"The Handcart Song" is an American song about a period in Mormon history. In the early 1850's Brigham Young established the Mormon Emigration Fund to finance emigration from Europe to Utah by paying for transatlantic sailing, train fare to Iowa City and a wagon and supplies for the remainder of the trip to Utah. This lasted until 1855 when Mormon crops were wiped out by grasshoppers and the severe winter killed most of their cattle wiping out most of the financial resources of the program. Thousands of emigrants were stuck in Iowa City because wagons could not be acquired. Brigham Young decided that they would be given handcarts and would have to walk to Utah. Only a handful survived starvation, cholera and blizzards. Nearly 3,000 Mormon pioneers from England, Wales, Scotland and Scandinavia made the journey from Iowa or Nebraska to Utah in ten handcart companies. The trek was disastrous for two of the companies, which started their journey dangerously late and were caught by heavy snow and severe temperatures in central Wyoming. Despite a dramatic rescue effort, more than 210 of the 980 pioneers in these two companies died along the way. The Mormon handcart movement began in 1856 and continued until 1868. The transcontinental railroad was constructed in the mid-to-late 1860s and was completed in 1869 which eliminated the need for the handcarts. The tune is set to a Scottish dance tune called "Cumberland Reel". It was printed in James A. Warner's Songs That Made America (1972).