The forty-sixth annual conference of the Mormon History Association will be held May 26-29, 2011, at the Dixie Center in St. George, Utah. The 2011 theme, “From Cotton to Cosmopolitan: Local, National, and Global Transformations in Mormon History,” evokes both the specific history of St. George and environs, and Mormonism as a religious tradition more generally.

Once a sparsely populated corner of what became the American Southwest, St. George was founded as part of the LDS Church’s Cotton Mission in 1861. This year’s conference marks the sesquicentennial of the community’s settlement and seeks to highlight the remarkable transformation of the city and the region from isolated outpost to recreation destination. The theme also refers to the transformations of the Mormon tradition, in all of its varieties, from its frontier American origins in the early nineteenth century to its contemporary global presence at the dawn of the new millennium. The conference also aims to further the transformation of Mormon history and historiography from its provincial origins to greater consideration of broader trends, themes, and connections, as well as new interpretations. It is emblematic that St. George, its region, and college were for decades the residence and intellectual home of one of the great change agents of Mormon historiography, Juanita Leavitt Pulsipher Brooks.

The program committee welcomes papers and panels on all aspects of the transformations in the history of the Mormon-Restoration tradition. Studies focusing on the conference location and its environs (from Las Vegas to Colorado City), region-related themes, and/or notable anniversaries, are particularly encouraged. Accordingly, the following topics are of interest: the founding and history of the Cotton Mission (1861); the development of St. George and southern Utah; Mormon perspectives on and involvement in the American Civil War (1861-1865); the history and impact of Dixie College (1911); the environmental and agricultural history of the region, including the use and conflict over resources (particularly water and timber), the founding of national parks, the impact of nearby nuclear testing, and the development of nature-related tourism; and Mormon relationships with Native Americans.

While we encourage presentations related to the conference theme, we also welcome high-quality proposals related to any aspect of Mormon history. The Program Committee will give preference to complete two- or three-paper session proposals, but individual paper proposals and innovative formats will also be considered. Please send an abstract of each paper (no more than 300 words) outlining your argument and sources, plus a short CV (no longer than 2 pages) for each speaker; complete panel proposals should also include a short abstract describing the rationale and contribution of the overall panel, as well as suggestions for session chairs and respondents. Previously published papers will not be considered. Since MHA is particularly interested in fostering a new generation of scholars, generous donors have offered to pay the travel expenses for some undergraduate and graduate students whose proposals are accepted. Students’ proposals should include estimated expenses if applying for a travel grant.

The deadline for proposals is October 1, 2010. Proposals should be sent by e-mail to mhameeting2011@gmail.com. Hard copies of proposals can also be sent to Matthew Grow, Center for Communal Studies, 8600 University Blvd., Evansville, IN 47712. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be made by January 1, 2011. Additional instructions and information are available on the MHA website at http://www.mhahome.org.

MHA ST. GEORGE PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Co-Chair: Matthew J. Grow, Assistant Professor of History, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, IN
Co-Chair: Patrick Q. Mason, Research Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN

Gregory A. Prince, Independent Historian, Potomac, MD
David Pulsipher, Professor of History, Brigham Young University-Idaho, Rexburg, ID
Polly Aird, Independent Historian, Seattle, WA
Wayne K. Hinton, retired History Professor, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT
W. Paul Reeve, Associate Professor of History, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
Lisa Olsen Tait, Ph.D. candidate in English, University of Houston, Houston, TX

Microhistory has been an emerging field as of late, especially with the diversification of cultural and social history. In its most basic sense, it is the study of a rather narrow topic as a way to explore broader themes. These studies could include an isolated town, a limited timeframe, or a single individual. Leading microhistorians include John Demos, Carlo Ginzburg, Laurel Ulrich, as well as BYU’s (and Times and Seasons’) own Craig Harline. Using the methodology of biography as a comparative lens, Lepore outlines the benefits of microhistory while at the same time trying to better define the broader approach. At the risk of simplifying Lepore’s engaging exploration of the methodology, I will just list her four “propositions” of the difference between biography and microhistory:

1. “If biography is largely founded on a belief in the singularity and significance of an individual’s contribution to history, microhistory is founded upon almost the opposite assumption: however singular a person’s life may be, the value of examining it lies in how it serves as an allegory for the culture as a whole.”
2. “Biographers seek to profile an individual and recapitulate a life story, but microhistorians, tracing their elusive characters through slender records, tend to address themselves to solving small mysteries about a person’s life as a means to exploring the culture.”
3. “Biographers generally worry about becoming too intimate with their subjects and later betraying them; microhistorians, typically denied any such intimacy, tend to betray people who have left abundant records in order to resurrect those who did not.”
4. “A biographer’s alter ego is usually the subject of the biography, while a microhistorian’s alter ego may be a figure who investigates or judges the subject. For this reason, a microhistorian may be a character in his own book.” (141)

Though Lepore devotes much of her article to the methodology of biography, that is not my focus here. (Which is a shame, because biography is such a popular approach in Mormon history and deserves attention—perhaps a future post.) I wish to rather explore the benefits of microhistory, and hopefully start a discussion on its potential, progress, virtues, or vices of such an approach.

One of the obvious benefits is the ability to sidestep some of the common snares of Mormon historiography. With microhistory, one does not have to take a stand on if Joseph Smith was a prophet or a fraud, whether Brigham Young’s teachings were necessarily racist or not, of whether Joseph Fielding Smith’s views were a shift or continuation of traditional Mormon theology. The historian does not have to fully divulge their personal stance—or “declare one’s allegiance,” as I’ve previously discussed. While many examples could be mentioned, what comes directly to my mind is D Michael Quinn’s struggle to be fair with J Reuben Clark, an individual who was directly opposite intellectually than Quinn himself.

The second benefit I’d like to highlight is it forces one to engage larger themes. Rather than just focusing on a specific Mormon event or individual for their own sake, microhistory enables one to broaden both the implications and the relevancy of that topic. This requires a better understanding of the broader context—a virtue traditionally missing in Mormon historiography—and is an important step in the development of Mormon history. Jan Shipps commented how such a step is necessary for the field to emerge from the “provinciality” of the past into a “new sort of Mormon history.”[2] One of the great achievements of New Mormon History was using broader contexts to better illuminate Mormonism—now it is time to use Mormonism to further illuminate the broader context.

