From the Archives: CR 11 175, ordination of the first Relief Society general presidency

At the recent history symposium focusing on women in Mormon History, the director of the LDS Church History Library announced a new research aid entitled ?Women in Church History.? Among the various highlighted documents was a link to CR 11 175, Relief Society record, 1880-1892. This caught my eye because it has been restricted in the past and closed to research, though some researchers have been granted access. I?m always grateful for wider access to historical documents such as these, and this one in particular is important. Thanks to the dedicated staff and administrators at the CHL for their ongoing work.

As it is the anniversary of the founding of Relief Society, I thought it would be fun to reproduce from this document the ordinations of the first General Presidency. May it ever increase. [Note that this is a first pass transcription, you can verify it yourself if you would like]

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Modest is Hottest: Beyond Amish Romance Novels?

Valerie Weaver-Zercher’s 2013 book, Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels unpacks the popularity of Amish romance novels among evangelical women. Although often dismissed as escapist fiction, women’s fiction, fluff lit, or all of the above, Weaver-Zercher argues that evangelical women turn to Amish romance novels for a variety of reasons, many of which have to do with the hypermodern and hypersexual world in which readers live.

This post isn’t about that, however. Rather, my interest was piqued by a footnote, in which the author catalogues writers who are writing similar stories, but in different settings. You have your Amish romance novels, but also your Mennonite, and Shaker, and Quaker romance novels. And to my surprise, apparently also Mormon romance novels.

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Beyond Biography: Sources in Context for Mormon Women’s History

BYU and the LDS Church History Library are hosting a conference this Thursday and Friday entitled, “Beyond Biography: Sources in Context for Mormon Women’s History.” The conference looks to be a major step forward for Mormon history by engaging Mormon Women’s history through a number of methodologies. There is no registration fee–if you’re in Utah you will want to be at the BYU or LDS Conference Center!

R. Marie Griffith and Julie B. Beck will deliver the plenary addresses.

JI-er presentations can be found below. You can view the rest of the schedule here.

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Applications for The Marlin K. Jensen Scholar and Artist in Residence Program (Due April 15, 2016)

Another announcement from our friends at the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah:

The Marlin K. Jensen Scholar and Artist in Residence Program

Program Launch: Spring, 2017.

The Tanner Humanities Center on the University of Utah is proud to announce a fellowship in the name of Marlin K. Jensen. Our Marlin K. Jensen Scholar and Artist in Residence Program will host prominent scholars with expertise in Mormon Studies or renowned artists who explore the relationship between faith and art in their work.

Marlin Keith Jensen was a general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), serving as the official Church Historian and Recorder from 2005 to 2012. During his tenure, Jensen worked to professionalize the Church’s History Department, give it international range, make its holdings more accessible to researchers, and publish primary materials. Jensen was made an emeritus general authority in 2012. Currently, he practices law in Salt Lake City and is a member of the Utah State Board of Regents.

The fellowship will consist of a semester-long residency. Each scholar will:

• Teach a class for University of Utah students
• Serve as a research or artistic mentor
• Offer public lectures or performances
• Contribute to Mormon Studies curriculum planning and program development

Nominees are asked to submit:

1. A CV
2. A one page course description for a Mormon Studies class
3. The names of two recommenders

Please submit the above by April 15, 2016.

The successful candidate will have an office in the Tanner Humanities Center and be part of the Center’s fellow community. In addition, the position offers an honorarium of $50,000.

Please send your application material to Bob Goldberg, Center Director and Professor of History, University of Utah, at bob.goldberg@utah.edu

Bad Referees, Dirty Recruiting, Commercialization of College Football, and No One Wanting to Play the University of Utah: from the Diaries of Ernest L. Wilkinson

I’ve started a new project that requires me to read the diaries of longtime BYU President Ernest L. Wilkinson. I thought these four excerpts were interesting and funny. Wilkinson worried a lot about keeping up with the University of Utah–keep that in mind.

February 11, 1955

“In the evening attended the basketball game between the U. of U. and the B.Y.U. The paper had all predicted the U. of U. would have a comparatively easy time of it. Stan Watts, however, had devised some special strategy for the game. When the first half ended, the B.Y.U. was 10 points ahead. Near the middle of the second quarter the B.Y.U. was 15 points ahead, and then one of those unusual changes occurred, with the result that, with just four second left to go, the U. of U. made a field goal which tied the score. In the five minutes’ overtime, however, the B.Y.U. scored four points, and the U. of U. two, ending the game with a score of 76 for B.Y.U. and 74 for U. of U. It was a great upset. All admit that the B.Y.U. outplayed the U. We almost lost this game, however, through very poor foul pitching. The B.Y.U. made 56 points of field goals as compared with 44 for the U. of U.”

President [Ray A.] Olpin [the President of the University of Utah] cordially congratulated me after the game, but it was reported from many that he was vigorously complaining about the poor officiating of the officials. Ray does this so often that very few pay attention to him. His own guest at the game whispered to me that “B.Y.U. won fairly notwithstanding what Ray has to say.”

