Two Eliza R. Snow Poems Discovered in Long Documents

A friend of mine mentioned to me last week that he hoped that the John V. Long documents would be sold for a million dollars…and then prove to contain nothing of worth, just to prove the conspiracy theorists wrong. The discovery of two original and unpublished Eliza R. Snow poems in the collection may not shed light on Long’s mysterious death, but they do begin to confirm the tangible historical value of the collection. ABC4.com reports that the two poems were found in the scrapbook of Sarah Long, wife of John V. Long. 

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National or Transnational History?

One of the objectives for most Mormon historians today (including this blog) is to attempt to place Joseph Smith within his American framework. One author who has succeeded the most in this attempt is Richard Bushman, author of Rough Stone Rolling. However, in his address at The Worlds of Joseph Smith Symposium in the Library of Congress, he spoke about putting limits on this type of approach. In it, he makes several arguments as to why Joseph should be placed within a larger framework than just American religious history.

First, he stated why he feels this “transnational” approach is necessary.

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From the Archives: The Times and Seasons on Suffering, Donations, and Salvation

Early Latter-day Saints saw the world through martyrological lenses. To suffer persecution was the ultimate sign of chosenness and the Saints themselves used the memory their persecutions to draw distinct boundaries between themselves and their neighbors that had not suffered. Given this persecution discourse, many Nauvoo Saints that had not been in Missouri in 1838 yearne

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Comparing the 1981, 2004, and 2006 Book of Mormon Introductions

The news that the introduction to the 2006 Doubleday edition of The Book of Mormon contains significant changes seems to be all the rage on the bloggernacle today.  Peggy Fletcher Stack’s article in the SL Tribune this morning announced that the introduction’s previous claim that the Lamanites “are the principal ancestors of the American Indians” has been altered to read that the Lamanites “are among the ancestors of the American Indians.”

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Change(s) in The Book of Mormon Introduction

One word can speak volumes says this morning’s Salt Lake Tribune.  It carried a small story on a change to a single word in the introduction of the Book of Mormon in the recent Doubleday edition.  Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote the introduction in 1981 for the then new edition of the Book of Mormon and it contained this statement:

“After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the prin

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Folklore Society of Utah Annual Conference

On Saturday, November 17 at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City, the Folklore Society of Utah will be hosting its Annual Conference.  The keynote speaker is William A. “Bert” Wilson, Emeritus professor of English at BYU and past president of the Association for Mormon Letters.  He will be speaking on “What’s True in Mormon Folklore?” The Contribution of Folklore to Mormon Studies.” 

In addition, two of our permabloggers–Stanley Thayne and Ben Park–will be presenting pap

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From the Archives: John Wesley, the Latter-day Saint

Modern Mormons, it seems, are quite fond of “romanticizing the Reformation,” meaning that Mormons often portray Luther, Arminius, and other Protestant Reformers as being sort of proto-Latter-day Saints.  In my experience, this tendency is not limited to seeing Reformers as such, but often extends to Christopher Columbus and America’s Founding Fathers.  However, this is far from being a recent development in Mormonism’s worldview.  Parley P. Pratt, noted apostle and editor of The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star, included the following in the June 1841 (Vol. 2, No. 2) issue of that periodical.

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Mormons in the West: Life in the Donut Hole

Scholars typically seek to locate Mormon history within two wide frameworks: that of American religious history and that of the history of the American West. Jan Shipps, in her review of literature on Mormonism in the West, describes the situation as a donut hole. In her essay, “Gentiles, Mormons, and the History of American West,” Shipps argues that historians of the West have skipped Utah, “circling all around the Great Basin, taking into account and telling

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Jeffs Attempted Suicide

As a follow-up to the previous post on the latest in the Warren Jeffs saga, it appears that Jeffs attempted to hang himself while imprisoned in Purgatory Correctional Facility in January.  Brooke Adams of the Salt Lake Tribune reports that despite a motion opposing their release, court documents released today reveal that shortly after Jeffs’s confession to his brother that he was not a Prophet in January, he attempted suicide.  The new documents also explain that Jeffs admitted that William E. Jessop was the rightful FLDS prophet and that he had usurped the position. 

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Meet the Mormons: From the Margins to the Mainstream

Matthew N. Schmalz, associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the College of Holy Cross, has an article entitled “Meet the Mormons: From the Margins to the Mainstream”  over at Commonweal: A Review of Religion, Politics, and Culture (hat-tip to American Religious History blog).  Schmalz discusses his personal history with Mormonism (“It was Kolob and associated exotica that first drew me to the study of Mormonism” he says), as well as how his students at Holy Cross react to the study of Mormonism (“I’ve found that my students combine a personal openness to Mormonism . . . with deep skepticism about details of Mormon belief”). 

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