Before I open up the discussion, I should highlight a couple of the best examples of microhistory in Mormon studies. Kathleen Flake, in her book on Reed Smoot, uses the isolated event of the Mormon apostle’s senatorial seating as a way to engage broader issues of American religious identity in the progressive age. More recently, Laurel Ulrich has utilized a single Mormon quilt from 1857 while exploring the broader issues of faith, family, and national tensions. I’m sure other examples could be easily identified.[3]

Now, what advantages do you see such an approach can offer Mormon history? What are some of the potential pitfalls? What authors and texts do you feel do the best at utilizing microhistory?

_____________________________________

[1] Jill Lepore, “Historians Who Love Too Much: Reflections on Microhistory and Biography,” Journal of American History 88 (June 2001): 129-144. See also here.

[2] Jan Shipps, “Richard Bushman, the Story of Joseph Smith and Mormonism, and the New Mormon History,” Journal of American History 94 (September 2007): 516.

[3] Kathleen Flake, The Politics of American Religious Identity: The Seating of Senator Reed Smoot, Mormon Apostle (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003); Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “An American Album, 1857,” American Historical Review 115 (February 2010): 1-25, summarized here.

This post begins with a seemingly unrelated starting point: the debate over the legacy of Kantian philosophy in 1790s Germany. Philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, in defense of his interpretation of Kantian idealism, argued for a distinction between “the inventor” of an ideological system, and “his commentators and disciples.” Fichte explained,

The inventor of a system is one thing, and his commentators and disciples are another…The reason is this: The followers do not yet have the idea of the whole; for if they had it, they would not require to study the new system; they are obliged first to piece together this idea out of the parts that the inventor provides for them; [but] all these parts are in fact not wholly determined, rounded and polished in their minds…

Fichte continued by explaining “the inventor proceeds from the idea of the whole, in which all the parts are united, and sets for these parts individually…The business of the followers,” on the other hand, “is to synthesize what they still by no means possess, but are only to obtain by the synthesis.”[1]

The specifics of Kantian philosophy that Fichte was debating hold little importance to us, but the tension he outlines between an “inventor” and “disciple” plays an important correlating role in the development of early Mormon thought, just as it does with any movement that boasts an innovative founder. Students of the development of Mormon theology have long focused on Joseph Smith, with good reason. As prophet and founder of the LDS Church, his revelations and teachings laid the foundations for the movement, and his voice is considered the most authoritative one when considering early Mormon beliefs. However, Smith’s theology is difficult to determine on two grounds. First, his premature death at the age of 39; though he had been the recognized prophet and leader for nearly a decade and a half, the explosive theological development during his last three years showed no signs of relenting, and it can only be assumed that much of his religious vision was left inchoate and unfulfilled. Indeed, it wasn’t until the last three months of his life that Smith’s sermons began piecing together what had previously been only theological fragments.

The second reason for this difficulty is the very nature of Smith’s prophet persona, and relates to the Kantian dynamic outlined above. Smith was by nature eclectic, rather than syncretistic, and his teachings were emblematic of that approach. His teachings were never presented in a systematic order, but rather, as Richard Bushman aptly put it, in “flashes and bursts.”[2] This collection of fragments has left many historians bewildered at the difficulty of presenting a coherent picture of his beliefs.[3] Further, Smith’s eclecticism has made it difficult to position him among his antebellum contemporaries, because his teachings are malleable enough to be considered emblematic of numerous—and sometimes competing—cultural tensions.[4] Thus, just as Smith’s religious successors inherited a dynamic theology with countless possibilities, modern historians are left with a mesh of innovative fragments from which to make a distorted picture.

While attempts to articulate Joseph Smith’s vision will—and should—continue, it might serve fruitful to look in other directions for ways to contextualize early Mormonism. First, it should be remembered that Joseph Smith’s was not the only voice of the early LDS church. Indeed, the vast majority of Mormon print came from the disciples who were still trying to understand Smith’s theology even as they were explicating it. Just as Fichte worked from the bits and pieces of idealism he inherited from Kant, Mormon thinkers like Parley Pratt, John Taylor, and William Phelps sought to synthesize the prophet’s revelations into an intelligible dogma. Pratt summarized this process in a proclamation written only months after Smith’s death: “The chaos of materials prepared by [Joseph Smith] must now be placed in order in the building. The laws revealed by him must now be administered in all their strictness and beauty. The measure commenced by him must now be carried into successful operation.”[5] Indeed, especially after the Quorum of the Twelve took control of the church, there was an acute anxiety to complete and expand Smith’s vision, even if ambiguity remained. The diversity in these synthesizing attempts reveals not only the pliable nature of early Mormon thought, but the difficulty in correlating eclectic ideas into a theological whole.

Sociologists Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge, who in turn were building off of the religious theory of Max Weber, have argued that this very process of correlation is an important moment in the development of a religious movement. “Cult formation,” they argued, is “a two-stage process of innovation.” The first is “the invention of new religious ideas,” while the second is “gaining social acceptance of these ideas” through adaptation and expansion.[6] The latter stage is accomplished primarily by drawing from cultural tensions and expectations in order to further accommodate the movement’s religious goals. In other words, those correlating the innovative ideas have a specific culture in mind as their audience, and a distinct set of cultural preconceptions as their tools. With regard to the theologians of early Mormonism, their doctrinal formulations not only bare the footprint of the religious innovator—in this case, Joseph Smith—but also of the culture in which they interpreted the innovator—in this case, antebellum America.

Therefore, I argue that an important step in the scholarly interpretation of early Mormon thought will entail a decreased focus on Joseph Smith. Besides being able to sidestep the issue of revelatory validity, it also provides an opportunity to analyze more systematic theologies and better engage cultural trends. Sam Brown’s work on William Phelps offers a great example of this, as will the forthcoming biography of Parley Pratt by Matthew Grow and Terryl Givens. I hope to see the trend continue and blossom.

