Review: Anne Hyde’s Empires, Nations, and Families

Empires, Nations, and Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860, by Anne F. Hyde. History of the American West Series. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011. xiii-xv, 628 pp.

The great project of turning the West into part of the United States, initiated in 1803 and begun in earnest in the 1840s, had made little progress in many places. Much remained flexible and contingent about life on its complex border into the second half of the nineteenth century. Residents of the West seemed quite ambivalent about nationality, easily claiming new citizenship when it served personal or business needs. During a time when no one knew which nation or empire would finally impose control, effective trade was the sole source of power. And it continued to be a world defined by personal connections. (30)

So argues Anne Hyde, Professor of History at Colorado College, in Empires, Nations, and Families, winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize earlier this year.

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Mormons and the Media: If a Carnivorous Crocodile and a Stripling Warrior Fought…

Professor Jared Farmer and the State University of New York at Stonybrook very generously posted a free e-book last week?Mormons in the Media, 1832-2012. Though the title should be “Mormons in American Media,” the 342-page book and the hundreds of images therein need to be seen. They are beautiful and brilliant?some impressively horrific in their full technicolor glory. Farmer builds upon a foundation established by Gary Bunker and Davis Bitton in their 1983 The Mormon Graphic Image, 1833-1914: Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations and is able to radically enlarge it. The expansive scope of these pages can easily induce a little head spinning?the very best kind.

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Gender and the “Priesthood Ban”: Some scattered thoughts

Earlier this week, Max Mueller posted at Peculiar People some thoughtful reflections on non-Latter-day Saint historians of Mormonism and their role as “friendly critics” to Mormons and Mormonism. He used recent op-eds authored by Helen Radkey and John Turner on proxy baptisms and Mormonism’s history of racial exclusion, respectively, to frame his argument. It’s well worth reading and recommended to all JI readers.

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Converting Kirtland: Spiritual Gifts and the Book of Mormon

By Pete Wosnik

This week I’ve been reading through primary sources of converts to Mormonism who lived in Kirtland- and the surrounding counties- in 1830. In my initial research, I have used boap.org and saintswithouthalos.com to examine narratives by Levi Hancock, Lyman Wight, and Josiah Jones. Saintswithouthalos.com also has the Ohio 1830 census uploaded which has proven to be very helpful. I’ve also consulted Staker’s Hearken O Ye People, Givens and Grow’s Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, and Van Wagoner’s Sidney Rigdon: Portrait of Religious Excess. These resources have laid a groundwork for my thesis; however, I plan to consult original documents and other sources in the archives at BYU, U of U, and the CHL.

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Campbellite Conversions and Early Mormonism

By Pete Wosnik

I have long been interested in the cultural influences that helped shape Mormonism. This fascination led me to ask questions about conversion: what accounts for Mormonism’s success, and why did early converts find it so appealing? Delving into the subject I quickly realized that there is a rich historiography full of brilliant scholars grappling with these questions. Whitney Cross and Mario DePillis were some of the earliest scholars to debate these topics. And while they used very limited data, they were in agreement that early Mormons were generally poor coming from the fringes of society. These author’s ideas were rooted in a socioeconomic theory that those unhappy with their current situation are more likely to join radical movements.

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Mormonism in Cultural Context: A Special Journal of Mormon History Issue in Honor of Richard Bushman

The last few years have been a coronation of sorts for Richard Bushman–and rightfully so. After a prolific and prestigious career, the American Historical Association devoted a session to his work, the Mormon History Association distinguished him with their Leonard Arrington Award, and a group of former students held a conference in his honor. (I wrote my reflections of the conference here.) The most recent issue of Journal of Mormon History includes many of the papers presented at that last conference, including several JIers. I just finished the entire issue last weekend, and concluded it was probably the strongest JMH issue in years, as nearly every article was at an exceptionally high level of academic standards.

