By August 11, 2012
We’ve advertised this before, but it’s important enough to advertise it again since the dates are approaching. Besides be co-organized by one of our own JIers (Matt B), we’ll have several contributors in attendance who will provide updates and recaps.
Note there are two events, although closely related.
By August 11, 2012
Here’s Nate’s bio:
I began a serious study of church history first because I was paid ten bucks an hour to do so. After finishing a BA in History Teaching at BYU in 2004, I was hired at the Education in Zion Exhibit as a researcher/writer. Up until that point in time, my research interests had been limited to the Spanish Armada and antebellum U.S. slavery. But C. Terry Warner, then the exhibit director, explained to me that I would be doing a lot of research on not just LDS educational efforts, but on church history in general. So I had to brush up on all things Mormon. My assignments included early morning seminaries, religion classes, territorial schools, education in Polynesia, and the life of Joseph F. Smith (the exhibit is permanently housedin the JFSB at BYU). I found out that I loved church history, and vowed to keep it?as a hobby?throughout my life.
By August 9, 2012
JI is currently doing a series on Mormon teen literature and what it tells us about the history of Mormon girls. So far, the series has looked Johnny Lingo and Jack Weyland and has considered ideas about the body. I am excited to present the next post in this series, in which Susanna Morrill, a professor at Lewis and Clark College, explores Shirley Sealy’s “Beyond This Moment.” Susanna received her PhD from the University of Chicago in Religious Studies and “White Roses on the Floor of Heaven: Mormon Women’s Popular Theology, 1880 – 1920.”
I?m a newcomer to modern Mormon romance literature, but am excited to expand my horizons a bit. I decided to read Shirley Sealy?s Beyond This Moment (Provo: Seventy?s Mission Bookstore, 1977). Amanda began the series talking about what young adult books had taught her about her body. So, when I finished Sealy?s book, I asked myself the same question: What did the book want to teach a young Mormon woman in the 1970s about her body and, more broadly, her physical existence in the world? A lot, as it turned out!
By August 8, 2012
Joseph Stuart is a BA student in American Studies at Brigham Young University, entering his last semester. He is planning on going to grad school in history or religious studies. He has worked on several fascinating projects, one of which examines the social history of the Woodruff Manifesto, from which the following document is taken. Let’s give a warm welcome to Joseph.
This summer I have had the good fortune to work for the Charles Redd Center at BYU, attempting to examine responses to the 1890 Woodruff Manifesto. By canvasing roughly 800 journals, diaries and autobiographies, I found a veritable cornucopia of results, from the bemused to the belligerent. One reaction that was of particular interest, though not directly related to the Manifesto, came from a note in the Abraham Cannon diaries.[i] It said simply:
“I attended my Quorum meeting…spent nearly two hours in interesting and instructive conversation on various points of doctrine. The subject was the Josephite [RLDS] Church, its authority and gifts, was discussed, in the course of which John Henry Smith read a letter to him form the head of that Church, Joseph Smith [III] dated Nov’r 7th. The people and authorities here are congratulated therein for their abandonment of plural marriage, and the writer suggests that this matter could not have originated with the Lord or it would have remained unchanged.
This man is certainly not sincere or he would have accepted the truth long ago, as he has had abundant evidence given him that his father, the Prophet, had more than one wife.”
This tantalizing reference piqued my interest, and I resolved to find what JSIII had to say after the cessation of plural marriages. After nearly two months of archival work, I stumbled across the Wilford Woodruff Correspondence Register[ii] at the Church History Library, and found a letter that was very similar to the letter to John Henry Smith. It reads:
Office of
THE FIRST PRESIDENCY
Of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ
President Wilford Woodruff Lamoni, Iowa Nov 8th, 1890
Salt Lake City, Utah
Dear Sir: —
Permit me to congratulate you on the action of yourself and the late Conference of October 6th; yourself, for presenting the manifesto and the advice in contained; the Conference for accepting and adopting the advice given.
For the advance of the Angel’s message and the final triumph of truth,
Yours respectfully,
Joseph Smith
There are several intriguing aspects of the letter.
Like the Federal Government and many Latter-day Saints, JSIII does not appear to know whether or not the Manifesto was a press release, a formal disavowal of practice, or a renunciation of belief. The Federal Government went to the point of asking President Woodruff about whether cohabitation was still permitted during a federal inquiry in 1892 when the Church was seeking amnesty, a fair question considering how many plural marriages were still approved after the Manifesto was released, and the exodus of a significant minority of LDS polygamists to Mexico and Canada. This understanding of the Manifesto as “advice” may have led to the Second Manifesto, when Joseph F. Smith put some teeth into the Church’s anti-polygamy stance in 1904.