___________________________________________________

[1] Johann Gottlieb Fichte, “Second Introduction to the Science of Knowledge,” in J. G. Fichte, Science of Knowledge, translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 57.

[2] Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), xxi.

[3] For example, one recent writer waived the metaphoric white flag when he described Smith as “simultaneously an eminent Jacksonian, a scion of the Yankee exodus, a creature and critic of the Second Great Awakening, a Romantic reformer, a charismatic utopian, a mystic nationalist, and a hustler in the manner of Barnum.” Or, in summation, a “prophet, genus, con man, crackpot, or all four in some proportion.” Walter A. McDourgall, Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 180.

[4] Gordon S. Wood wrote that the principles that Smith laid out contained elements “mystical and secular; restorationist and progressive; communitarian and individualistic; hierarchical and congregational; authoritarian and democratic; antimonian and arminian; anti-clerical and priestly; revelatory and empirical; utopian and practical; ecumenical and nationalist.” Wood, “Evangelical America and Early Mormonism,” New York History 61 (October 1980): 380.

[5] Parley Pratt, “Proclamation. To the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-Day Saints: Greeting,” Millennial Star 5 (March 1845): 152.

[6] Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, A Theory of Religion (New York: Peter Lang, 1987), 156. For more on this formation, see their chapter 8.

Hemingses of Monticello is a family biography that follows the descendents of Elizabeth Hemings for nearly a century. Though a slave family, complexity and unique circumstances made their experiences difficult to simplify or categorize. Gordon-Reed deftly follows several family members through multiple environments, utilizing a deep understanding of the surrounding context in order to fill in numerous details. And when I say that there were details that needed to be filled in, that is an understatement. Gordon-Reed wrote about a family that left almost no records themselves. In a way, she became so immersed in the context that she was painting a portrait by filling in all the surroundings first, or creating a picture from a negative. She was successful, too. The book received almost every major award, both in scholarly and popular circles. It is a must-read for understanding many themes of the 18th and early 19th century: slave culture, race relations, Parisian life, and even the contradictory mind of Thomas Jefferson. It opened my eyes to new avenues of historical methodology, encouraged me to be a better historian, and validated my belief that historical works are worthwhile and provide insights into the human experience.

I wonder, though, whether Mormon history is collectively conditioned to embrace such a book—at least not yet—for two reasons.

The first reason is Gordon-Reed’s refusal to be mired down with some of the controversial aspects that have bogged down previous works on the Hemings family. Most significantly, she takes as fact the sexual relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. (It should be noted that Gordon-Reed had previously devoted a book to the issue.) While a majority of scholars have accepted as much for at least a decade, the issue is still hotly debated—especially by some factions of the Thomas Jefferson Family Association. By sidestepping this issue—the only time she really addresses the controversy is in a footnote—she is able to move forward in her narrative and answer more pertinent questions.

I have some doubts whether such an approach would fly with many within Mormon history circles. We often become obsessed with controversies that, when viewed from a larger perspective, don’t really matter. We feel obligated to settle the debates over when the First Vision occurred, what year the Melchezidek Priesthood was restored, or the exact amount of wives Joseph Smith had, just to name a few examples. These can be important questions, of course, but they can become a red herring that distracts us from other issues and forbids us from moving on to more intriguing topics. Though some progress has been made of late, it will be interesting to see if the trend continues.

The second aspect of Hemingses of Monticello that could be tough to incorporate is one of the key aspects of Gordon-Reed’s methodology itself, as outlined in her introduction:

Historians often warn against the danger of “essentializing” when making statements about people of the past—positing an elemental human nature that can be discerned and relied upon at all times and in all places. Warnings notwithstanding, there are, in fact, some elements of the human condition that have existed forever, transcending time and place. If there were none, and if historians did not try to connect to those elements (consciously or unconsciously), historical writing would be simply incomprehensible…Therefore, we should not be afraid to call upon what we know in general about mothers, fathers, families, male-female relationships, power relationships, the contours of life in small closely knit communities, as we try to see the Hemingses in the context of their own time and place. (31-32)

Anyone who has read the book knows that Gordon-Reed wasn’t shy about essentializing throughout the text. While I was somewhat hesitant at first, worried that a presentist misstep would appear at any moment, I actually found this approach quite liberating. By using her sources to not only answer questions about historical context but also to explore issues of the human psyche, the story became not only fascinating but also profoundly relevant. This was the type of work that reaffirmed my belief that history mattered.

Again, I have reservations aboout whether Mormon historians would be accepting of such an approach. Mormon historians love focusing on facts, sticking to details, proving (often in tedious detail) minute data, and eschewing generalizations. Perhaps due to the significance of the events to believing members—or perhaps to the sometimes novice-nature of Mormon history—LDS historians want everything proven, and anything that is not bedrock solid is dismissed as “speculative.” This is, of course, an important perspective to remember, because history should not stray too far from the documents—our only solid connection to the past. However, when the stakes are so high, and the battle lines often so firmly drawn, it is difficult to make interpretive and imaginative leaps, even for a scholar so entrenched in the historical context and details as Annette Gordon-Reed. As a result, we are often left debating the same points, rarely broadening our interpretive frameworks, missing out on important insights, and running around the same historiographical circles.

What I am left wondering is whether these are existential problems inherent in Mormon history (since Mormonism is believed by many, it is too potent a topic for these kind of approaches), or whether it is a reflection on the developing nature of Mormon studies, and that it will improve once the field matures (the current research of Laurel Ulrich and Kathleen Flake, among others, gives hope that the latter is the case).

Or, perhaps I am just being pessimistic.

