I suppose every author wants to be read… [There is] humility involved when the book is read by such great scholars.As Dr. Faragher reminds us, the West could be a violent place and that statement was understated. That’s the theme though that we should have developed more, we did develop it in greater form in the manuscript. Page count precluded us from including all that we wanted to.For every paragraph in the book two or three ended up on the cutting room floor…we could only touch the peaks of the story hoping that others can come after us and fill out these [gaps].
Fixico…I’m not Paiute…I’m Shawnee…I’d like to thank you for coming out…8 on Friday night, you could be anywhere else…I appreciate the support of all the organizations…let me begin with saying this work is monumental…a role model for scholarship, and the kind of book scholars want to write, pivotal books cause change to happen, changes of thinking and cause us to address new questions.American Indians are part of the story, but not main part.
In the context of Mormon historiography this, as a piece of scholarship, is a formidable work, monumental accomplishment….My task here is an opportunity to think of the implications of the book.What does the massacre teach us about Mormonism? About religion and its potential for good or evil…Is religion sick?The answer is sometimes, sometimes not.
It was standing room only tonight at the Salt Lake City Public Library’s main auditorium for a panel discussion about the recently published Massacre at Mountain Meadows. Panelists were John Mack Faragher, Donald Fixico, and Phil Barlow with Richard Turley responding. I spied Ardis busily typing away on what will be her own summary of the evening at her blog Keepapitchinin. I spied a number of notables in attendance including Will Bagley, Katherine Daynes, Elder Marlin K. Jensen, Steve Olsen and others. All in all the event was well executed and informative, so my congratulations to the many organizations and persons who combined to make it possible. The whole of the proceedings were recorded and will be made available as a podcast on Monday. We’ll be sure to provide a link to it in the sidebar when it becomes available. My notes I will here give in portions, and are largely taken verbatim, but for clarity I have paraphrased and placed some clarifying portions in brackets. John Mack Faragher, professor of history at Yale University was the first speaker:
Although it may be surprising to many today, during the nineteenth century anti-Mormons often denied that Latter-day Saints were white. Mormon authors fiercely contested this argument, using republican discourses to portray themselves not only as literal but also ideological descendants of the Revolution. As Patty Limerick has argued, anti-Mormons waived aside these objections and gave the Mormons the same choice given to Native Americans during the 1830s–either renounce your cultural distinctiveness, or move west of the Mississippi River, where no whites live.[1]
Once the Mormons resettled in the Great Basin, they discursively constructed their territory as a place of refuge in contrast to the tyranny of the East. Perhaps due to their insistence on claiming whiteness, their Great Basin refuge had borders that were not only geographically defined but also racially delimited. Although sporadic attempts were made during the first few decades of settlement to live peaceably with Native Americans, by 1850 Mormons in Utah Valley
With Brett agreeing to come on full-time to the JI, we would like to announce of advent of the Juvenile Instructor’s latest guest blogger, Elizabeth. Here is her self-introduction:
The Juvenile Instructor is pleased to announce that Brett D. has agreed to allow blogging to take up even more of his time by becoming JI’s newest permablogger. His guest posts on Emma Smith’s historiographical past and future, the possibilities of 20th century Mormon history, and the Religious Class program of turn-of-century Mormonism generated insightful discussion, and we look forward to his future contributions.
Please join us in welcoming Brett at the latest addition to the Juvenile Instructor.
Through my work as a researcher for the Education in Zion Project at BYU, I have become acquainted with one of the lesser known auxiliaries of the Church called the Religion Class program. To date, the only substantial work on the classes was an article written by Michael Quinn for the Utah Historical Quarterly in 1975. Other authors like Thomas Alexander (Mormonism in Transition) and Scott Esplin (Education in Transition, Ph.D. Dissertation 2006) have briefly dealt with the classes, but their treatments of the subject have remained limited. Considering the fact that the Religion Classes were an important auxiliary of the Church for nearly 40 years (1890 to 1929), this whole in our history seems quite remarkable. In my research for BYU and my thesis research, I have found the classes to play an important role in transition era Mormonism and turn-of-the-century Utah. Hence, I thought I would provide you all with a brief overview of some of the important aspects of this interesting auxiliary.
Erik on Study and Faith, 4:: “Given your reference to the book you're writing - could you estimate when this book will reach publication? Is it still a few years away?”
Christopher on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “Blake, I get a kick out of your poor reading comprehension skills.
If your comment is directed to Joseph, who posted this description, please understand that…”
Eric Nielson on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “Matt, I have signed up with a friend account, but when I try to open the file I am told that I do not have…”
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Erik on Study and Faith, 4:: “Given your reference to the book you're writing - could you estimate when this book will reach publication? Is it still a few years away?”
Christopher on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “Blake, I get a kick out of your poor reading comprehension skills. If your comment is directed to Joseph, who posted this description, please understand that…”
Eric Nielson on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “Matt, I have signed up with a friend account, but when I try to open the file I am told that I do not have…”
Terry H on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “I mean, I know its in the link, but just curious.”
Terry H on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “Perhaps I missed something, but when and where is it?”
Matt Witten on LATTER-DAY SAINT THEOLOGY &: “This one? https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/157453”