This article by Michael Austin and Rachel Meibos Helps details the cultural significance of literature in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Beginning in 1888, a movement headed by Bishop Orson F. Whitney introduced education programs for male and female youth of the church. These included recommended booklists, traveling libraries, and formal lessons. Over the course of the twentieth-century, the programs underwent many changes. The ultimate goal of the curriculum was to encourage the youth of the Church to remain well-read, intelligent, and morally upright, driven by the belief that "Latter-day Saints had to be in the world before they could derive any value from not being of it."
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BYU Studies