This last weekend I had the great privelege of attending JWHA’s 36th Annual Conference, held at exotic Old Voree, Wiconsin. This year’s theme was “1844-1859: A Time of Transition” (preliminary program found here). Reminiscent of DKL’s roundup from last year, here are a few things that stood out to me the most, though there are numerous other experiences and papers I could list. (more…)

Although it has been described as such, the following document is not an official declaration by the First Presidency supporting civil rights. It wasn’t even written by the First Presidency, but rather by Sterling M. McMurrin. However, President Hugh B. Brown read the statement as part of his October 1963 General Conference address with the approval of Pres. McKay and it was later reprinted in the Deseret News as a quasi-official statement of the Church’s position on civil rights. The statement was drafted in an attempt (that proved to be successful) to avoid protests at conference by the NAACP, which had requested and was denied a meeting with the First Presidency to discuss the Church’s position on civil rights legislation in Utah. Despite its semi-official status, the document is an anomaly, a lone representation of racial liberalism in a sea of conservatism. (more…)

Dave B. has been a longtime blogger at Mormon Inquiry and a regular commenter here at Juvenile Instructor. Once upon a time he earned a master’s degree in economic history, but he comes by his knowledge of and interest in Mormon history the old-fashioned way, by reading books. We’re happy to have him as a JI guest blogger for a few weeks.

Last week I heard Ron Walker conduct a Q&A about Massacre at Mountain Meadows with a small group in Southern California. He made a couple of comments in passing that are worth discussing. When asked for one thing that could be learned from the whole episode, he said that in his view the men who brought to pass the massacre were not evil men, but that there is often not much separating goodness from evil in individuals. He said that he has gained a greater appreciation for the simple virtues like kindness, patience, and gentleness and their effect of keeping us on the right side of that narrow divide.

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Almost fifty years ago, Leonard J. Arrington sent out a questionnaire to fifty prominent Mormons asking who they thought were the “five most eminent intellectuals in Mormon history.” (more…)

I recently spent some time going through nineteenth century newspaper accounts of the death of Brigham Young. One thing that I found shocking was that many of these eastern newspapers, in telling about Polygamy, wrote that Brigham had come up with the idea after he became the leader of the Church and had then attributed it to Joseph Smith. (more…)

Last year, Peggy Fletcher Stack ran an article in the Salt Lake Tribune highlighting two important changes in the 2006 Doubleday Edition of The Book of Mormon. Those changes were discussed at length thoughout the bloggernacle. Well, it looks like there were even more changes made—over a hundred more, in fact. I have heard rumors that the latest printing of The Book of Mormon by the Church includes these changes as well, although no printings newer that those issued in 8/2007 were available in the BYU Bookstore when I checked today.  (more…)

I had the privilege a couple weeks ago of plowing through the Beinecke Library out at Yale in search of LDS-related stuff. Specifically, I got to spend a couple days just looking through the D. Michael Quinn Collection–quite a treasure-trove of documents, specifcally relating to “transitional” period Mormonism. (more…)

This is not so much an analytical post as it is an invitation for a forum of discussion. (more…)

Here are my notes from the panel discussion on Polygamy and Fundamentalism.  Michael Homer asked questions with B. Carmon Hardy, Martha Bradley, Michael Marquardt, and Gordon Melton (Institute for the Study of American Religion) as panelists:

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I had the chance yesterday to attend three of four sessions of the USHS’s Annual Conference in the Salt Lake City Library.  This was my first time attending this conference.  It was free to the public.  This was a smaller conference than any I’ve ever been to.  Each of the four sessions had a choice of three presentations.  A number of authors were in attendance including Carmon Hardy, Michael Homer, Katherine Daynes, Glen Leonard, Will Bagley, Noel Carmack, Michael Marquardt, Robert Carter, Marty Bradley, Reid Nielson, Ron Walker, and others.

Here are my notes from Reid Nielson’s presentation:

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This afternoon, halfway through a wonderful presentation by David Whittaker on the relationship between Brigham Young and Thomas L. Kane, I realized that I probably should have brought my laptop so I could have taken notes to share. As a form of repentance, I figured I should post the remaining schedule on what should be a very interesting lecture series over the next six months: (more…)

So I decided to save my textual analysis of The Backslider for next time and write about my current experience instead.