“An angel of God never has wings,” proclaimed Joseph Smith in 1839, just as the LDS Church was establishing itself in what would come to be known as Nauvoo, Illinois. The Mormon prophet then proceeded to explain to the gathered Saints the ability to “discern” between true angelic beings, disembodied spirits, and devilish minions by a simple test of a handshake. He assured them that “the gift of discerning spirits will be given to the presiding Elder, pray for him…that he may have this gift[.]”[1] His statement, esoteric in nature and sandwiched between instructions on the importance of sacred ordinances and a reformulation of speaking in tongues, offers a succinct synopsis of Joseph Smith’s evolved understanding of angels and their relationship to human beings. Teaching that they didn’t have wings rejected the classic stereotypes and caricatures of the mysterious and mystical beings that had long held a significant part in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Indeed, one can say that Joseph Smith made a career out of challenging classic stereotypes, yet each particular challenge represented a larger, undergirding worldview from which his theology sprung. Among the many religious innovations Smith proposed during his prophetic tenure was a radical redefinition of the nature of angelical beings, which in turn closed the gap between humans and angels. Long held to be a “wholly other” species, Smith reconceptualized these metaphysical beings as members of the same human family, taking part in the same salvific work, and even dwelling mortally at some point upon the same planet; when asked whether an angel’s temporal time depended upon the “planet on which they reside,” Smith responded that “there is no angel [that] ministers to this earth[,] only what either does belong or has belonged to this earth,” thereby rejecting the notion of ontologically distinct angelic beings and collapsing the conceptual distance between “mortal” and “immortal.”[2]

While Smith’s fully developed angelology is significant in itself, Mormonism’s belief in angels is significant for another reason. Like any other religious group, early Mormon thought developed over a period of time, evolving from its beginnings as a mildly diverging form of American Protestantism to eventually a new religious tradition with numerous distinctive beliefs.[3] During this period of change, angels served as an important doctrinal touchstone, often appearing at important shifts during the first two decades of the movement and representing the larger developments that were simultaneously occurring. Changing conceptualizations of angels help chart Mormon thinking in important ways that reflect transitions into periods of elaborated ecclesiology and increasingly materialistic theology. This paper engages Mormonism’s evolving views of angels specifically as a window to the evolving views of Mormon thought generally, arguing that angelology provides a useful vantage point from which to interpret early LDS thought.

Specifically, this study will engage four specific theological and ecclesiastic developments. First, early Mormon thinkers’ evolving belief in angels demonstrates their agenda to place supernatural claims on more rationalistic foundations, adapting Romantic impulses with the growing necessity for systematic thought, while at the same time invoking a uniquely literalistic reading of the Bible; though they held onto supernatural beliefs like angelic beings, those beings could be tested through empirical means like a handshake, or, more importantly, by priesthood authority. Second, the use of angels was intimately involved with Mormonism’s appeal to authority, and resurrected patriarchs were increasingly invoked as the importance of priesthood increased. Third, connected to the idea of ministering angels was the notion of evil spirits and the accompanied necessity for spiritual discernment—establishing the origin, purpose, and limits of what they recognized as the many false and competing spirits of the day. And finally, Smith’s theological reformulation of angelic beings correlated with his larger ideological project to weld all beings—humans, Gods, and angels—into one collaborative group of “intelligences,” the capstone of Mormonism’s Nauvoo theology.

Beyond the development of Mormon thought, however, this topic offers an intriguing glimpse into the wider religious milieu of the day, as well as the tensions involved in antebellum religion-making. In a period defined as both a “spiritual hothouse”[4] and time of theological innovation,[5] Mormonism often embodied many of the significant themes that confronted contemporary religionists. Indeed, in dealing with issues like rationality, authority, competing spirits, and even ontology, early Mormons were in indirect conversation with their broader environment, attempting to answer many of the same questions, rebut many of the same accusations, and react to many of the same ideological assumptions. Mormon angelology, then, serves as an important standpoint from which to engage the larger general issues of the day, an efficient micro-history to encounter broader trends.

[To read the rest of the article, click here.]

_____________________________________________________

[1] Joseph Smith, Sermon, before August 8, 1839, in Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph, Religious Studies Monograph Series, no. 6 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1980), 12-13.

[2] Joseph Smith, Sermon, in George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journals of William Clayton (Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with Smith Research Associates, 1995), 96.

[3] For a brief—if sometimes simplistic—outline on the evolving nature of Mormon thought, see Thomas G. Alexander, “The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine: From Joseph Smith to Progressive Theology,” Sunstone 5:4 (July-August 1980): 24-33. For Mormonism as a “new religious tradition,” see Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985).

[4] Jon Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), chapter 8.

[5] James Bratt has written that the decade between 1835 and 1845—the decade in which Mormonism blossomed—is “less distinguished by the radical extension of evangelicalism’s logic than as the launching ground of new departures.” James D. Bratt, “The Reorientation of American Protestantism, 1835-1845,” Church History 67 (Mar. 1998): 52-53.

Damrosch, Leo. Tocqueville’s Discovery of America. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010. xxi + 227 pp. Illustrations, maps, endnotes, index. Hardback: $27.00; ISBN 978-0-374-27817-5.

While in Boston doing research a couple weeks ago, I just so happened to notice a flyer advertising a lecture by literature professor and intellectual historian Leo Damrosch. Damrosch, the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature at Harvard university, wrote the brilliant intellectual biography of Rousseau (Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius [Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005]), to which I owe just about all of my understanding of the French philosopher. I became even more excited when I saw that Damrosch’s most recent book came even closer to my interests: the famous American voyage of Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831. Intrigued, I attended what ended up being a fascinating presentation.

We are all familiar with Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. It is a unique glimpse at American political theory during the antebellum era from the eyes of an educated foreigner—most poignantly, the eyes of a sympathetic educated foreigner. Many translations of the work exist,[1] numerous scholars have dissected the text itself, and multiple volumes have been dedicated to examining Tocqueville’s political theory. However, as Damrosch explains, Democracy in America is not the only important offering Tocqueville left for students of early America. Specifically, Tocqueville’s papers from the 1831 trip itself are a treasure-trove for historians of early American thought and culture.

What made Tocqueville different from other foreign visitors of the period who documented their journeys—like Charles Dickens and Frances Trollope—was his openness to appreciating the new culture, his willingness to understand how this new breed of democracy worked, and, most importantly, his insatiable appetite of observing and recording every element of America he could find. A member of an aristocratic family at a time when such connections were not desirable in France, Tocqueville and his friend Beaumont convinced the French government to allow them to the United States in 1831 and study the American penitentiary system—a hot topic of the day, and a formidable excuse to leave the country when the walls were closing in on higher-class families.

