From the Archives: Hannah Tapfield King’s Introduction to Polygamy

[If Elder Holland was correct in his General Conference talk from saturday that we are never too far along the path of sin to repent and return to God’s fold, then I hope I can make amends for not participating in March’s Women’s History Month by reproducing a revealing document written by one of my female idols.]

Hannah Tapfield King (1807-1886) was a fascinating woman. Born in Cambridge, England, to Peter Tapfield, a land steward and second son of the 5th Duke of Leeds, and Mary Lawson, daughter of one of the most respected families of Yorkshire, she was married at a young age to Thomas Owen King–an arrangement between the King and Tapfield families that set Hannah for a life of wealth and comfort. While living in Cambridge shortly after her fortieth birthday, she was introduced to the Mormon message and went through a long, complicated, and intense investigation period. (Probably worth its own post.) Finally, on April 17th, 1851, she was “buried in the liquid grave and raised up out of it in the likeness of the burial and resurrection of our Saviour.” Her baptism brought a lot of trouble: it was in the midst of a debate concerning Mormonism in the Cambridge area, and Hannah, before a highly respected member of the community, received much condemnation from her peers. Even worse, her parents strongly disapproved of her decision, and were almost apoplectic when she announced she would be immigrating to Utah. Fortunately, her husband, though he never joined the LDS church, was supportive and even agreed to move with her to the American west two years later.

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Is McNaughton an Artist? Or, what I said on RadioWest

[These are fleshed-out notes of what I shared on RadioWest on their show dedicated to Jon McNaughton?s paintings. As such, it?s pretty disjointed and should be read more as notes than an essay.

The audio for the interview can be found here. The first half is a fascinating interview with McNaughton; the portion where I come on, along with brilliant artis Adam Bateman, is shortly after the 25 minute mark.]

Conference Schedule: UVU’s Mormonism and the Internet

Schedule of Events

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The Tensions of Church and State, Public and Private: Tracing Mormonism’s Political Theology in the 19th Century

As the “world is governed too much” and as there is not a nation or dynasty, now occupying the earth, which acknowledges Almighty God as their law giver, and as “crown won by blood, by blood must be maintained,” I go emphatically, virtuously, and humanely, for a THEODEMOCRACY, where God and the people hold the power to conduct the affairs of men in righteousness.               -Joseph Smith, 1844

I was at dinner a couple nights ago with some American historians discussing the current GOP election. Someone made the astute point that one reason this year’s primaries will likely go longer than previous elections—including the possibility that there won’t be a winner prior to the convention—is that the election rules have changed, most especially the way votes are proportioned in each contest. Typical protocols and boundaries, it seems, are now gone, leading to the rambunctious and contested situation we are currently in. Among those typical rules that have disappeared, someone jokingly added, was the separation of church and state. We all laughed, but at the same time sighed because we knew there was more truth in that quip than we would like to admit.

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Avoiding Intellectual Paralysis, Part III: Revisiting Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven

This is a (very loose) continuation of the (very broad) series on reaching a broader audience. See also here and here.

“Bowman doesn’t shy away from the unsavory aspects of the Mormon faith, including a now-discredited belief in polygamy (as revealed in a revelation to Joseph Smith, the founder of the religion), as well as institutionalized racism. However, the ongoing controversies of the church and the stream of recent media describing Mormonism as a cult–from Jon Krakauer’s scathing non-fiction work Under the Banner of Heaven to HBO’s Big Love–is left entirely unaddressed in this work, which instead pays occasional attention to the inherently American aspects of the religion.” –Publisher’s Weekly

“Any discussion of Big Love, a complicated recent portrait of polygamy in a Mormon-like community, is left out. Nor is there a mention of Jon Krakauer?s forceful and very critical 2003 book, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.” -Dwight Garner, New York Times

Many people, correctly, have pointed out the obsession with Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven as one of the many oddities in these unfortunate reviews of Matt Bowman’s recent book. What, we wonder, made Krakauer’s caricatured telling of Mormonism’s “violent” past so crucial that to avoid it in a historical survey of the LDS Church is worthy of being charged with negligence? Few academics praised the 2003 book, it makes very few lists of “necessary” monographs on Mormon history, and almost anyone with more than a superficial understanding of Mormonism’s past recognize the sensationalistic aspects of its thesis. Put simply, it’s a shoddy work of history, and should have been destined to be another flash-in-the-pan sensationalist work that soon fell into insignificance. (The Mormon Murders, anyone?)

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Foxes and Hedgehogs in Mormon Historiography

Isaiah Berlin, one of the most influential historians of the twentieth century, once wrote that there were two types of historians: the hedgehog and the fox. Taking the phrase from a throw-away statement of Greek poet Archilochus—“the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”—Berlin creatively expanded the sentiment to explore two different approaches to the historical craft. On the one hand, foxes were those “who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle.” Hedgehogs, on the other, were those “who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel–a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance.” Berlin then attempted to organize all great historians, writers, and philosophers into these two camps: Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzche, Ibsen, and Proust are examples of hedgehogs, while Herodotus, Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus, Moliere, and Goethe are foxes.”[1] You get the picture.

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History News Roundup: Pew Survey, Elder Jensen, and others

This post is merely designed to be a catch-all for recent Mormon history-related news. Please feel free to add anything I missed in the comments.

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Book Review: The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History

Anderson, Devery S. ed. The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2011.

Continuing Signature Book?s strong tradition in documentary histories, this is a fascinating collection of documents relating to LDS temple policy from the end of Nauvoo to the modern day. Building from the earlier two volumes in this series, Devery Anderson presents a plethora of important sources for historians interested in the development of LDS ritual. With a serviceable introduction that outlines the main themes of the book?s contents, and helpful biographical overviews provided in the footnotes, The Development of LDS Temple Worship is a welcome addition to the Mormon history field.

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Call for Applicants: Paper Prizes in Communal Studies

Passed along from JI friend Matt Grow:

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN INDIANA CENTER FOR COMMUNAL STUDIES CENTER PRIZE

The Center for Communal Studies at the University of Southern Indiana announces its annual prize competition for the best undergraduate and graduate student paper on historic or contemporary communal groups, intentional communities and utopias.

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The JI Welcomes Robin Jensen

We at the Juvenile Instructor proudly welcome Robin Jensen—one of the foremost experts of Joseph Smith’s revelatory texts, rising star in the Mormon studies community, and all-around good guy—as a full-time contributor. This is how Robin introduces himself:

Robin Jensen is project archivist for The Joseph Smith Papers and helped edit the first two volumes in the Revelations and Translations series (published 2009 and 2011, respectively). In 2005 he earned an MA degree in American history from Brigham Young University, and in 2009 he earned a second MA in library and information science with an archival concentration from the University of Wisconsin?Milwaukee. He is now pursuing a PhD in history at the University of Utah. His first MA thesis explored the initial Strangite proselytizing effort and his second MA thesis explored the sacred record-keeping practices of early Mormonism. He believes that there is nothing better than the smell of old documents in the morning.

While obvious, it should bear mentioning that any posts/comments by Robin are not endorsed by the Joseph Smith Papers or the Church History Library.

I am especially lucky to count Rob as a collaborator and one of my good friends. As everyone who is familiar with his work already knows, we are all in for a treat with his blog contributions.