It solved one problem and created another
A phonetic writing system makes a great deal of sense while learning how sounds work. But most nineteenth-century Utah settlers already knew the standard Roman letters, and the overwhelming majority of English books, signs and correspondence still used them. Learning Deseret meant gaining a second system rather than replacing the first overnight.
The project also required bespoke metal printing type, additional schooling and a supply of books that ordinary readers would want. Brigham Young promoted it, but endorsement by a leader could not make printers elsewhere reset all their books or make adult readers unlearn an established script.
The publishing problem
The Deseret News carried samples in 1859 and again in 1864. Reading books appeared in 1868 and the Book of Mormon in 1869. These were real, substantial publications, not merely alphabet charts. Yet readers had very few opportunities to practise with anything outside this limited collection.
In 1869 the transcontinental railway reached Utah, increasing access to books and goods from the rest of the United States. Educational convenience increasingly favoured a common national writing system. The fact that Deseret was logically designed did not remove these network effects.
What happened after 1877?
The script had never achieved mass adoption, and its most persistent patron, Brigham Young, died in 1877. Official momentum diminished; conventional English remained the working written language of the community. The alphabet survives in books, diaries, modern Unicode fonts and a small community of learners.
Calling it a failure is fair if the aim was to replace ordinary spelling. Calling it useless misses the point: surviving manuscripts offer a remarkable window into education, dialect and communal experimentation in early Utah.
A useful way to understand its decline
Imagine learning a second alphabet today in which English spelling becomes easier, but the signs on every road, the labels on every medicine and all your existing books remain in ordinary English. The new script might genuinely be more logical, yet your everyday life would offer very few chances to use it. That was the basic problem facing Deseret on a larger scale.
There was also no instant national standardisation. The alphabet changed across early versions, and literacy reform depends heavily on teachers and printers following the same conventions. Historical sources show that Deseret’s limitations were practical and economic rather than proof that its phonetic idea was incoherent.