While they did study and eventually write on American prisons, their real goal for the trip was to observe the developing American culture, with hopes to publish a major volume on American democracy. Thus, they treated their ten months in America as an extended research examination, recording everything they could about what they saw, heard, and discussed with local citizens. The result was multiple volumes of journals, notebooks, and letters that include anecdotes, conversations, and general reflections from their experiences. They talk about religion, marriage, politics, economy, literature, dinner groups, shaker meetings, the “wild west” of Ohio, the revivals of upstate New York, and even the faux gentry of the South, just to name a few. Indeed, it would be tough to name something they didn’t record. Unfortunately, almost all of it didn’t make it into Democracy in America, and a majority of it has never been translated into English. Fortunately, almost all the documents are housed in the Tocqueville collection at Yale’s Beinecke Library. Damrosch’s book introduces us to these documents, guides us through Tocqueville’s stay in America, and provides numerous anecdotes of what Tocqueville observed.

This book, and these documents, should be of extra importance to Mormon historians, not only because Tocqueville’s trip take place just as the LDS Church was founded, but he covers some of the most relevant geographic areas of the young movement, almost tracing Joseph Smith’s journey from New York and Pennsylvania to Ohio only months after the prophet did it himself. He spent a week in upstate New York, constantly commenting on its spiritual ferment, and then spends a few days in the northern and eastern areas of Ohio, recording what life was like on the frontier fringes of American society. Tocqueville apparently did a great job recording conversations with people from all facets of life in these areas, from the well-to-do upper class people who throw lavish dinner parties to the poorest individuals he bumped into on the streets; from the secular humanists who swore by Thomas Paine to the religious enthusiasts embracing the many upstart movements of the period. Damrosch gives a great overview of Tocqueville’s general impressions of the area, and of the excerpts he shares from Tocqueville’s papers are as humorous as they are revealing.

The book certainly does have some limits, at least for our purposes. Most importantly, Damrosch is not very interested in Tocqueville’s perceptions of American religion and theology. Though intriguing glances are found here and there, religion just isn’t within Damrosch’s scope. This isn’t a knock on the book, just a reflection of the author’s framework and interests. Further, because Tocqueville’s Discovery of America was designed for a broad audience, it contains many of the common limitations that accompany a text written for both academic and lay audiences: simplified endnotes, minimal scholarly engagement, very little theory, and an overabundance of fun anecdotes rather than a healthy dose of interpretation. While this makes the book a quick and smooth read (I was able to make it through almost all of it on my flight from Boston to London), it often left me wanting more—but that is only because readers like me are not the only primary audience.

Most importantly, this book introduced me to a bulk of new primary sources I was heretofore unaware of.[2] I think someone could dedicate an entire article to examining what Tocqueville’s letters and notebooks tell us about the environment that early Mormonism was developed in, perhaps titled something like “Joseph Smith in Tocqueville’s America” (or “Tocqueville in Joseph Smith’s America,” whichever angle is desired). At the least, here’s hoping that more historians utilize these documents in our quest to enrich our understanding of the dynamic culture that was antebellum America, and we have scholars like Leo Damrosch for leading the way.

________________________________________________________

[1] I asked Damrosch what the best translation of Democracy in America was, and he said it was an important, yet simple, question. Tocqueville’s language was a mixture of florid prose and seventeenth century aristocratic French dialect, while still remaining quite lively. Unfortunately, because of his old-fashioned vocabulary, most English translations end up being too dull or dead to really capture the text’s beauty. To Damrosch, the translation that comes the closest to recreate Tocqueville’s playful prose is Arthur Goldhammer’s edition in the Library of America series. (I found this disappointing news, since had I recently purchased the University of Chicago Press edition, which he said was especially dull in its translation.)

[2] In fact, I wish I had known about these documents a week earlier, for I was researching at the Beinecke the day before I was at his lecture. Drats.

In his Socratic dialogue Phaedo, Plato offered a multi-layered argument for the immortality of the soul, claiming that the human spirit belonged with the Forms–that is, the highest and most fundamental kind of reality (as opposed to the “shadows” that humankind dealt with in the temporal world). Plato implied that the soul existed before entering the body, and that if it properly purified itself from all attachment to bodily things, it would then return to the intelligible world of Forms after death.[1] The body in early Platonism, therefore, served as a temporary prison for the immortal soul, and, according to Phaedrus, came as a result of an undisciplined mistake and corresponding fall in humankind’s previous existence.[2] While Aristotle challenged and nuanced his teacher’s demeaning of the world and human bodies, Western thought largely engaged Plato’s belief for the following two millennia.

More than two thousand years after Socrates’s death, Mormon apostle Parley Parker Pratt used the Greek sage as a straw-man against which he presented a radically material afterlife. In an essay written early in 1844 titled “The Immortality and Eternal Life of the Material Body,” Pratt invoked the classic philosopher as among those professing a temporary–and therefore, insufficient–view of the physical tabernacle and who therefore epitomized those who held the hope “of escaping with nothing but their spirits, to some immaterial world.” In Pratt’s theology, the redemption of the spirit is only half of the eternal battle that Mormons believed in: “One of the principle objects of our blessed Redeemer,” he claimed, “was the redemption of our material bodies, and the restoration of the whole physical world from the dominion of sin, death, and the curse.” Pratt went on to postulate the future potentialities of human bodies: a physical, supernatural resurrection of their bodily form, accompanied by celestial glory added not only upon the immortal soul, but the immortal tabernacle. “What kind of salvation then do we need?” he asked. “I reply, we need salvation from death and the grave, as well as from our sins . . . a salvation not only of our spirits, but of our body and parts, of our flesh and bones, of our hands, and feet and head, with every organ, limb and joint.”[3]

The vast differences between the Platonic approach and Pratt’s are readily apparent. The former viewed the body as a temporary prison while absent from the intelligible world of Forms, the latter as a vehicle to the salvation of a domestic heaven. Indeed, these positions occupy opposite poles of a long-debated spectrum, offering the extremes of how to religiously approach corporality: Pratt’s radical materialism acts as a foil to the more traditional duality of spirit and matter. While positioning Pratt among later Christian writers collapses the contrast, LDS embodiment still stands unique. Placing early Mormon theology of the body within the larger Christian–and more importantly, antebellum Protestant–context provides a unique vantage point from which we can more fully understand its origins and implications. This paper seeks to analyze pre-Utah Mormonism’s views of embodiment, both to better understand the development early LDS thought and also to place Mormon theology within its larger culture.

