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
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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
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 Matthew J. Grow, director of publications at the Church History Library.
I’m grateful that Juvenile Instructor is spotlighting the George Q. Cannon journal. Those of us who have worked on the Cannon journal at the Church History Department are excited that the journal is now available to all who would like to read it and use it in their own research and writing.
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 Jed Woodworth. Jed currently works at the Church History Library.
The quarter century between the end of Reconstruction and the U.S. presidency of Theodore Roosevelt stands out as a great anomaly. As John Pettegrew has observed, it is the only periodization in American history with a pejorative title. Other periods have been given benign or complementary monikers like “Early National America” or the “Progressive Era.” Not so with the Gilded Age. That historians adopted the name of the satirical 1873 novel written by Charles Dudley Warner and Mark Twain speaks to the problematic character of this period. Excess, tawdriness, and corruption have come to define this time.
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “Large civilizations leave behind evidence of their existence. For instance, I just read that scholars estimate the kingdom of Judah to have been around 110,000…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “I have always understood the key to issues with Nephite archeology to be language. Besides the fact that there is vastly more to Mesoamerican…”
Steven Borup on In Memoriam: James B.: “Bro Allen was the lead coordinator in 1980 for the BYU Washington, DC Seminar and added valuable insights into American history as we also toured…”
David G. on In Memoriam: James B.: “Jim was a legend who impacted so many through his scholarship and kind mentoring. He'll be missed.”
Recent Comments
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “The burden of proof is on the claim of there BEING Nephites. From a scholarly point of view, the burden of proof is on the…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “But that's not what I was saying about the nature of evidence of an unknown civilization. I am talking about linguistics, not ruins. …”
Steve Fleming on Study and Faith, 5:: “Large civilizations leave behind evidence of their existence. For instance, I just read that scholars estimate the kingdom of Judah to have been around 110,000…”
Eric on Study and Faith, 5:: “I have always understood the key to issues with Nephite archeology to be language. Besides the fact that there is vastly more to Mesoamerican…”
Steven Borup on In Memoriam: James B.: “Bro Allen was the lead coordinator in 1980 for the BYU Washington, DC Seminar and added valuable insights into American history as we also toured…”
David G. on In Memoriam: James B.: “Jim was a legend who impacted so many through his scholarship and kind mentoring. He'll be missed.”