How does the Pulling a Handcart to the Mormon Zion suggest about the changes occuring during this time period for many ethnic groups?The expanding...

Merriman Evans' account of her conversion and then travel
to the Utah territories is an interesting one in a variety of ways.  It serves as an
example of many changes that were happening to the world because of advances in
transportation and communication as well as the different opportunities available in the
"new world" when compared with the old.

One of the most
obvious differences between Evans' life and those of her mother and other ancestors was
the opportunity to even consider moving to a different country let alone a different
continent.  For her the considerations were difficult and the circumstances made the
move very difficult, but it simply was not a possiblity not many years prior to her
experience.

An important cultural change also occurred as
immigrants had the opportunity to either insert themselves into the community of their
countrymen and women within the ethnic enclaves present in many places in the U.S. or
they could connect themselves with a new group, in Evans' case that of the Mormons in
order to open up different opportunities.