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MHA: Calls for Awards

MHA Logo

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Giselle, or the making of idols

One of my dissertation chapters deals with gender and the family as protectors of religious order, discussing how Mormon discourse contributes to the erasure of women?s voices on a local and institutional level. During my research, I read Fresh Courage Take: New Directions by Mormon Women, edited by Jamie Zvirzdin. It?s a book filled with essays by seasoned writers, and not-so-seasoned writers, traditionalists and progressives alike, and one of the essays that really struck me was ?Giselle,? written by the editor herself. 

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From the Archives: White Child Adopted by the Paiute Indians

A few weeks ago, I found an entry in the Church History Library about an Indian woman who had adopted a white child. There was almost no information about the document in the library catalog. I immediately asked for it to be digitized but questions about the location of the original document meant that it was impossible for it to put online. I eventually asked Joseph Stuart, a Ph.D. student at the University of Utah to look at it for me.

Here’s the summary he provided:

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Plato, Gender, and Eternal Marriage

Jesus said, “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage” (Matt 22:30), while Plato said in his Symposium that lovers desired Hephestus to “weld” them together so that “when [they] died, [they] would be one and not two in Hades.”[1]

Such was part of Aristophanes’s myth of the androgyn, that humans had once been androgynous pairs that the gods split into male and female, who now longed for their other half. Such lovers, when they found each other, still yearned to become one again, especially in the next life. Aristophanes then adds the following caveat: “Women who are split from a woman, however, pay no attention at all to men; they are oriented more towards women, and lesbians come from this class. People who are split from a male are male-oriented.”[2]

That is, eternal marriage is a Platonic concept, and Plato had allowances for same gender relationships.

Plato didn’t discuss eternal procreation, but in the Republic he did describe a system radically different than monogamy: shared wives and children.[3] In the Republic, the children belong to everyone, or as Plato says in the Timaeus (which begins by summarizing the Republic), “Everyone of them would believe that they all make up a single family, and that all who fall within their own age bracket are their sisters and brothers, that those who are older, who fall in an earlier bracket are their parents or grandparents, while those who fall in a later one are their children or grandchildren.”[4] Or as Mormon said, “All children are alike unto me” (Moroni 8:17).

I argue here and here that Joseph Smith sought to implement shared marriages as well: or that originally both men and women could have multiple spouses. Such sharing would make allowances for procreation by the larger group that would transcend individuals’ procreative abilities.

[1] Plato, Symposium, 190-193.

[2] Plato, Symposium, 191e.

[3] Plato, Republic, 457c-d.

[4] Plato, Timaeus, 18d.

Papers on Mormonism and Papers by JI-ers at ASCH

This week, historians from around the United States will descend upon Atlanta for the annual meeting of the American Historical Association. The American Society of Church History will meet concurrently and happens to feature a number of JI-ers and several papers related to Mormonism. You can view the rest of the schedule here. If you are in Atlanta please let us know; we always look forward to meeting online friends in “real life.”

One more thing: if you are interested in offering a short blog post for JI about one of the sessions, please let us know in the comments!

The Nineteenth-Century American Scriptural Imagination: Three Case Studies
Thursday, January 7, 2016: 1:00 PM-3:00 PM
Atlanta Marriott Marquis, International Ballroom 10

Chair: James Byrd, Vanderbilt University

Papers:
Presidential Death and the Bible: 1799, 1865, 1881
Mark A. Noll, University of Notre Dame

A Rushing Mighty Wind: Tornadic Pentecosts and Apocalypses in Nineteenth-Century America
Peter J. Thuesen, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

The Abraham Mythos and Mormon Marriage, Early and Late
Kathleen Flake, University of Virginia

Comment: Philip Goff, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

The Confluence of Race, Religion, and Society: The Subversive Politics of Racial and Religious Minorities in the Progressive Era
Friday, January 8, 2016: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
Atlanta Marriott Marquis, International Ballroom 1

Chair: Elizabeth Jemison, Clemson University

Papers:
Whiteness, Christianity, and Civilization: Western Culture at a Black University, Howard University, 1900-30
Matthew Bowman, Henderson State University

Liquor and Liberty: African American Preachers, Poll Taxes, and Anti-Prohibition in Early Twentieth Century Texas
Brendan Payne, Baylor University

The “Evil of Race Suicide Now Sweeping Like a Blight”: Eugenics and Racialized Religion in the Progressive Era
Joseph Stuart, University of Utah

Comment: Elizabeth Jemison, Clemson University

The Uses of Propaganda in American Religious History: Catholicism, Mormonism, Protestantism
Friday, January 8, 2016: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
Atlanta Marriott Marquis, International Ballroom 1

Chair: Seth Perry, Princeton University

Papers:
“So Many Foolish Virgins”: True Womanhood, Nuns, and Propaganda in Antebellum America
Cassandra Leigh Yacovazzi, University of Missouri-Columbia

Religious Outsiders and the Catholic Critique of Protestantism in America
Bradley Kime, University of Virginia

Part Serendipity, Part Strategy: The Public Image Boost of the 1936 Mormon Welfare Plan as an Exception to America’s “Religious Depression”
J. B. Haws, Brigham Young University

Comment: Seth Perry, Princeton University