As I said in my bio, I’m a first-year student at Yale Divinity School. And this life-move came as much of a surprise to me. I never planned to go to divinity school and even now it seems extraordinary that I am here, where Jonathan Edwards was the “Dean of Discipline” in his day and counseled against “unseasonable and evil night walkings” (what?); where there is a room in the Sterling Divinity Quadrangle called the Revised Standard Version room, not as a polite homage but as a dedication to the work that actually took place there; where chapel is not a sedate occasion but a wonderfully planned liturgical event, combining hymn traditions from around the world with group prayers and divine scripture readings and sermons. (more…)

Over at Religion in U.S. History, Kelly Baker highlights the recently-released Guitar Praise, the Christian alternative to Activision’s hit Guitar Hero. Baker summarizes the game’s purpose, noting that

Now, folks who are offended by secular rock music can rock out, in a wholesome way, to songs by Relient K, dc talk, and Caedmons Call among others. One can groove with a plastic guitar and praise at the same time. Digital Praise wants to combine interactive media with effective worship. (more…)

On August 12, 2008, Ron Walker, Glen Leonard, and Richard Turley were at Salt Lake City’s Benchmark Books for a book signing and discussion.  Again, our friend, the indefatigable Brent Brizzi was on hand and has provided the Juvenile Instructor with a transcript of the evening’s proceedings.  It’s somewhat long, but all good, so I will post it parts.  Before doing so, I just want to summarize for readers a few Mountain Meadows Massacre items that have been in the news lately: (more…)

Ronald Walker:  What an honor it is for us to be here with you, we’re honored by your presence, and by all this attention, historians aren’t used to this kind of, this kind of excitement, so thank you so much.  I think what we want to do tonight is each one of us take maybe five, six, seven minutes to give you a feel for the book, and some of our thinking about the book, and then I think the uh, the vast majority of the time, I think we all agree should be Q&A.  That’ll be the most fun. (more…)

Richard Turley:  I would like to talk a little bit about our methodology in writing the book, when we launched this project, our goal was not to work principally from the secondary sources that had been created in the past, but rather to find every primary source that we could find, and then let that evidence tell the story, and that task sent us, or those who were assisting us across the country looking for Mountain Meadows Massacre information, because this was a celebrated case during it’s time, and because the people who either participated in the massacre or later investigated it got scattered across the country, the bits and pieces were scattered like a giant jigsaw puzzle across the continent. (more…)

Glen Leonard:  In his comments in reviewing the book prior to publication, Richard Bushman mentioned this, “Though I knew the end from the beginning, I began to sweat as the narrative approached its fatal climax.  The authors won’t let us turn our gaze away from the horrors of that moment”.  One of the copy editors said something similarly, “this is a page turner, she said”. [pause]  I’d like to turn a few pages.  I’d like to take you into the book, and give you a sample of the narrative, as an illustration of what we were trying to accomplish by taking the facts, drawing our conclusions, and then casting them into a narrative voice. (more…)

Curt Bench:  I’m sure you will agree that was a tremendous, brief presentation, a good introduction to the book.  Now we’d like to entertain any questions you may have, if you’d like to raise your hand we’ll get to you as soon as we can, and if you have a certain author in mind, just designate that OK.

Q:  To any and all of you, is it true that they, the perpetrators held prayer circles just prior to the massacre?  And if so what does this say about their mindset at the time? (more…)

Thank you for your kind intro, Chris. What follows is a general response, or superstructure, to eight points Matt B. wrote for his discussion group, which he will be posting soon:

Art is dangerous. The person who fully engages with any piece of art runs the risk of being changed/transformed in fundamental ways. And many times we don’t control the ways in which we are transformed (both good and bad). I am a passionate proponent of art, not opponent as these statements might make me sound. We should be wary of those who uncritically guard against such transformation through blind prohibition of certain kinds of art. Such prohibitions can arise out of fear. But we should also be wary of artworks that offer transformation carte (more…)

Q&A

Q: For Turley, In 1856, also during reformation, over 200 died in handcart disaster…given that F. D. Richards urged the group forward, blind faith, not questioning authority…a connection?  (more…)

Turley

I suppose every author wants to be read… [There is] humility involved when the book is read by such great scholars.  As Dr. Faragher reminds us, the West could be a violent place and that statement was understated. That’s the theme though that we should have developed more, we did develop it in greater form in the manuscript. Page count precluded us from including all that we wanted to.  For every paragraph in the book two or three ended up on the cutting room floor…we could only touch the peaks of the story hoping that others can come after us and fill out these [gaps].  (more…)