The second area of importance is the phrase “the angel’s message.” Rather than focusing on, for example, “my father’s teachings” or “priesthood revelation,” JSIII says “the angel’s message,” referring to Moroni’s multiple visitations. I suppose that this was typical of early Mormonism, a focus on Cumorah (the Book of Mormon) rather than the Grove (Priesthood succession and restoration), and the RLDS (now Community of Christ) would logically follow that thought.
The second part of the second statement, “the final triumph of truth” appears to be a subtle slight aimed at the Church’s new stance. Joseph F. Smith, JSIII’s cousin, had affidavits sworn by the wives of Joseph Smith saying that the Prophet had lived and taught polygamy. JFS ultimately sent these affidavits to RLDS headquarters (the “abundant evidence” cited by Cannon in his diary). The RLDS responded by attempting to persuade the “Utah Church” through mail and missionaries that polygamy was an invention of Brigham Young rather than revelation through Joseph Smith.
It is difficult for me to fathom the relationship between the RLDS and the LDS Churches at this time, when cousins led or would soon lead their respective branches of Mormonism (JSIII and Joseph F. Smith, who served in the First Presidency at the time). Being able to write the Utah Church in the wake of their renunciation of polygamy, after such a protracted public and personal battle over the origin of the practice, must have been especially satisfying to JSIII.
[i] Cannon, Abraham H. (Abraham Hoagland), 1859-1896. Candid Insights of a Mormon Apostle : The Diaries of Abraham H. Cannon, 1889-1895. Ed. Edward Leo Lyman 1942-. Salt Lake City: Signature Books in association with the Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2010. December 2, 1890.
[ii] Wilford Woodruff General Correspondence File 1887-1898, LDS Church Archives.
By August 7, 2012
[I meant to put up a Mormon journal roundup, but I’ll have to postpone that for next week–apologies]
A lingering benefit of the centennial commemoration of the Mormon Exodus and the conference on Mormon history in Latin America and the Borderlands that took place a week and a bit ago (see here) is the Finding Refuge in El paso Lecture Series that the El Paso Museum of History is sponsoring to help promote the Finding Refuge in El Paso museum exhibit that recently opened.
By August 6, 2012
By Pete Wosnik
This week I’ve been reading through primary sources of converts to Mormonism who lived in Kirtland- and the surrounding counties- in 1830. In my initial research, I have used boap.org and saintswithouthalos.com to examine narratives by Levi Hancock, Lyman Wight, and Josiah Jones. Saintswithouthalos.com also has the Ohio 1830 census uploaded which has proven to be very helpful. I’ve also consulted Staker’s Hearken O Ye People, Givens and Grow’s Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, and Van Wagoner’s Sidney Rigdon: Portrait of Religious Excess. These resources have laid a groundwork for my thesis; however, I plan to consult original documents and other sources in the archives at BYU, U of U, and the CHL.
By August 4, 2012
The Southwestern States Mission series will not publish for the next several weeks. The academic year cometh so my day job is going to require more attention for a bit. When we return (in no particular order):
By August 4, 2012
I stumbled on this little gem while looking for something else in the Internet Archive?s collection of Mormon publications [1] and was both charmed and intrigued by it. The pamphlet is a 16-page tract, titled ?The Latter-day Saints? Catechism: Or, Child?s Ladder,? by Elder David Moffat. Subtitle: ?Being a Series of Questions Adapted for the Use of the Children of Latter-day Saints.?
By August 3, 2012
The Juvenile Instructor is on something of a roll lately, making the most of the summer months, introducing a number of new guest bloggers (and there’s more on the way!) and adding to our ever-expanding roster of regulars, too. Tod Robbins, who has guest blogged for the last month here, has agreed to join the JI full-time (he also landed a new job yesterday, so it’s a good week for Tod!). If you missed his excellent posts over the last month, you can check them out here.
Please join us in welcoming Tod!
By August 2, 2012
This is the first substantive post in a series about Mormon literature and the creation of a history of Mormon girls. This post tries to think about Mormon literature expansively and thus, takes as its subject a film that has sometimes been referred to as the ?fourth Mormon gospel.? Next week, Susanna Morrill gives us her take on Mormon teen romances.
I first watched Johnny Lingo at my cousin?s birthday party. I remember more of the confetti cake and sprinkles than I do of the movie that night, but I enjoyed it enough that I insisted that Liz and I watch it one night after the Joseph Smith Summer Seminar. We popped some popcorn, put in the DVD, and curled up in some blankets. When the movie came on, the first thing I thought after a decade or longer absence was, ?Oh my gosh, I can see his nipples!?
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