Juvenile Instructor, a Mormon History Blog
 


Gender Constructs and the Dissolution of the Religion Class Program

By: Brett D. - January 02, 2009

A few months back, I wrote a general post about the little known Religion Class program which lasted from 1890 to 1929.[1] One of the responses to this post noted the role of gender in this male-led program’s dissolution in favor of the female-led Primary program.  (more…)

“May We Keep a True and Faithful Record and History of Thy Church and Kingdom”: Wilford Woodruff and the Preservation of History

By: Ben - January 01, 2009

[WARNING: Since my Mormon-related research for the next couple months will primarily be focused on Wilford Woodruff’s time as Assistant Church Historian, most of my posts will probably closely relate to that subject; be advised.] (more…)

One of “the great achievements of American literature”: Mormonism in Howe’s What Hath God Wrought, Part 1

By: David G. - December 30, 2008

During Winter semester 2006 I attended Grant Underwood’s U.S. Religious History course at BYU.[1] Our text for the class was Martin Marty’s Pilgrims in their Own Land, a narrative overview of American religious history. Although Marty is widely recognized as one of the leading historians of American religion, his chapter on Mormons is, to put it kindly, lacking. Many of the students in Underwood’s class complained widely that Marty “got it all wrong,” and “if he’s this wrong on Mormonism, how can we trust the rest of the book?” I remember thinking that these students were missing a crucial point; the greatest value in Marty’s book was not in the details of his presentation, but rather in the placing of Mormonism within the wider tapestry of America’s religious history. I thought, “We can’t expect these major historians to know all the details. What is important is where they place us.” Similarly, a year ago Chris wrote a post on Charles Sellers’ The Market Revolution, in which Chris argued that the value of Sellers’s work was not in his admittedly-flawed discussion of Mormonism, but rather in the number of pages that Sellers chose to devote to Joseph Smith’s religion. (more…)

Benchmark Books Lecture: George Smith on Nauvoo Polygamy

By: Jared T - December 29, 2008

On December 10, 2008 Benchmark Books hosted a lecture/book signing with George Smith for his newly released Navuoo Polygamy: “But We Called It Celestial Marriage”.  We hope to have a review up soon of this book.  In the mean time, we want to provide a transcript of the proceedings.  Special thanks go to Brent Brizzi for his painstaking work in providing a transcription of the evening’s lecture. (more…)

Book Review: Shopping for God: How Christianity Went From in Your Heart to In Your Face

By: Christopher - December 18, 2008

shopping-for-god1.jpg 

James Twitchell. Shopping for God: How Christianity Went From in Your Heart to In Your Face. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. 324 pp.

James Twitchell, professor of English and Advertising at The University of Florida, explains on his website that his research interests include the effort to “interpret American culture in terms of commercialism.” (more…)

“gigantic and sometimes polemical”: The Persistent Marginalization of Mormon History as an (Un)acceptable Field of Study

By: Christopher - December 15, 2008

I am making my way through Daniel Walker Howe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. I’ve skimmed through most of it before, but because it is the primary text to be used for a course I’m TAing next semester, I’m taking my time and more thoroughly analyzing the book. (more…)

States and Nations

By: Dave - December 13, 2008

I just finished The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (Penguin, 2006), an 800-page tome by Niall Ferguson, the Lawrence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution. [Tisch and Hoover, an interesting pair of sponsors.] Ferguson recounts the violent first half of the 20th century with reference to nations (in the classical sense of “peoples” or, more modernly, ethnic groups) rather than states, but doesn’t leave much hope for improvement as we move through the first half of the 21st century.  I’ll throw out a lifeline [hint: religion] in the closing paragraph.

