Latter-day Saints hold strong beliefs about connecting to their ancestors. This manifests in many ways, including a desire to better understand these ancestors and to perform sacred ordinances on their behalf. The genealogical work done by Latter-day Saints is represented by the millions of records digitized and preserved on familysearch.org, countless volunteer hours to assist those who desire a stronger connection to their family, and the vast rhetoric of family heritage and history over Latter-day Saint pulpits and within classrooms. But this family history work is also dependent upon technology, including print technology. How did the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disseminate information about family history? What printed forms were required to be filled out to submit a name for temple ordinances? How did print connect ever increasing families with each other? Print and print history sheds light on the fascinating history of genealogical efforts within the church.
The Church History Library in Salt Lake City will hold an all-day workshop on the history of Latter-day Saint print and genealogy to be held Friday, April 3, 2026. Led by three BYU scholars—Amy Harris, Christopher Cannon Jones, and Joseph R. Stuart—participants will explore the trends, technology, and printing history of genealogy, family history, and LDS temple work. They will also explore historical implications of investigating such source material as cultural artifacts. This workshop will include hands-on analysis of print materials, including family group sheets, family association newsletters, lesson manuals, church produced magazines and books, and ephemera spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Participants will explore new ways of approaching and analyzing such sources.
**Deadline extended–new deadline for applying to the workshop is September 19.**
See the below Call for Participants:
Singing (and Printing) Songs of Zion
When Emma Smith heard the words “the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me” as well as the commandment that she “make a selection of sacred hymns” did she fully imagine what a compiled hymnal would have entailed? Nearly six years later, when A Collection of Sacred Hymns was published by the Church of Latter Day Saints, Smith must have felt relieved to see her responsibility fulfilled. Her and others’ efforts resulted in a finished product—a book that can be studied and take us back to what it might feel like to worship with early believers. Such a tactile connection to the past is found in each hymnal produced by the Church, church members, and auxiliary organizations. Through a study of the printed songs, hymnals, and sheet music, book historians will uncover aspect of Church history previously unrecognized.
The musical tradition of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is rich, complicated, and a crucial element of the lived religion of its members. From the first church-owned press, hymns and poetry were printed and shared with early believers. One of the earliest commandments dictated to Emma Smith prioritized the activity of singing within the early church. As resources grew and printing technology improved, church members printed hymnals (eventually with musical notes), song books for children, and audio and video recordings of music. The history of printing music in the Latter-day Saint tradition offers an understanding of its doctrinal, cultural, and artistic history.
The Church History Library in Salt Lake City will hold an all-day workshop on the hymnals and songs of Latter-day Saints—focusing on their publication, circulation, and use. This workshop will be held on Friday, October 17, 2025. Participants will explore the history, technology, and use of printed music through hands-on analysis of materials spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Participants will also explore new ways of approaching and analyzing these sources.
Participation is limited to about fifteen individuals to ensure a quality workshop experience. Those interested in print history, including early and mid-tier scholars, students (both upper-division undergraduate and graduate), collectors, and other individuals wishing to expand their knowledge of the past are invited to apply. All applicants must submit a CV and a single-page letter of intent. Letters should include how this workshop might help their scholarship or further a project (academic or not) they are working on or planning to pursue. Though the workshop cannot cater to everyone’s project, some sessions might be shaped based upon letters of intent. Submissions are due September 19, 2025, emailed to either of the co-organizers (email addresses below).
Any questions can be directed to the co-organizers.
Robin Scott Jensen (jensenrob@churchofjesuschrist.org) LeChele Gishi (lgishi@ChurchofJesusChrist.org)
— The Church History Library is the repository of millions of printed items relating to the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Book History Program of the library seeks to raise awareness of the history of print culture of the Church and educate patrons of the Church History Library about the rich resources available. Do you have a topic you hope to see addressed? Let us know!
To meet the needs of the Church, we seek to build teams that represent the diverse perspectives, broad life experiences and backgrounds of our global Church membership. With that in mind, we encourage all qualified applicants to apply.
The Church History Museum is seeking a curator of history to join its staff. The mission of the museum is to provide opportunities for our patrons to connect to the history of the Church and the growing spiritual, artistic, and cultural legacies of the Latter-day Saints throughout the world.
Beginning in 1835, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began spreading information about their doctrine and practices through pamphlets. Through this medium, members proselytized, shaped public opinion, proved doctrine, made the case for the Church in society, and shaped Latter-day Saint thought—in short, pamphlets gave Latter-day Saints a voice.
