. The shift to a quicker, more reliable crossing by steam was in part connected to a separate concession from the Union Pacific Railroad, which offered free railroad fare from Omaha for able-bodied men who could help build the roadbed for its portion of the first transcontinental railroad.[5] The railroad's completion the next year also eliminated the wagon stage of the journey.

Final years and legacy

Since repayment depended on the recipients building up sufficient means after emigration, the PEFC often did not collect on the notes it held. By 1880, the amounts owed to the Perpetual Emigration Fund had grown to $1.6 million.[7] As part of the jubilee celebration of the 50th year since the church's organization, leader John Taylor announced a goal to forgive half the amount. With instructions to identify those too poor to pay, church bishops managed in the end to forgive $337,000 of obligations to the PEF during the year.[3]

In 1887 the U.S. Congress enacted the Edmunds–Tucker Act, which disincorporated the LDS Church along with the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company on the grounds that it fostered the church's practice of polygamy. The church was ultimately allowed to continue operating and its assets were released in 1893 after a manifesto officially discontinuing the practice, but the PEFC was never reinstated. In 2001 the LDS Church established a new program inspired by the Perpetual Emigration Fund, this time designed to help members in developing countries obtain vocational and technical training, and named it the Perpetual Education Fund.

References

  1. ↑ "An Ordinance, Incorporating the Perpetual Emigrating Company". Deseret News. September 21, 1850. p. 7. Retrieved November 26, 2023. (Technically, the region had just been made part of Utah Territory, but the Deseret legislators were not yet aware of this congressional act, and new governing bodies had not yet been constituted.)
  2. 1 2 Boone, David F. (1992). "Perpetual Emigrating Fund (PEF)". In Ludlow, Daniel H. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Vol. 3. New York: Macmillan. pp. 1075–76. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 Jensen, Richard L.; Ward, Maurine Carr (Fall 2000). "Names of Persons and Sureties Indebted to the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, 1850-1877" (PDF). Mormon Historical Studies. 1 (2): 141–45. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  4. ↑ Aird, Polly (Fall 2002). "Bound for Zion: The Ten- and Thirteen-Pound Emigrating Companies, 1853-54". Utah Historical Quarterly. 70 (4): 300–325. doi:10.2307/45062743. JSTOR 45062743. S2CID 254446784. Retrieved November 26, 2023.
  5. 1 2 Jensen, Richard L. (1982). "Steaming Through: Arrangements for Mormon Emigration from Europe, 1869-1887". Journal of Mormon History. 9: 3–24.
  6. ↑ Hafen, LeRoy R.; Ann W. Hafen (1981) [1960]. Handcarts to Zion: the story of a unique western migration, 1856–1860: with contemporary journals, accounts, reports and rosters of members of the ten handcart companies. Arthur H. Clark Company. ISBN 0-87062-027-4.
  7. ↑ Leonard, Glen M. (January 1980). "Westward the Saints: The Nineteenth-Century Mormon Migration". Ensign. Vol. 10, no. 1. pp. 6–13. Retrieved November 27, 2023.
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