Guest Post: Russell Stevenson, The Prophetess: Rebecca Mould and the Origins of Mormonism in Ghana

Note: This post is part of our series on International Mormonism.  Russell Stevenson is a freelance writer born and raised south in rural western Wyoming. He received his undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University and his master?s degree in history from the University of Kentucky. He has taught history and religion at Brigham Young University and Salt Lake Community College.  He has a forthcoming biography on Elijah Ables, which will be available this afternoon.

In 1964, Abraham F. Mensah, a schoolmaster visiting Great Britain from Ghana, first came into contact with the Mormon church through literature given to him while he was visiting a Sufi friend living in St. Agnes, England.[1]

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Guest Post: David Michael Morris, United Kingdom Mormon Demographic Survey 2013

The Mormon Temple in Surrey

One of the most significant discussions of religion and politics during 2012, was the dynamics of the US presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, and his religious affiliation to Mormonism. While the presidential race was watched globally, within the United Kingdom, it remained mainstream news throughout and Romney received close examination of his history, religion and policies.  For many in the United Kingdom, they knew little of him except him being a Mormon, and a rich one at that, which seemingly concentrated their curiosity. However, during a goodwill visit to London, he successfully undermined his own standing with both the British political establishment and public at large by making ill-informed statements and swimming in blind ignorance.

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International Mormon History Month at JI: A Tahitian, Mormon Indian Scout

Grouard as a young man

Frank Grouard was something of an enigma in the nineteenth century.  In 1876, he had become a Chief Indian Scout for the United States Army, helping General George Crook locate and fight bands of Sioux who were refusing to stay on their reservations.    On June 25, 1876, he saw smoke signals rising from the Battle of Little Bighorn, rode to the scene of the battle where he discovered the bodies of the dead, and reported the death of Custer to the General Crook.  He also interpreted during peace negotiations between Crazy Horse and the American government and was present at the Battle of Wounded Knee.  For much of his life, Grouard lived in relative anonymity but a series of newspaper articles and the publication of an as-told-to biography in in 1894 catapulted the Indian scout to fame.

In spite of his newfound renown, however, certain parts of Grouard?s life remained mysterious.  One of the most interesting and perplexing for those at the time was Grouard?s racial background.  At various times, he was identified as a Lakota Indian, as a mulatto, as a French-Creole, and as a half-breed.  Throughout his life, however, Grouard claimed to be the son of Benjamin F. Grouard, a Mormon missionary who had traveled to the South Pacific in the 1840s and had married an indigenous Maohi woman.  It is the latter story that the archival record bears out.

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Reflecting on MHA: Mormonism in Colonial Spaces, with a nod to our Series on International Mormonism

One of the questions that emerged out of this year?s Mormon History Association Conference was how we should think about Mormonism in colonial spaces.  I had the pleasure of commenting on a session with Gina Colvin, Chad Emmett, and Russell Stevenson.  Colvin began the session by exploring what it would mean to write Mormon history in a way that would take seriously the perspectives and lives of indigenous people such as the Maori.  Emmett then detailed the lives of Mormon men and women living in Dutch Indonesia in the early- to mid-twentieth century.  Stevenson rounded out the panel by exploring the meanings of conversion in British colonial India through the lens of the life of Mizra Khan, a wealthy Indian convert who wrote letters to church leaders about the legal and social status of his polygamous wives.

Taken together,

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Series Introduction: International Mormonism Month in June at JI

One of my advisor?s favorite questions to ask during our preliminary exams is whether Mormonism should be considered an American religion, given the number of British converts to Mormonism and their emigration to the United States.  Because I work on Mormonism, I wasn?t asked the question and instead had to field questions on the role of violence in the American Revolution and Puritan ideas about the family.  Apparently, most students hem-and-haw in response to the question about the Americanness of Mormonism.  One of my friends asked jokingly if she could use her lifeline and phone a friend ? me.  The question is supposed to force students to think about what it means for something to be an American religion, what the potential effects of early Mormon missionary work may have been on the church?s theology, and how Mormon was perceived outside of the confines of the United States.

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Reminder: Mormon Women’s History Tea and Discussion Group

This is a just a quick reminder that a group of lovely lady historians and their friends will be meeting at the Marie Callender’s in Layton to discuss Mormon women’s history.  The group met for the first time last year and had a fantastic discussion of the role of material culture in women’s lives and in our historical reconstruction of them.

