Women of Faith in the Latter Days, Vol 2

Review of: Richard E. Turley, Jr. and Brittany A. Chapman, eds., Women of Faith in the Latter Days: Volume Two, 1821 – 1845 (Deseret Book, 2012).

I really cannot improve upon the opening lines of the introduction to this projected seven-volume series:

Although approximately half the people in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been women, their lives of faith and dedication are just beginning to receive the attention they merit. This series, Women of Faith in the Latter Days, aims to enhance awareness of these women through inspirational accounts written for a general readership.

The newest edition, the second in the series, considers thirty women* born between 1821 and 1845, and it’s a blockbuster volume both in the women who are included and in the list of authors who set their hand to crafting readable yet accurate and historically contextualized narratives of their lives. The essays purposely introduce both “well-known and previously obscure” women, presenting them in alphabetical order, a notably democratic editorial decision. They epitomize the pioneer women whose piety and self-sacrifice could have easily become fossilized in sentimental hagiography. But that’s not what this series is about, thank heaven.

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Thinking Historically… and Why it Matters

I spend a lot of my work-life time pondering what it actually means to think historically, and how to get undergraduates to do it. I have been much influenced by the work of Sam Wineburg, who has studied this quite a lot, and I find it interesting that there are multiple models or frameworks for what “historical thinking” means and why it’s important. Let’s look at a few of these lists, and think about how the concepts might apply to increasing the level of historical thinking literacy among “non-professionals” outside of history classrooms.

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A Booklist for Mormon Women’s History

Suppose that you were interested in Mormon women?s history, and suppose that you owned a library card and a computer. Now suppose you wished a smart group of LDS scholars would make you a list of classic texts and maybe comment a bit on why each book is worth a read. And while they were at it, throw in a roundup of web and digital resources for Mormon women?s history, too.

Voila! Today is your lucky day. The JI authors have been busy crowdsourcing this annotated bibliography of our must-read books and online archival resources for the history of Mormon women.

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Women’s History Month at JI

Although we may not be able to top black history month, which had a stellar lineup of contributors, posts, and CFPs and then ended with a major change to the LDS scriptures concerning the church’s conscious remembering (literally, re-membering) its early African American priesthood holders and rejecting any revelatory basis for the priesthood ban – and here, let me interject a hearty hallelujah! – we would like to begin (lamb-like) with some thoughts, questions, and considerations for women’s history month in March. My tongue-in-cheek hope would be that, if our mojo is similar, Joseph Smith’s 1842 revelation to the Relief Society recorded in Eliza R. Snow’s Minute Book becomes D&C 139. By April 1st.

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Never an Atlas so Handsome

First, a confession: I’m a stats dropout. It was the one course in college that I dropped. If someone had told me that it was something a historian actually should know, maybe I would have stuck with it (or maybe not). These days, I’m a dolt when it comes to sigma values and such, but I do love a good visualization of statistics. And if digitization and “big data” are the next frontiers in humanities research, then statisticians, especially those who can find compelling ways to visualize data, will find themselves in high demand.

Nowadays, data-crunching needs computers of mind-blogging speed and the results are enlivened with visualizations of breathtaking complexity and beauty (one of my favorites turns the NY subway schedule into a haunting musical map). But in the late 19th century, the U.S. government crunched monumental stacks of data, like those collected in the decennial census, using just paper and pencil, index cards and a whole bunch of person-hours — but nonetheless managed to make some of the most stunning data visualizations ever conceived. The “golden age” just may have been the successive publication of three big statistical atlases using information gathered in the 1870, 1880 and 1890 censuses, replete with gorgeous lithography and chock-full of Progressive social scientific hubris.

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“Manvotionals” and (Gentle)manly Nostalgia

This Christmas we got a lovely gift under the tree from my sister that was especially appropriate for our family, and which we really liked. It was a gift set on the “Art of Manliness” with two books and a set of coasters in a self-described “classic cigar box.” One book was an etiquette and advice manual updating 19th and early 20th century counsel for the 21st century man dispensing “classic skills and manners,” and the other was a collection of readings described as Manvotionals, clustered around “the seven manly virtues” (in case you’re keeping track, those are: manliness – which, I have to say, seems a little redundant, plus courage, industry, resolution, self-reliance, discipline and honor). My teen sons have already devoured both books and the collection’s appeal is undeniable – the books come pre-scuffed in that new-but-looks-old-book way that is so popular these days, abundantly illustrated with graphic elements and engravings that look borrowed from Gilded Age business periodicals and 1920s Arrow collar ads.

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On Ending a Course

I?ve just finished teaching my fall course on American religious pluralism—in fact, I was supposed to post about this yesterday but I?m still grading their final exams and submitting grades. It?s that time of year to think about what worked and what didn?t, and how I might do things differently next time.

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Book Review: Major Problems in American Religious History, 2nd edition

Major Problems in American Religious History, 2nd ed. Documents and Essays edited by Patrick Allitt. Major Problems in American History Series. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2013. vii-xx, 519 pp.

Patrick Allitt (Emory University) has updated the American religious history volume in Wadsworth/Cengage’s Major Problems series for 2013 – the original edition was published in 1999, so a second edition was long overdue. And it turns out that it was worth the wait, if you can swallow the $95 price tag.

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Mormons as Part of the Pluralist Kaleidoscope

So when I created my fall course on American religious pluralism I built it around five units. In this post I thought I?d share those, and invite conversation about where Mormonism shows up in my course or where it could be discussed in a similar course.

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My Fall American Religion Course

I’m finally surfacing from the hectic start of semester and wanted to write a couple of posts about the history course I’m teaching in American religious pluralism this fall at Worcester State. It’s an upper-level history elective called “Religions in America,” and in previous versions I’ve taught it mainly as an introduction to American religious diversity… sort of a “religious literacy” exercise in which students depart the course knowing a little something about many things rather than having deep knowledge of a few things. This term, however, I’ve focused the course more narrowly on the history of the idea (and imperfect implementation over time) of American religious pluralism.

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