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Examining Mormon Ethnicity (Part II)

By: Joel - December 08, 2008

I realized after thinking about my previous post that I did not really summarize what scholars mean by defining Mormons as an “ethnic” group or “ethnicity.” Different historians have explained the idea in different ways. For example, Dean L. May’s explanation emphasizes the shared migratory experience of the pioneers and the voluntary spatial isolation represented by Mormon settlement in the West. [1] Jan Shipps similarly argues in her Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition that “by virtue of a common paradigmatic experience as well as isolation, [Latter-day Saints have acquired an ethnic identity so distinct that it sets the Saints apart in much the same fashion that ethnic identity sets the Jews apart. [2] Patricia Limerick outlines the components of Mormon ethnicity as “the creation of a community in which religious belief laid the foundations for a new worldview, a new pattern of family organization, a new set of ambitions, a new combination of common bonds and obligations, a new definition of separate peoplehood.” [3] All of these definitions sound very apt until you start to think about the process of defining and the ways that these definitions either include or exclude. (more…)

What’s in a Name, or, Are Fundamentalist Mormons Christian?

By: Christopher - December 05, 2008

The now-common question, “Are Mormons Christian?” (and it’s various derivations, i.e. “Is Mormonism Christian?”; “Are anti-Mormons Christian?”; etc) has generated significant discussion, thoughtful analysis, contentious argument, and unfortunately quite a bit of immaturity, pettiness, and frustration among Latter-day Saints, evangelical Christians, and interested apologists and scholars over the years. (more…)

For Thanksgiving: My Saints Don’t Just Go Marching In

By: Edje - November 26, 2008

As an academic historian (in training), when I write about the dead for work or for the Juvenile Instructor, I don methodological goggles, like naturalism, skepticism, how-will-this-affect-my-careerism, and any-color-but-rose-ism. When finished, however, I remove those goggles, storing them safely on my utility belt for future use. Today, in this time of thanksgiving, I approach the blog and the dead we study with a set of lenses I normally use only in private or at church. (more…)

“[W]e, the members of the society of the Daughter of Zion…”: The Danite Constitution

By: David G. - November 20, 2008

All this talk about the imminent publication of the first volume in the Joseph Smith Papers’ Journal Series has brought back a lot of memories about my time spent on the Project, especially 2004-2005 when I worked specifically on this volume. The Scriptory Book, Joseph’s 1838 journal, contains some of our only contemporary references to the Danites from a pro-Mormon source. Another important contemporary document that sheds invaluable light on the organization is the Danite Constitution. We unfortunately haven’t found the original text, so determining authorship by examining the handwriting is not an option. Scholars have speculated that either Sampson Avard or Sidney Rigdon wrote it, but it’s really too difficult to know at this point. I may at some point write a post giving a more detailed discussion about what we know about the Constitution, but for the time being here’s a transcript of it. What strikes me the most about it is the rich republican language as well as the obvious reference to the Declaration of Independence.

Whereas, in all bodies laws are necessary for the permanency, safety and well-being of society, we, the members of the society of the Daughter of Zion, do agree to regulate ourselves under such laws as, in righteousness shall be deemed necessary for the preservation of our holy religion, and of our most sacred rights, and the rights of our wives and children. But, to be explicit on the subject, it is especially our object to support and defend the rights conferred on us by our venerable sires, who purchased them with the pledges of their lives and fortunes, and their sacred honors. And now, to pro (more…)

Identifying with Romney? My Historiographical Rant Against Mormon Ethnicity

By: Joel - November 17, 2008

Having recently completed my Preliminary exams, and thus ended my self-imposed blogging moratorium, I have decided to put up a first offering in a series of posts regarding the ethnicity paradigm and Mormon identity. (more…)

Thomas S. Monson and the Paradoxes of the Utah Jazz

By: matt b. - November 17, 2008

“You go live in Utah.”

- Point guard Derek Harper to reporters, explaining why he refused to report to the Utah Jazz after being traded to the Salt Lake team

I’ve been alarmed to note that a particularly symbolic cultural recalibration that the Monson administration has wrought has gone largely overlooked.[1]  We used to have a church president who visited the locker rooms of the BYU football team in order to instruct the players not to “muff it.”   Today, however, the team that reaps the undoubtedly vast rewards of prophetic beneficence is the Utah Jazz. [2]

Now, granted, Thomas Monson may be indifferent to the larger circles of meaning rotating around his choice of entertainment, and nothing more than a pro basketball fan.  These are not unusual creatures along the Wasatch Front  However, as will be further explored below, the cultural significance of their presence there is often missed.  So it behooves us to think a bit more deeply about the sport and its particular manifestations in the geographical and cultural landscapes of Mormondom.

