Juvenile Instructor » 2015

The hours are counting down for She Shall be an Ensign.

By JJohnsonJune 30, 2015

Last month (here) we told you about friend of JI and Keepapitchinin’ blogger, Ardis Parshall, and her Kickstarter campaign–She Shall be an Ensign. We are glad to support her in achieving her goal, but she is still working with a shoestring budget. And if she reaches $40,000 everyone who donates $10 or more gets an additional packet of lesson plans.

If you believe that there is much Mormon History still to be written and a wide range of women’s voices need their rightful place in that history, contribute now. You’ve got 14 hours left!

Love Wins

By AmandaJune 29, 2015

Last Friday, the Supreme Court ruled that state restrictions on same sex marriage were unconstitutional. Their reasoning pointed to the importance of establishing a uniform understanding of marriage across the United States so that individuals who were legally married in one state would be assured their relationship would be recognized if they moved to another one. The reaction on my Facebook feed has been jubilant.

One friend wrote: SO MANY RAINBOWS. SO MUCH HAPPY.

Another posted a row of rainbow hearts.

And finally, a third posted a picture of her brother with his new husband, a marriage certificate, and the words: “Today brings joy to my heart. #lovewins”

Guest Post: Jeff Turner, “Early Mormon Conversion: Method, Multiplicity, and Madness”

By June 25, 2015

[Today’s guest post comes from Jeff Turner, who recently completed a master’s degree at Claremont Graduate College where he worked with Patrick Mason in the Mormon Studies Program. This fall he will be a PhD student in history at the University of Utah.]

As far as I can tell, it?s been at least a year since JI has featured a post on conversion, which means that it?s time for us to take a trip back in our Delorean and uncover a topic that might be forgotten under a layer of dust.

Take, for example, two stories of two different English converts to Mormonism in the 1850s. First, in 1853, an Englishman attended his first Mormon meeting, encountered religious enthusiasm, and converted: ?At this meeting, a testimony meeting, one young woman spoke in tongues and many of those present bore their testimony to the divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith. This was something new to us and had a great impression upon our minds as being the truth and reasonable? So we were then and there baptized by James Woods in the baptismal font of the chappel yard? We attended meetings as often as circumstances would permit and our minds began to be lit up by the Holy Spirit which caused our hearts to rejoice.?[1]

Photos of a Visit to Iosepa

By Edje JeterJune 23, 2015

A few weeks ago Ben P, Catherine P, and I visited the Iosepa (pronounced, I think: ee-oh-SEP-ah, but, in practice usually closer to: yo-SEP-uh) Cemetery, near Dugway, Utah. Below I’m posting some of the pictures from the trip, mostly without commentary.

JI Summer Book Club: Rough Stone Rolling, Part 7: Chapters 16-18

By Tona HJune 22, 2015

This is the seventh installment of the first annual JI Summer Book Club. This year we are reading Richard Bushman?s landmark biography of Mormonism?s founder, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005). JI bloggers will be covering small chunks of the book in successive weeks through the summer, with new posts appearing Monday mornings. We invite anyone and everyone interested to read along and to use the comment sections on each post to share your own reflections and questions. There are discussion questions below.

Installments:
? Part 1: Prologue, Chapters 1-2
? Part 2: Chapters 3-4
? Part 3: Chapters 5-6
? Part 4: Chapters 7-9
? Part 5: Chapters 10-12
? Part 6: Chapters 13-15
? Next week (Part 8): Chapters 19-21

Sparse comments last week suggest some understandable mid-book fatigue (it IS hefty, after all, and it IS the busy part of the summer for most of us), but never fear ? just jump right back in. Chapters 16-18 form, in many ways, the emotional heart of Bushman?s biography and a microcosm of the thorny problems inherent in writing a finely textured history of a figure as iconic and enigmatic as Joseph Smith. They are Rough Stone Rolling itself, writ small.

Author Meets Roundtable: Paul Reeve Responds

By J StuartJune 17, 2015

JI recently finished a roundtable review on Paul Reeve’s wonderful Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (New York: Oxford University Press: 2015). Dr. Reeve has kindly consented to respond to the roundtable–his thoughts are found below.

Mapping Sexual Violence in 19th C Utah

By AmandaJune 16, 2015

I am currently working on a mapping project at the University of Michigan focused on sexual crime in nineteenth-century Utah. Every day, I look through the index of the Third District Court Criminal Case files. The cases included in the index (which is available through ancestry.com) covers the years, 1882 – 1916. I still have a long ways to go with the project, but I thought I would share some preliminary thoughts.

Editor Search and Executive Director Search for the Mormon History Association

By J StuartJune 15, 2015

TWO job announcements from our friends at MHA, the editorship of the Journal of Mormon History and the Executive Director Position of the Mormon History Association:

Editor Search for the Journal of Mormon History

The Mormon History Association is conducting a search for a new editor of the Journal of Mormon History. The editor determines the content of the quarterly Journal, solicits submissions, oversees peer review, works with submitting authors in performing substantive and stylistic content editing, and coordinates with a production staff to ensure that issues of the Journal are published according to deadline and within budget. The editor has full editorial control of the journal but reports to the MHA board of directors in maintaining a high quality product that serves as the flagship publication for the organization.

JI Summer Book Club: Rough Stone Rolling, Part 6: Chapters 13-15

By matt b.June 15, 2015

This is the sixth installment of the first annual JI Summer Book Club. This year we are reading Richard Bushman?s landmark biography of Mormonism?s founder, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005). JI bloggers will be covering small chunks of the book in successive weeks through the summer, with new posts appearing Monday mornings. We invite anyone and everyone interested to read along and to use the comment sections on each post to share your own reflections and questions. There are discussion questions below.

Installments:
? Part 1: Prologue, Chapters 1-2
? Part 2: Chapters 3-4
? Part 3: Chapters 5-6
? Part 4: Chapters 7-9
? Part 5: Chapters 10-12
? Next week (Part 7): Chapters 16-18

Chapter 13: Priesthood and Church Government
Chapter 14: Visitors
Chapter 15: Texts

Something New Under the MHA Sun: Scholars Workshop

By Tona HJune 12, 2015

This year, MHA piloted something I hope we see more of in the future: a workshop as a pre- or post-conference tour alternative. A half-day workshop about documentary editing (aka ?Geeking Out with Old Documents?) was dreamed up by JI?s own Robin Jensen of the Joseph Smith Papers Project and supported by BYU Special Collections, where the event was held. I helped make some of the initial introductions and arrangements as part of the MHA 2015 Program Committee, and then Local Arrangements took it and ran, and we all held our breath a little as the registration opened up (especially since it was up against the deservedly popular women?s history bus tour ? which I hope we get a write up about! But I digress–), not knowing who would be interested in spending a day in the library learning the ins and outs of turning an original document (letter, diary, manuscript) into a readable resource for researchers, genealogists, and possibly even for publication.