Relief Society Evolution: Vision and Visibility

Today’s post comes from Kate Holbrook.  Kate is a Specialist in Women’s History  at the LDS Church History Department.   She completed her Ph.D in Religious Studies at Boston University this spring and most recently contributed a chapter entitled  “Good to Eat: Culinary Priorities in the Nation of Islam and Latter-day Saint Church” in Religion, Food, and Eating in North America published by Columbia University Press this year.

Relief Society endeavors have changed during the organization?s 172-year history. Some narratives frame the shift in Relief Society activities as a loss, arguing that the organization possessed greater visibility and autonomy during its first 150 years than it does now. We celebrate the achievements of our LDS foremothers in medicine, in politics, in organizing the affairs of the kingdom. Their contributions were often visible and measurable, affecting not just their families or their local congregations but the entire church, and indeed, society at large. In contrast, the work of Relief Society in the twenty-first century can seem small?most efforts are confined to individual stakes, wards, or families. But the idea that modern Relief Society work is a diminished version of the original begs the question: how do we measure the success of a religious organization for women?

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In Search of New Models of the Feminine: A Modern Woman?s Nightmare and a Mormon Woman?s Dream

Mechal Sobel has argued that the writing of autobiographies in the American Revolutionary period reflected and even promoted the development of the personal self, the ?I??as opposed to the ?we-self.? This change was most pronounced among white males, as women and all blacks remained ?enmeshed in a communality and?[continued to] serve the needs of increasingly individuated white males.?[1] Sobel found that over half of the more than two-hundred autobiographies that she examined in her research contained accounts of dreams and visions. ?The narratives, the dream reports, and the dream interpretations by the narrators provide vivid evidence of the change in self-perception in ideal and functioning selves. They also provide powerful evidence that American culture was a dream-infused culture and that work with dreams provided an important bridge into the modern period.?[2]

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Fawn Brodie, Joseph Smith, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Bushman, and Psychoanalysis

No, the title of this post is not the opening for one of those “…walk into a bar…” jokes, although it does provide good potential.[1]

NOTE: This post doesn’t aim to make a particular argument, or perhaps to say much new, but merely to express some issues that have been circling my mind for a while, and conclude one of those historical nerd tangential interests that we all know so well.

Apparently not satisfied with merely enraging Mormon historians, Brodie later tried to do the same to Jeffersonian scholars.

A few months ago, in a conversation on the H-SHEAR list (an email group focused on the history of the early American republic), someone made a reference to Fawn Brodie’s biography of Thomas Jefferson. Then, as an aside, the writer added, “Incidentally, Fawn Brodie is in my view the Rosalind Franklin of American history. There are many Watsons and Cricks in the historical profession who owe her a posthumous apology.” Franklin, for those of you (like me) who aren’t encyclopedias of this type of knowledge, was a biophysicist who studied DNA in the early 1950s. Watson and Crick, who were dismissive and rude toward Franklin in public and private throughout her life, accessed her data without her knowledge, much less permission, and used that data to make the critical leap in insight that elucidated the structure of DNA. They published with no mention of Franklin’s contribution and went on to great fame and a Nobel Prize a decade later.[2]

While Brodie is mostly known in Mormon circles for her controversial biography of Joseph Smith, she is more widely known in the American historical community for her innovative use of psychohistory, especially in her biographies of Thomas Jefferson and, less successfully, Richard Nixon. Indeed, No Man Knows My History was merely her entrance into the historical profession, where afterward she became one of the foremost practitioners of psychohistory American political biography, and was even one of the first tenured female professors at UCLA. Most especially, her Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Life (W. W. Norton, 1974) was a national bestseller and instigator of much debate in the academic community. In the book, Brodie focused on Jefferson’s private life, and was one of the first to strongly argue that there was a relationship between the president and his slave, Sally Hemings. The book was a commercial success, but was panned by many historians, especially Jeffersonian scholars, who rejected the thesis that Jefferson would procreate with a slave. Many historians rejected Browdie’s interpretation of Jefferson, just as Mormon historians rejected her interpretation of Joseph Smith.[3]

Several decades later, however, Brodie’s argument was vindicated.

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Mormon History Association awards recipients

As announced at this evening?s Awards Banquet in San Antonio, Texas:

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“Do You Believe In Lady Missionaries?”

Today’s post comes from Matthew McBride who is Web Content Manager with the Church History Department and author of A House for the Most High.

Nineteenth-century Latter-day Saints considered proselytizing missions to be the exclusive domain of male priesthood holders. Women participated in tract societies, shared their beliefs with family and friends, and occasionally accompanied their husbands on missions. But these activities were calculated to keep women in proximity to the domestic sphere and were typically viewed as supportive of and secondary to the full-time missionary thrust. This changed in 1898 when women began to be called to serve full-time proselytizing missions, including the first single sister missionaries in the Church?s history.

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Joseph Fielding Smith II Letter on Female Healing, 1946

In discussions of female ritual healing, I often see people point to a 1946 letter written by Joseph Fielding Smith as the “death knell” of the practice. I don’t believe that is an accurate characterization. In this post I’m going to be highlight material that Kris and I briefly covered in our article on female healing.

The 1949 Relief Society handbook included the following text:

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?Dear Miss Blair?: Correspondence on Birth Control in the Salt Lake Telegram

Our post today comes from Brooke Brassard, who recently became a PhD Candidate (congrats Brooke!) at the University of Waterloo. Her dissertation focuses on how Canadian Mormons constructed an identity that was linked to but separate from American Mormons.

When you become perplexed with your problems, ask Betty Blair. She?ll help you find the answer or point the way to a solution of your difficulties,? advertised the Salt Lake Telegram on April 9, 1925,

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MSWR

I have a very short MSWR for you today.

The Salt Lake Tribune has a piece on what, exactly, makes Mormonism (among other faiths) attractive to people in Ghana.

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