BYU NewsNet - Exhibit honoring non-member Mormon activist coming to an end

The Thomas L. Kane exhibit is home to pictures, original writings and artifacts will close on June 18 after being open since November.

Thomas L. Kane was a historical activist who helped defend Latter-day Saints in the early days of the church. Although he never joined the church it is believed that his original interest in the church came from his and Brigham Young’s similar stand against slavery.

“He was an activist,” said Roger Layton, the Harold B. Lee Library communications manager. “He believed in justice and equality so he defended the cause of Mormons. He believed people should be free. He and Brigham Young became friends and helped the church show its side of the story during the Utah War. He is a very influential figure in Utah’s history.”

Kane used his family’s influence to help the early LDS church.

“He came from a well-known family,” Layton said. “His father was a friend of the president and his brother was a famous arctic explorer.”

With the help of his father, Kane obtained U.S. government permission for the refugee Mormons to occupy Native American

reservation lands along the Missouri River.

Students and other visitors still have an opportunity to view this exhibit in the L. Tom Perry Special Collections section of the library.

“We always get a lot of traffic early on, then it slows down, and then picks up again once students see it’s closing,” Layton said. “This was a pretty popular one; there was a good turnout. This is great for people with an interest in Utah and church history.”

The library held a lecture series to accompany the exhibit. Speakers included BYU faculty, a Mormon history expert and professors from other non-local universities.

“We have the biggest Thomas Kane collection in the world,” said exhibit director David Whittaker. “Our exhibit mainly focuses on his connection with the early Latter-day Saints but he also was involved with the underground slavery movement, women’s reform and educational reform. Kane is really the one who suggested to Brigham Young that he should organize a school and name it after himself.”

After the exhibit closes this month, the L. Tom Perry Special Collections section will host a photography exhibit called “From Daguerreotype to Digital.”