Printing for the Youth of Zion: One Approach to the History of Latter-day Saint Print Culture
In 1831, Joseph Smith dictated a revelation on the “printing…selecting and writing books for schools in this church, that little children also may receive instruction.” (D&C 55:4) This instruction to W.W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery established that the creation of printed material for children and youth was to be a priority for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While the effort of creating printed material for children lay largely dormant for a few decades, by the late nineteenth century, a robust print culture had developed around this goal, and it continued to gain momentum into the twentieth century.
The Church History Library in Salt Lake City will hold an all-day workshop on the history of Latter-day Saint printing for youth on Friday, May 17, 2024. Led by four scholars—Rebecca de Schweinitz, Amber Taylor, Lisa Olsen Tait, and Robin Scott Jensen—participants will explore the trends, technology, and implications of youth print culture through hands-on analysis of materials including books, magazines, newspapers, lesson manuals, and ephemera spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Participants will explore new ways of approaching and analyzing these sources.
Participation is limited to approximately fifteen individuals to ensure a quality workshop experience. Those interested in print history, including students (both upper-undergraduate and graduate), collectors, scholars, and other individuals wishing to expand their knowledge of the past are invited to apply. All applicants must submit a CV and a single-page letter of intent. Letters should include how this workshop might help their scholarship or further a project (academic or not) they are working on or planning to pursue. Though the workshop cannot cater to each stated project, some sessions might be shaped based upon letters of intent. Submissions are due January 15, 2024, emailed to either of the co-organizers (email addresses below).
Any questions can be directed to the co-organizers.
Robin Scott Jensen (jensenrob@churchofjesuschrist.org)
Lisa Olsen Tait (lisa.tait@ChurchofJesusChrist.org)
Church History Library
______
The Church History Library is the repository for millions of printed items relating to the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Book History Program of the library seeks to raise awareness of the history of print culture of the Church and educate patrons of the Church History Library about the rich resources available. Do you have a topic you hope to see addressed? Let us know!
This year members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints commemorate the 200th anniversary of the First Vision. Such community awareness surrounding the date and religious meaning of that founding visionary event has been historicized by the recent publication of Steven C. Harper: First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins. Oxford University Press (2019).
Archival research is sometimes compared to the effort of
putting together a jigsaw puzzle—a puzzle where you have to find the pieces, you
have no photo reference of the actual puzzle, and there are zero edge pieces
and certainly no corner pieces. There are obviously parts of the comparison
that don’t work, but it is apt for those needing a crash course in archival
understanding.
I spend my fair share of time in an archives (it helps to be
employed in one). I have a master’s degree in library science with an archival
concentration and I just finished a dissertation on the history of the nineteenth-century
archives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In other words, I
spend a lot of time thinking about archives and their creation and use by
today’s scholars. I jokingly tell people that I’m more comfortable with dead
people and their records than I am with living people (the joke, of course, is
that I’m not joking).
There’s been a recent turn in book history. Early historians and scholars of the book looked to the way printed textual media was accomplished. But then scholars began to analyze the life-cycle of the book. Books are, after all, written by authors, printed by printers, sold by colporteurs, and read by readers. This approach to the book as artifact illustrates how each group interacts with books and the book trade. More recently, scholars have looked to the ways each individual involved in the book trade reflects and shapes the culture that produced it. Book history thus has become a study of culture.[1]
Unfortunately, Mormon history rarely attracts historians of the Book. Peter Crawley, David Whittaker, and Paul C. Gutjahr are the major exceptions to a relative anemic output of scholarship relating to the study of Latter-day Saint culture and the printed word it produced. Janiece Johnson’s recent article, “Becoming a People of the Books: Toward an Understanding of Early Mormon Converts and the New Word of the Lord,” published in the latest Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, is a breath of fresh air. Johnson’s article adds a corrective of the Book of Mormon’s place within the church. For those who want to argue that the Book of Mormon was rarely read, cited, or that it was simply a sign of Joseph Smith’s prophetic call, Johnson shows just how quickly and effectively the Book of Mormon seeped into the growing culture of the church.
I received word this morning of the death of Richard Lloyd Anderson. My deepest condolences go out to his family and my thoughts and prayers are with his wife and family at this time.
This post in our ongoing series on the George Q. Cannon diaries, which are now published on the Church Historian’s Press website, comes from friend of the blog Bill Smith.
“Suppose that one of the world’s masterpieces were to disappear, leaving no trace behind it, not even a reproduction; even the completest knowledge of its maker’s other works would not enable the next generation to visualize it. All the rest of Leonardo’s oeuvre would not enable us to visualize the Mona Lisa.”— Andre Malraux
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