Freedom from Religion, Boulder, Utah

Freedom was closed the day I visited. A pity: I was curious to see what it was all about. 

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Twin Barbarians 1: Mormon Crickets (Happy Pioneer Day!)

A. simplex cannibalizes another A. simplex

All that is green west of the Rockies quivers before that most fearsome of Mormon beasts, the Mormon cricket. It wasn’t always so. Before the 1870s (in the Anglo-European world), mesch, “a curious kind of cricket,” “an ugly cricket,” “a large kind of cricket,” the “mountain cricket” ravaged the left side of the American map. [1] Colonel Kane and the Mormons described it:

Wingless, dumpy, black, swollen-headed, with bulging eyes in cases like goggles, mounted upon legs of steel wire and clock-spring, and with a general personal appearance that justified the Mormons in comparing him to a cross of the spider on the Buffalo, the Deseret cricket comes down from the mountains at a certain season of the year, in voracious and desolating myriads. [3]

As you’ve probably grown tired of hearing, the Mormon cricket isn’t really a cricket. It’s a katydid sporting the genus name Anabrus, “in allusion to [its] unprepossessing appearance”; an + abroV = “not soft, delicate, tender, dainty, or beautiful,” which I think fits pretty well. [4] (Image: A. simplex cannibalizes [2])

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The 2010-2011 Relief Society/Melchizedek Priesthood Course of Study:Taking A Break From The Prophets

Well, a friend tipped me off that it appears we will be taking a break from the Teachings of the Prophets series we’ve had over the last few years as the Relief Society/Melchizedek Priesthood course of study. The new curriculum for two years, 2010-2011, will be the [fanfare]

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The Journal of Mormon History, Spring 2009 (35:2), Part 1

The most recent issue of the Journal of Mormon History actually arrived a little while back, but I’ve been slow to post this.  Since the next will be here soon, I’d better get this out! I’ll be more prompt next time!

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What Put the “Mormon” in “Mormon Fly” Might Not Go Well with Breakfast

An 1840s British visitor to Illinois noted that “among the novel discomforts of the West, that of insects is one of no trifling character. The whole earth and air seems teeming with them….” [1] A big bunch of them, including mayflies, teemed at Nauvoo.

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For Chris: Two Anti-Anti-Mormon Miscegenation refs

In a post earlier today, Chris asked about instances when Mormons defended polygamy by attacking sexual relations between races. I have been working on racial construction by Mormons and non-Mormons in the late 1880s to 1890s and happen to have two pieces ready to go. They would be too long for a comment, so I’m posting them here.

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“A situation worse than polygamy”: Mormon Missionaries, “Mulattos”, and Defending the Faith in North Carolina, 1900

While continuing my research on Mormonism in the South this morning, I came across the story of a debate between some young Mormon missionaries and a couple of Protestant ministers in North Carolina in 1900. The local newspaper contained the following summary of the debate:

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All God?s Creatures—Including Mormos, the Other Mormons

Fraternity with monkeys was (and remains) a standard trope of racializing discourse. So, in my ongoing efforts to (a) understand late nineteenth-century Mormon identity construction and (b) graduate, I poked around for comparisons between Mormons and animals in the 19^th century. I was pretty excited when I found a baboon labeled “mormon.” I thought that, together with Mormon crickets, I had a high-protein entrée for my thesis. I mean, if I were manufacturing monstrosities for 19^th-century anti-Mormons, it would be hard to beat the prolific, ravenous, cannibalistic Mormon cricket and a certified Mormon, polygamous baboon.

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Last Call For Niblet Votes!

Greetings, JI readers.  Tomorrow the polls close over at Mormon Matters.  As you may know, the Juvenile Instructor is up for #2 Best Group Blog and the race is tight. So if you feel so inclined, go to MM and cast your vote!

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MHA 2010: Call For Papers

Mormon History Association
2010 Independence Missouri Conference
Call for Papers
The Home and the Homeland:
Families in Diverse Mormon Traditions

The forty-fifth annual conference of the Mormon History Association will be held May 27-30, 2010, at the Kansas City Sports Complex Hotel in Kansas City, MO. It has been twenty-five years since the last MHA conference was held in Missouri. The 2010 theme, ?The Home and the Homeland: Families in Diverse Mormon Traditions? recognizes the family as a central social and religious institution within Mormon traditions.

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