[The rest of the article can be downloaded here.]

_________________________________________________

[1] Plato, Phaedo, 57a–84c.
[2] Plato, Phaedrus, 244a–257b.
[3] Parley P. Pratt, “Immortality and Eternal Life of the Material Body,” in An Appeal to the Inhabitants of the State of New York, Letter to Queen Victoria (Reprinted from the Tenth European Edition,) The Fountain of Knowledge; Immortality of the Body, and Intelligence and Affection (Nauvoo: John Taylor, Printer, 1840), 27–29. Pratt’s later references to Plato and Socrates become more laudatory, especially when praising them for their emphasis on the eternal nature of the soul. See Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology: Designed as an Introduction to the First Principles of Spiritual Philosophy; Religion; Law and Government; As Delivered by the Ancients, and as Restored in This Age, For the Final Development of Universal Peace, Truth and Knowledge (Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1855), 61.

Held at Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA
March 18-19, 2011

In a world pervaded with religious fervor and seemingly perpetual war, it has become essential for religious believers to consider the realities of violent conflict and the possibilities for a more peaceful world. Adherents and scholars of the world’s largest religious bodies have had long and often contentious debates over what their sacred sources and traditions teach them about how and when, if ever, it is justifiable and even righteous to engage in violence. While some contend that religion is inherently violent, others maintain that the core message of all religions is peaceful coexistence and compassion for one’s neighbor; meanwhile, nuanced scholarly treatments suggest that in fact “the ambivalence of the sacred” on questions of war and peace is common to all faith traditions.

As a relatively young religion, Mormonism has not yet fully grappled with the many complicated questions of peace and war in the modern world, with all of their theological, social, and political ramifications, but the time is ripe to do so. Accordingly, this conference seeks to examine not only Mormonism’s history in relation to issues of war and peace, but also the resources within the tradition that provide a foundation for constructive discussion and dialogue about how individual Latter-day Saints and the broader church orient themselves in a world of violence.

We are soliciting papers reflecting on all aspects of Mormon perspectives on war and peace, from historical-social scientific, theological, and normative standpoints. Professional scholars, students, and members of the community at large, both LDS and non-LDS, are welcome to submit papers and to attend the conference; all sessions will be open to the public. The conference aims to be exploratory and deliberative, seeking to include and represent voices from across the spectrum and engage multiple perspectives in respectful dialogue.

The deadline for proposals, which should include a paper abstract of no more than 500 words and a brief CV of the presenter, is September 1, 2010. Proposals should be submitted by e-mail to ldswarpeace@gmail.com. Questions may be directed to one of the conference co-chairs, Richard Bushman (rlb7@columbia.edu) or Patrick Mason (pmason1@nd.edu).

What follows are one-to-two paragraph abstracts of the MHA papers being presented by Juvenile Instructor contributors; as you’ll notice, for some reason they bunched all but one of us at the Friday 2pm slot (granted, three of us are on the same panel). It should also be noted that Chris Jones is responding to the session that Matt B. is a part of. There are numerous other bloggernacle celebrities taking part in the conference, enough so that it would make a list quite long.

Another post will soon be up identifying other panels of particular interest, as well as general observations, gossip, and perhaps award speculation.

__________________________

Benjamin E. Park, “Celestial Family Organization: The Developing Nature of Mormon Conceptions of Heaven, circa 1840s.” Friday, 2pm, Session 2A

This paper seeks to accomplish two things. First, it traces Mormon belief in the afterlife from the final years of Joseph Smith through early settlement in Utah, paying specific attention to its relationship to belief in the family. Second, it offers a microcosmic view of the attempt to systematize Mormon beliefs after Joseph Smith’s death. The Mormon prophet, though persistent in presenting a new theology that collapsed the traditional heavenly ontology, was never systematic in his teachings and, as a result, left many ideas inchoate and many implications unspecified; whether a result in an overall eclectic mindset or the fact that he was lynched before explicating his full theological vision, specific details of the Mormon dogma were left for other writers to define. This is especially the case with Mormon conceptions of heaven and the heaven family, as those who followed Joseph Smith struggled to catechize these essential beliefs.

Jordan T. Watkins, “‘Virtue Fled into the Wilderness’: Parley P. Pratt’s Mormon Vision of the American Frontier.” Friday, 2pm, Session 2A

Parley P. Pratt’s Angel of the Prairies, written during the winter of 1843-44, demonstrates the influence of contemporary non-Mormon ideas on early Latter-day Saint thought and provides insight into Nauvoo-period views of the American West. Pratt’s politically charged text contributes to popular conceptions of the West and appropriates concepts that John L. O’Sullivan encapsulated in the phrase “manifest destiny.” Many nineteenth-century Americans viewed the West as the garden of the world, an ideal place for eastern farmers to make a new start in an Edenic site. The garden of the world view, depicted alongside portrayals of an adventurous Wild West, dominated nineteenth-century representations of western regions. Americans conceived of the West as a place of unbounded potential for settlement, prosperity, and the expansion of democratic ideals. In his unpublished piece, Pratt inverts the standard narrative of American democracy’s providential expansion and describes the decline and destruction of the United States and the subsequent rise and rule of a Mormon theocracy. Pratt’s narrative incorporates widely held views, but this inclusion results in a distinct and, in significant ways, opposing vision. This paper explores Pratt’s text as both symptomatic of and distinct from contemporary views about the United States’ future in relation to the West. Pratt’s narrative evidences outsider groups’ proclivity to incorporate and adapt myths, beliefs, and stories of a dominant culture for their specific and often radically different purposes. Pratt’s vision also demonstrates the dialectical development of religious thought, which, in this case, can be best understood in the contexts of America’s westward expansion and Joseph Smith’s late theocratic conceptions.