Fixico…I’m not Paiute…I’m Shawnee…I’d like to thank you for coming out…8 on Friday night, you could be anywhere else…I appreciate the support of all the organizations…let me begin with saying this work is monumental…a role model for scholarship, and the kind of book scholars want to write, pivotal books cause change to happen, changes of thinking and cause us to address new questions.  American Indians are part of the story, but not main part. (more…)

Barlow:

In the context of Mormon historiography this, as a piece of scholarship, is a formidable work, monumental accomplishment….My task here is an opportunity to think of the implications of the book.  What does the massacre teach us about Mormonism? About religion and its potential for good or evil…Is religion sick?  The answer is sometimes, sometimes not.  (more…)

It was standing room only tonight at the Salt Lake City Public Library’s main auditorium for a panel discussion about the recently published Massacre at Mountain Meadows.  Panelists were John Mack Faragher, Donald Fixico, and Phil Barlow with Richard Turley responding.  I spied Ardis busily typing away on what will be her own summary of the evening at her blog Keepapitchinin.  I spied a number of notables in attendance including Will Bagley, Katherine Daynes, Elder Marlin K. Jensen, Steve Olsen and others.  All in all the event was well executed and informative, so my congratulations to the many organizations and persons who combined to make it possible.  The whole of the proceedings were recorded and will be made available as a podcast on Monday. We’ll be sure to provide a link to it in the sidebar when it becomes available.  My notes I will here give in portions, and are largely taken verbatim, but for clarity I have paraphrased and placed some clarifying portions in brackets.  John Mack Faragher, professor of history at Yale University was the first speaker: (more…)

Although it may be surprising to many today, during the nineteenth century anti-Mormons often denied that Latter-day Saints were white. Mormon authors fiercely contested this argument, using republican discourses to portray themselves not only as literal but also ideological descendants of the Revolution. As Patty Limerick has argued, anti-Mormons waived aside these objections and gave the Mormons the same choice given to Native Americans during the 1830s–either renounce your cultural distinctiveness, or move west of the Mississippi River, where no whites live.[1]

Once the Mormons resettled in the Great Basin, they discursively constructed their territory as a place of refuge in contrast to the tyranny of the East. Perhaps due to their insistence on claiming whiteness, their Great Basin refuge had borders that were not only geographically defined but also racially delimited. Although sporadic attempts were made during the first few decades of settlement to live peaceably with Native Americans, by 1850 Mormons in Utah Valley (more…)

With Brett agreeing to come on full-time to the JI, we would like to announce of advent of the Juvenile Instructor’s latest guest blogger, Elizabeth. Here is her self-introduction: (more…)

The Juvenile Instructor is pleased to announce that Brett D. has agreed to allow blogging to take up even more of his time by becoming JI’s newest permablogger. His guest posts on Emma Smith’s historiographical past and future, the possibilities of 20th century Mormon history, and the Religious Class program of turn-of-century Mormonism generated insightful discussion, and we look forward to his future contributions.

Please join us in welcoming Brett at the latest addition to the Juvenile Instructor.

Through my work as a researcher for the Education in Zion Project at BYU, I have become acquainted with one of the lesser known auxiliaries of the Church called the Religion Class program. To date, the only substantial work on the classes was an article written by Michael Quinn for the Utah Historical Quarterly in 1975. Other authors like Thomas Alexander (Mormonism in Transition) and Scott Esplin (Education in Transition, Ph.D. Dissertation 2006) have briefly dealt with the classes, but their treatments of the subject have remained limited. Considering the fact that the Religion Classes were an important auxiliary of the Church for nearly 40 years (1890 to 1929), this whole in our history seems quite remarkable. In my research for BYU and my thesis research, I have found the classes to play an important role in transition era Mormonism and turn-of-the-century Utah. Hence, I thought I would provide you all with a brief overview of some of the important aspects of this interesting auxiliary. (more…)

I’ve been almost finished for about a year and a half now with a little paper on Hiram Page’s seer stone and how two artifacts have been misidentified as the Hiram Page Stone.  In a nutshell, there are two physical stones that have been identified as the stone Hiram Page used to receive his revelations (See below).  I show in the paper that, using known documentary evidence, neither of these stones can be connected to Hiram Page and that there has been considerable confusion and a snowballing story connected with these stones that has occurred largely because of what seems to be carelessness with sources.  Admittedly, the issue is small, but it made me wonder if this what happens when people aren’t careful, how often are people not careful? In writing this, I don’t mean to “call out” anyone, but just to illustrate how I think we need to be careful. (more…)

The problem, of course, is in defining ‘evangelical.’

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