A friend alerted me not too long ago to an effort by a local in San Antonio, Texas to document the history of the LDS Church in his city.  The site is called, The Saints of San Antonio: A Video History in Their Own Words. (more…)

Read more here.

Without the full text* it is hard to assess the totality of what Elder Jensen sought to convey, but the report suggests a deviation from the standard Pioneer Day fare and an effort to reach out a hand of compassion and remembrance to those that are so often the forgotten or misremembered [see yesterday's excellent post by David G. on Pioneer Day and remembering/forgetting Utah's Indian Wars] in Utah Pioneer history. One section from the report stands out to me: (more…)

The newest issue of the JMH is here. Since I don’t have a lot of time, I’ll give a taste right now of what’s in here by posting the table of contents. Forgive the watermark. I’ll have more on the content later. (more…)

I meant to do this back in May for the year anniversary of Madsen’s passing (May 28, 2009), but late is better than never. I grew up with long family vacations, often these were to historical sites related to the Church, and without fail, a staple of those trips were Truman G. Madsen’s lectures on Joseph Smith. I can still remember at 3 or 4 a.m. while one of my parents took turns driving, laying down on the floor of our large van and listening to Madsen talk of the First Vision. (See J. Stapley’s review of the Illustrated version of his book based on some of those lectures.) Those lectures early on piqued an interest in me, a hunger, which has yet to be sated, and which I hope never will be. (more…)

The Mormon Scholars Foundation Summer Seminar, hosted by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute, under the direction of Richard Bushman and taught by Terryl Givens, will present the quasi-annual MSF Symposium.

Date:  Thursday, July 8.

Location: Auditorium of the McKay Building, BYU Campus [Building number 59 on this map] (more…)

My parents elected to have me baptized December 23, and I also chose the date of my marriage to be December 23. I like those little numeric connections to Joseph Smith. But the one I like most is the one that was not chosen by my family or me. On June 27 I entered the MTC. It gives me pause every time.

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Kevin L. Mortensen, ed. Witnessing The Hand of the Lord in the Dominican Republic. Centerville, UT: DR History Project, Inc., 2008. 309 pp. Illustrations, maps, footnotes, appendices, bibliography. Hardback: $69.00 (Spanish edition: $24.00); ISBN (English) 978-0-9821491-5-7.  http://drldshistory.info.

I guess this will double as a book review/notice. Back during Spring Break I took some time to read a history of the Church in the Dominican Republic. It’s an interesting book that deals with the first five years of the Church in the Dominican Republic (1978-1983) and was chiefly compiled by one of the first missionaries to serve there with contributions from many of those early missionaries, Mission Presidents, and some early members. (more…)

I just saw in the BYU Bookstore a brand new publication from the Religious Studies Center. From their website:

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From Brian Birch, also see the event website for more information: (more…)

My thesis deals with the Mexican Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1879-1889. This is a little-explored page in LDS history that has come to vivid life through a wealth of primary documentation which has been assembled together for the first time. I discuss how the racial constructions that the missionaries and other leaders carried with them to the field affected their labors. Specifically, I focus on the failed colonization of Mexican Mormons by Mission leaders to the Mormon colonies in northern Mexico in 1887 and how this failure led to the closing of the Mission. (more…)

Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of  Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations  by Mark L. Staker (more…)

Two new blogs launched yesterday (for all intents and purposes).

The first, Browsing The Stacks: A Mormon Book Collecting Blog, will be an exploration of rare and collectible Mormon books. At the JI we talk about books in terms of their historiographical value. At BTS, we’ll talk about books more in terms of collectibility (and thus, sometimes $$ value : ). (more…)

I’ll be quoting the “In This Issue” section and then, with the kind permission of the UHQ editorial staff, I will be reproducing here my review of Lu Ann Taylor and Phillip A. Snyder, eds. Post-Manifesto Polygamy: The 1899-1904 Correspondence of Helen, Owen, and Avery Woodruff which appears in this issue. I reproduce it partially because it was printed with an error in one of my parenthetical references. The reference as published is, “(see Carmon Hardy, Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage, 372).” What I wrote was, “(see Carmon Hardy, Doing The Works of Abraham: Its Origin, Practice, and Demise, 372).” (more…)

From Mark Ashurst-McGee:

Historian/Documentary Editor, Joseph Smith Papers Website-1000209

Description

The Joseph Smith Papers is engaged in producing a comprehensive electronic edition of Joseph Smith documents featuring complete and accurate transcripts with both textual and contextual annotation for publication at the josephsmithpapers.org website.  (Publication in letterpress form of selected document series will complement the website.)  The scope of the project includes Joseph Smith’s original correspondence, revelations, journals, historical writings, sermons, legal papers, and other documents.  Besides providing the most comprehensive record of early Latter-day Saint history they will also provide insight into the broader religious landscape of the early American republic.  The Joseph Smith Papers Project is ready to hire a historian/documentary editor with the appropriate academic training, research and writings skills, and technological acumen to edit Joseph Smith’s papers. (more…)

Spend an Evening with an Author

We are excited to announce the arrival of Hearken, O Ye People: The Historical Setting of Joseph Smith’s Ohio Revelations by Mark L. Staker, published by Greg Kofford Books. We will have the author at our store to speak about and sign his book on Wednesday, April 14, 2010. Mark will be here from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., speaking at 6:00, and will answer questions and sign books before and after that time. (more…)

The Salt Lake Mormon Studies Student Association will host BCCer Jonathan Stapley on April 8, 2010 at 7 pm for a public lecture entitled, “All These Years an Orphan”: Ritual Adoption in Mormon Theology and Practice. (more…)

While reading through material on the Mexican Mission, I came across a unique document describing the famously mysterious Cureloms and Cumoms of the Book of Mormon. (more…)

This just in:

The Religious Studies Program is pleased to announce the ninth annual Eugene England Lecture on Thursday, April 15th from 7:00-8:30 p.m. (Liberal Arts Building, Room 101). Colleen McDannell, Sterling M. McMurrin Chair of Religious Studies at the University of Utah, will deliver remarks entitled “The Story Lives Here: Faith, History, and Instructional Mormon Media.” The lecture will examine the use of visual culture in American religions utilizing the new LDS Church History Department production of “The Story Lives Here.” The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Brian Birch at brian.birch@uvu.edu or Boyd Petersen at boyd.petersen@uvu.edu or visit www.uvu.edu/religiousstudies. (more…)

We’d like to give Mark Staker a big thank you for participating. He elected to answer all the questions posed in the solicitation. Here we go:

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Thank you for the questions. They are all good questions and I’ve elected to give a stab at trying to answer them all.

Question 1

Many people assume that Joseph Smith basically took a back seat behind Sidney Rigdon during the first decade of the Church; that it wasn’t until after Liberty Jail and in the Nauvoo period that he really took the prominent public position as the face of the movement. By this, I mean being the chief expositor, giving many of the important public discourses, etc. Does your research on Kirtland confirm or challenge this idea? (more…)

I apologize in advance for the overly long and personal post. It’s probably more for me than for anyone else, but I’m happy to share if you’ll indulge me for just a moment.

Living in South Texas, there were no LDS bookstores within a thousand miles. But we traveled. A lot. And long before I came along, my dad had traveled–to Church history sites. As early as I can remember, we had a closet full of books, most of which, as a young child, looked so boring (that white softback Comprehensive History of the Church set exuded boredom). I came around, though. I discovered most of these books were Church books, gradually collected during our yearly family vacations. I learned to love that collection, and it provided a space for intellectual expansion that otherwise did not seem to exist (unless you counted blind speculation–and yes, plenty of that went on too!). (more…)