Ryan G. Tobler, “‘Lived Religion’ and the Mormon Social Imaginary, 1830-1846.” Friday, 2pm, Session 2A.

Methodology in American social and cultural history continues to evolve, and the last thirty or forty years of scholarly activity has introduced a wide array of new conceptions of how such histories ought to be created. One notable paradigm among these has grown essentially from the work of the social anthropologist Clifford Geertz and his theory that humans are suspended in webs of meaning and significance. Some of this impulse has been imported into a school of what has been called “ethnographic” history; in the field of religious history, this has become closely associated with the approach called “lived religion.” This analytical approach rests upon a new set of emphases that privilege the personal over the institutional, the popular over the elite, and which carefully attend to the practical, the experiential, and the mental.

This paper outlines the rudiments of “lived religion” as a way of seeing history in general and Mormon history in particular, since this approach has had only scattered use among Mormon historians. Having briefly sketched out this program, the paper then applies the paradigm of “lived religion” to one facet of Mormon experience, Mormon collective identity. Within this realm, it focuses on one component and one period of that category by exploring the major strands of Mormon social imagination and its development from around 1830 to 1846. Using theoretical tools from sociology and social psychology related to social imagination, the paper attempts to recover what it meant to Mormons to be Mormons. What stories did Mormons tell themselves about themselves in order to be themselves? How did being American relate to being Mormon for Latter-day Saints of the period? What did it mean to belong to the Kingdom of God? The paper takes seriously the idea that identity is created through processes of perception and imagination, that these constitute experience, and that experience constitutes a very “real” and important part of historical analysis.

Brett D. Dowdle, “LDS Church Educational Efforts and the Development of the Family Home Evening Program, 1890-1929.” Friday, 2pm, Session 2D

In 1909, the Granite Stake established the Church’s first systematic family home evening program as part of an effort to reinforce the importance of parental teaching in the Church’s educational efforts. By this period, the Church had developed a vast array of educational and auxiliary programs in an effort to ensure the inculcation of Mormonism into the lives of LDS youth. Unintentionally, however, these programs took Mormon youth away from their families and strained the abilities of LDS parents to adequately teach their children in the home. Additionally, these auxiliary programs often found themselves embroiled in conflict and competition for the patronage of Mormon youth. In a period in which everything seemed to be changing for Mormons in particular, and Americans in general, the Granite Stake’s family home evening program represented an effort to resolve Mormonism’s organizational conflicts and to restore a sense of normalcy to Mormonism through a refocused effort upon the family.

Jared T.amez, “‘They are so Well Contented Now, and I Hope they will Continue So’: Colonizing Mexican Mormons, 1875-1910.” Friday, 2pm, Session 2F

The establishment of the Mormon Colonies in Mexico in 1885 precipitously placed a sizeable and cohesive population of white Americans just south of the US-Mexican border. Largely Anglo and American at their inception, the Colonies also became the home of a number of indigenous Mexicans. Next to nothing has been published about these Mexicans and their place in the Mormon Colonies. This paper will first examine the history of Mormon attempts to “gather” Mexican converts and make a “homeland” for them within a Mormon culture region (as Utah became for Northern European converts). Some of these were Mormon converts from the Valley of Mexico near Mexico City who Mormon missionaries baptized and encouraged to migrate and “gather” with the Saints in the Colonies. This paper will discuss how Mormon views of Mexicans influenced their efforts to colonize Mexican Saints Most significantly, an 1887 journey took several families and relocated them in the Colonies. Many of these Mexican colonists ultimately returned home, dissatisfied and disaffected. This disaffection proved so acute that it served as one of the contributing factors to the closing of the mission just two years later.

Matthew B. Bowman, “Practice as History: What Worship Remembers.” Saturday, 4pm, Session 6F

The absence of high church worship does not mean that Mormons don’t know what they are doing in the pews on Sunday. Rather, it means that Mormon liturgy may be a field even more fruitful for the historian than the theologian. The paucity of liturgical theory or theology in Mormon history means that it is field in which, to borrow from Mark Leone, every Mormon is her own theologian. The reality of worship far outweighs its theory in the Mormon experience; however, this does not mean that there is no theory. Rather it means that theory is multiplied once and twice and many times over. It means that each Mormon has a chance to interpret, in the light of their own lives and experience as well as that of the theology that they are given.

Liturgy provides another route into the old goal of the New Mormon History – the social history of Mormonism. It allows us to directly investigate what religion meant and means to the average Mormon, both by weighing the direct sources of interpretation and by watching, through the evidence, them in practice. What do they do when they seek to commune with God? How do they organize their services; what is highlighted, what is deemphasized? And what does this tell us about what they believe – about God, about themselves, about the world?

_____________________________________

If this isn’t enough to get you excited for the conference, I don’t know what will!

Reading through this 600-page text, one fact becomes crystal clear: Mark Staker has read, considered, and contextualized every document that has any relevancy to Mormonism’s Kirtland experience. Likely multiple times. He is not exaggerating when he writes that he “tried to piece together as thoroughly as possible the events connected with significant Mormon sites in Ohio” (xiii)—and “thoroughly” is nowhere near a strong enough word. His meticulous scholarship is a rare achievement in Mormon studies, and the broad range of sources listed in his (50 page) bibliography is a testament to the extent of his research. Though he rightly notes that this is not a “comprehensive history of the Kirtland period” (xl) because it does not touch on all important aspects of the decade—especially religious and ecclesiastical developments of the mid 1830s—one can only imagine the depth and length a “comprehensive history” in his hands would entail!

