Happy Independence Day. Here’s a discourse given by George A. Smith on the fourth in 1854. Remember that at this time the Saints are struggling with the federal government over the right to self government. Notice how Smith negotiates in his narration his commitment to both an American identity and a Mormon identity.

George A. Smith, “Celebration of the Fourth of July,” July 4, 1854, Journal of Discourses, 6: 364-67.

Gentlemen and Ladies-Fellow-Citizens,-I arise here to address you a few moments upon a subject which has, perhaps, been worn threadbare by orators, statesmen, and divines, for the last seventy years, in the minds of a great portion of (more…)

Please welcome out latest grad student acquisition, Edje, who after two weeks of guestblogging is now joining us permanently. See here for his bio. (more…)

No time for a real post dealing with the martyrdom today, but here’s ERS’s memorial of Joseph Smith’s death. (more…)

The language of martyrdom and persecution provided Latter-day Saints the linguistic tools by which they could reverse the power relations as they had been defined by the Missourians and Illinoisans. Mormon opponents were successful in expelling the Latter-day Saints from both Missouri and Illinois, prosecuting and imprisoning Mormon leaders for crimes, all while avoiding legal sanctions for non-Mormon vigilantes. Mormon authors were well aware of these inequalities, leading them to imagine a time when God would vindicate their people. (more…)

Wow. I’m speechless. This is a real presentation from BYU’s religion department that is still being advertised on BYU TV’s website (ht: Justin). Click on the “Priesthood Restrictions Through The Ages.”  They actually think that there’s evidence that Joseph Smith instituted the ban, that the pre-existence mumbo jumbo still works [see comments #1 and #108], and seem to be operating out of the 1950s historiographically. Now, I’m not sure when this recording was made, but I find it a disgrace that BYU TV is still showing this. They apparently missed Elder Holland’s rebuttal of the “folklore.”

Alas, I spent all my travel money going to an academic conference in the first Zion (Missouri), so I’m stuck in the second Zion (Utah) and getting regular dispatches from Christopher in the Almost Zion (California). Here’s the list of winners from this year’s awards ceremony.

Best Undergrad Paper: John Brumbaugh, ”Return of Anti-Mormonism: Fred Dubois and the Reed Smoot Hearings.”  (more…)

I found this while going through the Times and Seasons, and it reminded me of Chris’s post on Mormonizing John Wesley. Apparently Mormon J. M. Grant (Jedediah, I presume) wrote a letter to the New York Messenger, and included an excerpt from a letter from Jefferson to John Adams, and asked his readers if they thought Thomas Jefferson was a Mormon. Grant’s letter was later republished in the Times and Seasons.

… 

An extract from a letter written to JOHN ADAMS BY THOMAS JEFFERSON, of Virginia, published by Mr. (more…)

Be sure to check out and support Ardis’ new blog, Keepapitchinin.org, which went live today. 

This is not one of my normal posts, which are usually pretty detached and scholarly. Rather, I’m going to share a personal experience about bringing in academic history to the ward setting. Sunday before last I gave a talk in sacrament meeting, with the assigned topic being scriptures and their value in my life. Initially, the second counselor in my bishopric asked me to address the FLDS situation and continuing revelation, a topic that I was initially excited about but with further reflection I realized that it would be altogether too difficult to do justice in a 10 minute presentation that is supposed to be faith promoting. So I backed off, opting instead to tackle a slightly less (more…)

From Margaret Young:

The Idaho Black History Museum is proud to present

Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons

Followed by a discussion with the filmmakers (more…)

It is my pleasure to announce another big addition to the Juvenile Instructor…Matt Bowman. Matt joins Heidi, Stan, and myself as Bushman Summer Seminar alumni that blog at the JI. He joins us after a successful tenure at Mormon Mentality. Here’s what he has to say about himself.

Matt Bowman is a doctoral candidate in American religious history at Georgetown, and holds a master’s in American history from the University of Utah.  He’s interested in Christian theology, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, and, occasionally dabbles in Mormon history, noir, and the movies.  He’s published in Religion and American Culture: a Journal of Interpretation, The Journal of Mormon History, the John Whitmer Journal, and the Utah Historical Quarterly.

Let’s welcome Matt. (more…)

The following is a portion of my research from last summer’s Bushman seminar, in which I examined how Mormons between 1890 and 1940 vacillated between embracing and marginalizing their polygamous past.