This year, we will be discussing:

An Article by Eliza R. Snow, which appeared in the Woman’s Exponent (https://www.dropbox.com/s/4tyhi78x48uedd6/ElizaRSnow_AnAddress_WEx_1873-09-15_v2n8p62-63.pdf?v=0mcns)

Neylan MacBaine’s presentation from FAIR (http://www.fairlds.org/fair-conferences/2012-fair-conference/2012-to-do-the-business-of-the-church-a-cooperative-paradigm#en16)

Lisa Thomas Clayton?s essay on revelation from Mormon Women Have Their Say, edited by Claudia Bushman ( http://www.amazon.com/Mormon-Women-Have-Their-Say/dp/1589584945/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370193985&sr=8-1&keywords=mormon+women+have+their+say)

It’s okay if you don’t get to all of the articles, but we ask that each participant make a concerted effort to have read at least two of the articles.

For the original JI announcement, see: http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/mormon-womens-history-tea-and-discussion-group-announcement/

We will meet at 4 p.m., Thursday, June 6th.  Note the slight change in time and venue.

THE CHURCH: Non-Mormons, Ex-Mormons, and the Perceptions of Mormonism

Note: I have tamed my views considerably since high school. Not living in Southeastern Idaho for a while has helped.  Anyone who would like to critique my rash, abrasive high school self should remember their own foibles first and that I was acting from a place of pain and alienation.  I?m also not saying that Ed Decker or Fanny Stenhouse is correct in their depiction of Mormonism ? just that we need to take their geographic location seriously.

Recently, there has been a spate of work about how Mormons have been perceived in American popular culture.  Spencer Fluhman recently published A Peculiar People, which explores the role that anti-Mormonism played in defining what counted as ?religion? in the United States in the nineteenth century and what was dismissed as fanaticism and lunacy. J.B. Haws will also be publishing a book on the Mormon image in the twentieth century with the same publisher next year.  Cristine Hutchinson-Jones and Megan Goodwin have both written about the public perception of Mormonism on this and other blogs.  (For examples, see here, here, here, and here.)

Although I have used a lot of this work in my dissertation

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Mormon Women’s History Tea and Discussion Group – Announcement

A year and a half ago, Brittany Chapman and I discussed the need for a space where young female scholars of Mormonism could gain the academic skills necessary to engage in discussion about Mormon women?s history.  Although we both felt comfortable with our ability to conduct research in primary sources, write interesting narratives about those who had lived in the past, and to connect our histories to larger historiographies, we felt woefully unprepared to engage with feminist and gender theory.  The Mormon Women?s History Tea and Discussion Group was born out of a desire to create a space where young female scholars could gain the tools necessary to participate in academic discourse.  As a result, we initially planned to pair an academic article on some issue of feminist theory or women?s history with a piece written on Mormonism and have a discussion about the intersections between the two.

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New Mormon Women’s History Resource: Mormon Women Scholars’ Network

One of the things that still disappoints every time that I look for scholarship on Mormon women or attend the Mormon History Association is how little work has been done on women?s issues beyond Nauvoo-era polygamy and how few women actively work and publish in Mormon History.   Although Mormon Enigma was published 30 years ago, it remains the best work on Mormon women?s history.  Its standing power is at once a testament to its power as a book and to the fact that little work has been done about women?s lives within the Mormon Church since the 1980s.

In recent years, a few organizations have been founded to help address that lack. 

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Review: A Pacific Version of Twilight: Lani Wendt Young’s “Telesa: The Covenant Keeper”

I first encountered Twilight when my then fourteen-year-old sister became obsessed with it.  Every Facebook status she posted was about the new film that was coming out or how excited she was to read the next book series.  One of my friends, who has a PhD in Women?s Studies and History and will beginning her first tenure track job in the fall, told me that she personally enjoyed the books but warned me that they had some troubling gender politics.  As people have pointed out in review after review of Twilight, Bella is a weak character whose identity is bound up entirely in her relationship with Edward.  She is constantly bleeding, twisted from accidents that prove that she isn?t able to take care of herself and would simply die if Edward didn?t protect her.  I tried to read the books but couldn?t get past Book Two where Bella dismisses a boy who loves her and would have provided her with stability and continues to pine after Edward.  Book Four is even worse: When Bella and Edward consummate their marriage, Edward is unable to contain his strength and leaves Bella covered in bruises.  My sister?s response: He shouldn?t have felt bad because it wasn?t his fault.

About a week ago, I decided to look for books written by Mormon Polynesian authors.

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