(It should be noted, however, that the issue as a whole was strong in a few very, very narrow fields: Joseph Smith’s thought, Mormonism and political thought, and historical thought in general. See a pattern? Now this is primarily the result of the participants’ building off of Richard Bushman’s own work–a commemorative issue in honor of Jill Derr would probably look much different, for instance–so the lack of engagement with the 20th century, material culture, lived religion, or, gasp, women’s history can, at least partially, be overlooked. But since these themes tend to dominate Mormon history in general, I maintain the “partially” qualifier.)

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Article Spotlight: Benjamin Park, ?(Re)Interpreting Early Mormon Thought?

Mormonism has a complicated relationship with Protestantism. It also has a complicated relationship with the United States of America. If Mitt Romney?s impending nomination as the Republican candidate for President has done nothing else, it has reinforced in my mind that complexity. It was with sincere appreciation, then, that I read Ben Park?s timely article in the latest issue of Dialogue. No, Ben?s essay does not address Mitt Romney. But it does examine Mormonism?s historical relationship with both the American nation and its Protestant establishment.

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Review: The Man behind the Discourse: A Biography of King Follett

Mortensen, Joann Follett. The Man Behind the Discourse: A Biography of King Follett. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011.

A few weeks ago, a friend at church noticed the book I?d brought along with me that day and asked about it. Showing him the cover, he immediately responded, ?King Follett? Is there enough information to write a full-length biography?? At that point, I?d only read the first few chapters, and wasn?t sure how to answer. I finally finished the book a couple of days ago, but I?m still a little unsure about my answer.

King Follett, an early convert to Joseph Smith?s Church of Christ whose name is familiar to modern Mormons because of its rhetorical association with one of Smith?s most famous sermons, left behind no written record. No journal and next to no correspondence have survived. And posthumous biographical summaries offer little more than the most basic information about his life. With that in mind, Joann Follett Mortensen has accomplished a wonderful feat, gathering together the scattered references to her third great-grandfather (passing mentions in LDS church records, legal and public documents, and occasional (and almost always brief) references in the diaries and journals of his fellow Latter-day Saints) and turning it into a comprehensive and lengthy history (468 pp. + 4 appendices, a bibliography, and index) of King Follett and his immediate family.

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Article Spotlight: Christopher Jones, “Mormonism in the Methodist Marketplace”

Anyone familiar with fellow JIer Christopher Jones knows two things: 1) he’s brilliant, and 2) he knows early Mormonism’s connection with Methodism as well as, if not better than, anyone else doing Mormon history. His dissertation, “‘We Latter-day Saints are Methodists’: The Influence on Methodism on Early Mormon Religiosity” is a wonderful introduction to the topic, and can be accessed here. He turned one of his dissertation chapters into an insightful article that was published last year in Journal of Mormon History on Joseph Smith’s First Vision and its relation to Methodist conversion narratives. (JMH subscribers can access it here.) He’s also mused on the relationship at a recent conference. Thus, if you have any question concerning the historic relationship between these two religious movements, he’s the guy to ask.

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Responses: Joseph Smith’s Holy Ghost and the Messiness of Historical Theology

[The most recent installment of our “Responses” series, in which someone responds to a recent article of interest in Mormon studies.]

As someone interested in the historical development of LDS thought, especially during the first few decades, I was excited to see Lynne Hilton Wilson?s fascinating ?A New Pneumatology: Comparing Joseph Smith?s Doctrine of the Spirit with His Contemporaries and the Bible? (BYU Studies Quarterly 51, no. 1 [2012]: 119-152). Historical theology and intellectual history can be a tricky field, particularly when contextualizing someone?s ideas with the surrounding culture, though it can be highly rewarding when done right. However, while there was much to enjoy in the article, there were some aspects that made me pause. Besides disagreements with how Wilson presents Joseph Smith?s Protestant culture in general, often in attempt to make Mormon ideas more distinct from antebellum America, as well as disagreements with how she interprets Smith?s theology in particular, often in attempt to make his 1830 beliefs more consistant with those in 1844, there were a few methodological points that I think deserve examination.

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