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Facing East

By: Dave - November 15, 2008

I just finished Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Harvard Univ. Press, 2001) by Daniel Richter, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania.  This fine book (a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer in history) tells early American history from an entirely different perspective, that of Native Americans looking east as scattered groups of Europeans make visits, then trade, then settle, fight, and spread along the Atlantic seaboard and beyond.  More than just being good history, Facing East also helps the LDS reader appreciate the religious and cultural lens through which early Mormons, like other early Americans, viewed North American Indians. Below are comments on some of the more interesting examples of this I found in the book. (more…)

Forthcoming and Recently Published Books on Mormon and Utah History

By: Jared T - November 12, 2008

Ben’s great book notice on the forthcoming book on Joseph Smith got me thinking about what other books of interest are nearing publication or have been recently published dealing with Mormon History ( and a few dealing generally with Utah history).  If I miss any, please let me know and I’ll add it. If you know of any other rumored works, don’t hesitate to share. (more…)

Textual Iconoclasm? Part 1

By: Elizabeth - November 11, 2008

Mormonism has a rich textual culture. Our meetings and teaching and studying are filled with encounters with the written word, and especially the holy word contained in scripture. In addition, many Mormons are prodigious readers and seekers of wisdom out of the best books that Mormonism and the world have to offer (perfectly illustrated by Dave’s Getting Hooked post and the accompanying responses).

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Book Notice: Joseph Smith, Jr.: Reappraisals After Two Centuries

By: Ben - November 09, 2008

This weekend, during a trip out to California for a wedding (that we were actually late to because we slept in past our first flight), I got the chance to glance through the newly published Joseph Smith Jr.: Reappraisals after Two Centuries. Edited by Reid Neilson and Terryl Givens, this volume is a collection of, in my opinion, some of the most thoughtful essays on Mormonism’s founder. In the introduction, the editors noted that, “The rationale behind this collection is that the day has come when the founder of Mormonism and his prominent role in American history and religious thought cannot be denied” (7). While a few of the articles have been published previously, the majority are printed for the first time. (more…)

Getting Hooked

By: Dave - November 06, 2008

Michael CrichtonMichael Crichton passed away this week.  As a measure of the stature he has attained in popular culture, the news penetrated the roar of a presidential election to make a headline or two in just about every media source.  One that caught my eye is “Michael Crichton got my son hooked on reading.”  Yup, I remember reading The Terminal Man as a kid and thinking it was sort of different — it was science fiction, but without ray guns or spaceships.  But science fiction is an easy hook compared with history.  This being a history blog, the question we need to ask is: When did you get hooked on history?  What was the first history book that made you sheepishly approach the reference desk at the local library and say, “Did this guy write any other books?” (more…)

Reading Like a Conspiracy Theorist, 3: Quinn and Hardy

By: Edje - November 05, 2008

As I explained in earlier posts, I’m not the first to discover that Mission President James G. Duffin married Sister Missionary Amelia B. Carling in 1902 while she was still a missionary. D. Michael Quinn identified Duffin as a polygamist in 1985 and B. Carmon Hardy did so in 1992. This post will update details of both publications. (more…)

A Style of Our Own

By: Kate B - November 04, 2008

As Matt mentioned in his generous introduction, I was fortunate to study for a summer under Claudia Bushman at the (then) Smith Institute at Brigham Young University.  I  spent two months reveling in the history I knew, and was alternately fascinated, disturbed, and incredulous at the history I did not.  At the time, I was interested in how LDS Church teachings linked female modesty and morality and its effect on women’s self image. As projects often do, it transformed; my resulting paper focused on changing standards and  rationales for women’s dress, particularly as indicated by the evolution of  the BYU Honor Code and the For the Strength of Youth pamphlets.  (more…)

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