With Protestants continuing to be suspicious of a possible attempt by the Latter-day Saints to bring back the practice of plural marriage, Mormons at times narrated their polygamous past leading up to the Manifesto to emphasize their loyalty to the nation. In this context, the potential to marginalize the importance of polygamy was evident. For example, in 1916 Talmage told a news reporter that “when the federal statutes prohibiting its practice were declared constitutional, plural marriage was forbidden by action of the Church, officially assembled in general conference.”[1] By arguing that Mormons immediately discontinued the practice of plural marriage when the anti-polygamy statutes were declared constitutional (more…)

At least that’s the message that early twentieth-century Mormon author Nephi Anderson was trying to send in his short story “The Inevitable,” published in the Improvement Era in 1907. I think it is significant that Anderson wrote this story after the death of his first wife, Asenath Tillotson in 1904, and just before his second marriage to Maud Rebecca Symons in 1908. Questions of his marital status with his first wife and a potential second wife in the hereafter were likely on his mind.

Given the recent discussions around the ‘nacle concerning celestial polygamy, I thought I’d post this here so we can get some feel for the emergence of this idea in Mormon thought in the post-1890 era. It’s a bit long, but it’s a short story, so it should be a quick read for the curious. (more…)

Christopher has already ably outlined the morning session of today’s conference at UVU on Mormon schismatics. Here I will summarize the proceedings from the afternoon.

The afternoon session was comprised of three speakers on three different and important groups that traced their origins to Joseph Smith, Jr. R. Jean Addams presented on the Church of Christ, Temple Lot (Hedrickites), Vickie Cleverley Speek spoke about the Strangites, and Michael Van Wagenen summarized his research on the Wightites in Texas. Like the morning session, the three speakers first presented their individual papers and then combined for a panel and Q/A session. This format allowed for questions that examined the three groups in comparison to one another, which was one major objective of the conference.

R. Jean Addams is a history buff living in Washington state and his presentation was a summary of Hedrickite history f (more…)

“The history of our persecutions is unparalleled in the history of past ages.”[1] So argued George A. Smith, leader and historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on July 24, 1852 in Utah territory, five years after the Latter-day Saints left their homes in the Midwest and settled in the Great Basin. Smith, like most other Americans, of course ignored the history of oppression of Native Americans and slaves of African descent. For Smith, the only history of persecution that mattered in this context was that of biblical prophets, the early Christians, and all true followers of Christ. What made the nineteenth-century persecutions of the Latter-day Saints “unparalleled” in Smith’s argument was that they had (more…)

Bit by bit, the Juvenile Instructor is diversifying. We now have a female permablogger (Heidi), two permas that wish they were Latinos (David and Chris), a Latino that was raised to be more white than Latino (Jared, hehe), two permas that wish they were black (Stan and Jordan), a member of AARP (SC), a young kid with the hairline of an AARP member (Ben), and now an Asian American…Joel.

In all seriousness, we are happy to announce that Joel has agreed to remain with us. He’s a fine young scholar that brings a new and fascinating perspective to our discussions here at the JI. Let’s welcome Joel.

Jon W. over at Banner, Sword, and Shield has a post about a fun website that gauges a blog’s reading level (Jon got it from Emily at Mormon Times). Here’s what I get when I type in a few of my favorite blogs:

Juvenile Instructor: College (Postgrad) Genius (more…)

For as long as I can remember I have enjoyed singing hymns. In high school I sang in the ward and stake choirs. As a missionary I tried to sing at every appointment. In the years since my mission, I have gone nearly every Sunday to a local retirement center to sing to the residents there. As I sing I always like to let my eyes wander to the bottom of the page to see who wrote the song and when. I’ve always found it fascinating that many of the hymns in our hymnbook were not written by Mormons, but rather come from Protestant writers. For me at least, making this realization has always (more…)

From H-Religion: 

The Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis will sponsor a conference entitled:

“Mormons and American Life”

Saturday, April 12, 2008 (more…)

Dear readers, the Juvenile Instructor has been nominated for three Niblets (the ‘nacle equivalent of the Oscars, etc.). Here are the categories:

Best Blog

Best Big Blog

Best New Blog

 The competition is intense in each category, so please vote for us!