Along the Community High Road : Joseph A. Geddes and the United Order in the 20th Century by Robert Parson;

              Along the Community High Road: Joseph A. Geddes
and the United Order in the 20th Century
by Robert Parson
In 1924 Joseph Arch Geddes published his Ph.D. dissertation
The United Order Among the Mormons, Missouri Phase: The
Unfinished Experiment. A decade later he wrote a Young Mens
Mutual Improvement Association manual for the Mormon Church.
The Community High Road to Better Things and his Ph.D.
dissertation were both born of adversity. Since the 1890s the
church had successfully distanced itself from the social
experimentation of the past and by 1920 was more than
disinterested in having the United Order revitalized through
scholarly exploration.1 Similarly, the idea of Zion building as
defined by Geddes in The Community High Road manual conflicted
with the church's organizational trend. Whereas Geddes
campaigned for local autonomy, church leaders during the 1930s
focused more on centralization.
Zion building was more than a religious term for Geddes.
As a sociologist spending most of his career at Utah State
Agricultural College, Geddes held that the church existed not
only as a religious organization but also as a social
institution. The "large economic significance" which the United
1Marie Eccles Caine Collection, Papers of Newell K. Hart.
Department of Special Collections and Archives, Utah State
University, Logan, Ut. Box 4, folder 16. Hereafter referred to
as Hart.