The organization of the book is meant to emphasize the importance of locations and themes as much as chronology. Separated into four parts, Hearken O Ye People examines, in turn, the cultural, religious, and social environment of Kirtland before and immediately after the introduction of Mormonism, especially as experienced through “Black Pete” (more on him later); the introduction of the law of consecration, with a special emphasis on Newell K. Whitney and his role as bishop and storekeeper; the experiences at Hiram, Ohio, while Joseph Smith lodged with the Johnson family; and, finally, the rise and fall of the Kirtland banking endeavor (which is perhaps the most meticulously documented section of the whole book). While this layout is helpful in ways, especially in Staker’s expertise of exhaustively examining individual themes and physical places, it proved to be repetitive at times and likely made the book longer than it needed to be. While I found the first section to be the most interesting, I thought the attempted focus on “Black Pete” somewhat forced due to the lack of documentation, especially after the arrival of Joseph Smith in early 1831. An appendix to the book includes transcripts of nine sermons by George A Smith and Brigham Young, delivered in 1864, transcribed from George D. Watt’s Pittman shorthand by specialist LaJean Purcell Carruth. While these sermons likely provide more of an idea of how these Church leaders chose to remember and interpret their Kirtland experiences rather than an accurate recounting of what actually happened, they are interesting nonetheless. The physical book itself is beautiful, in part thanks to John Hamer’s genius cover design and brilliant cartography, and the publisher’s decision of capacious pages with large font made the reading pleasurable.

Like any historical work, Staker’s education, background, and interests are readily apparent in his approach and focus. His training in anthropology help him provide insights into unexplored tensions of societal relations, and his choice of things to emphasize are sometimes different than those trained in history, literature, or theology. For example, he assumes a metaphoric accent of Clifford Geertz as he continually emphasizes the importance of “community” (or, as he often put it, a “people”) among the early Church—insights that, though perhaps tangential at times in an already long book, enrich our understanding of the first decade of Mormonism. Further, Staker’s background in historic sites gives him a unique emphasis on the importance of “places,” and his attention to physical details help recreate the historical context of the Kirtland era perhaps more than any other book on any other period in Mormon history.

One of the book’s most important contributions is the reconsideration of early Mormonism’s racial relations. Indeed, the entire first section of the volume revolves around “Black Pete,” a former slave who was an early convert, “chief man,” and “revelator” in the Kirtland Church. Staker details at length the black tradition of religious enthusiasm, and posits that this culture helped form early Mormon religiosity. This is a welcome interpretive framework, yet I fear he sometimes underemphasized the porous relationship between white and black charisma during the early republic and overlooked the pervasiveness of enthusiasm in some white religious traditions (though he does hint at this continuity of enthusiasm in white “folk” traditions on pg. 17, n. 4).[1] However, even if he argued too strongly for the influence of black culture—I think much of the culture of enthusiasm that bred Kirtland Mormonism had blurred the distinctions between Anglo- and African-American religiosity to the point that it difficult to determine which had the greater influence—he is swinging the pendulum in the right direction, and has done well to bring more attention to a heretofore ignored aspect of Mormon history.

Staker also underestimates the influence of Methodism during the Kirtland period. While he is at his best when detailing the Reformed Baptist tradition that influenced Mormon understandings of authority and priesthood—even if his presentation of that tradition makes them more monolithic and united than they really were at the time—Staker misses an important religious development with the increased influence of Methodist converts. As fellow JIer Christopher Jones has shown, Kirtland Mormonism held a complex relationship with Methodist beliefs and practices, and this helps account for much of the Church’s post-1831 religious charisma[2]; Baptist and Restorationalist influences may have been paramount for the core of believers that made up the early ‘Mormonites,” but the LDS movement quickly grew closer to Methodism within a couple years after the move to Kirtland—this is a tension I wish would have received more attention.

This small critique aside, this book skillfully detailed many things that were new and insightful to me. His description of the “Mormonite” community during the period between their original acceptance of the gospel and the arrival of Joseph Smith—in which there were several months of being left to themselves to determine how to run the Church, experience spiritual gifts, etc—is as fascinating as it is groundbreaking. His treatment of the tar and feathering of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon is exhaustive in every sense of the word: he dedicates a whole chapter to the event, adds an appendix debating the geographic questions of where Joseph and Emma were sleeping that night, all of which supported by 128 footnotes (chapter 27). His descriptions of Kirtland attempts at consecration and the entire banking experiement are the most in-depth treatments to date. Indeed, the book is packed full with the minutest details—including details ranging from etymology of “lickskillet” (a pejorative often used to describe early Mormons [xli, n. 1]) to the background of the Hiram, Ohio, farming economy (269-272), and from the development of Bank management in antebellum America (465) to Alexander Campbell’s idea of three kingdoms of glory in heaven (322-323)—each of which bring the Ohio culture of the early 19th century to life and provide a better understanding of the “historical setting” of early Mormonism.

The title of the book comes from the opening line of the Doctrine and Covenant’s “Preface”—a revelation received within a year after moving to Kirtland (D&C 1). Before Ohio, Joseph Smith’s revelations were always directed to an individual and only indirectly designed for the larger Church. However, the first revelation Smith received in Kirtland was directed to “my People” (D&C 41:1)—and this is what Staker evidently feels is the most significant development of the period: “They were no longer a collection of believers; they were now a ‘People.’ They were Mormonites” (101-102). This is also the biggest strength of Staker’s volume: his ability to show the development and struggles of a community while still focusing on individuals. While he examines singular families and specific leaders, his emphasis is always on how they related to the larger Mormon movement. Further, his decision to focus on many individuals who eventually left the Church provides a voice to many people now lost or forgotten. These achievements help fill in many of the voids currently present in Mormon history.

Finally, to say that Hearken gives us a “richer” understanding of the Kirtland period would be an understatement. In his “Epilogue,” Staker notes how “Kirtland has experienced a revival of interest in recent years,” referencing the recently remodeled Visitors Centers of the LDS and Community of Christ Churches; this book is not only the climax of that revival, but it promises that future scholarly interest will have a firm foundation to stand on. Indeed, Hearken O Ye People will be both a necessary starting point and immensely helpful reference tool for anyone interested in the Kirtland era of the LDS Church.

_______________________________________

[1] An example of his overlooking enthusiastic tendencies in white congregations is his assertion that the practice of xenoglossia was unique to slave religions (22).

[2] Besides his numerous JI posts on the topic see Christopher C. Jones, “‘We Latter-day Saints are Methodists’: The Influence of Methodism on Early Mormon Religiosity” (Master’s Thesis, Brigham Young University, 2009).