Women in the Academy: Naomi Watkins

Naomi Watkins is an assistant professor in the Department of Education and Teacher Development at the University of La Verne, which is located in the Los Angeles area. She conducts research in adolescent literacy and children?s literature and teaches literacy pedagogy courses to teacher credential students. In June of 2013, she co-founded Aspiring Mormon Women, a non-profit organization and web site with the purpose to encourage, support, and celebrate the educational and professional aspirations of LDS women. 

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Measuring Scholarship: The Size and Shape of Books

Forgive this post for being more of a smattering of ideas than a cohesive analysis. I’ve recently been considering the size and importance of books, both in the academic field of history in general and Mormon studies in particular. This reconsideration was inspired by an essay in Perspectives on History, the magazine for the American Historical Association. (I strongly recommend reading it before reading this post.)

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Girls Go Scouting: the Bee-Hive Girls and Pioneer Girls

As part of our monthly series on childhood and youth, I asked a colleague from Michigan State University Rebecca A. Koerselman to co-author a post with me. Rebecca received her Ph.D. in history from MSU where she wrote her dissertation on the construction of evangelical identity through youth and summer camps in the post world war II era. Now she lives in Shawnee, OK where she teaches in the history department at Oklahoma Baptist University and in her words ?lives the dream.?  Over the years, we have had many conversations about how Evangelical and Mormon adults, despite religious differences, had similar concerns and reactions to fears about how each group?s youngest members would subsume and maintain their religious identities, and, in turn, guarantee the future of these religious traditions.

One specific way that both Mormons and Evangelicals[1] contended with their fears about the maintenance of their religion through the next generations was to offer wholesome leisure and recreation opportunities for young children. These programs were usually tailored toward the assumed specific needs of each gender. For the purposes of this blog post, we will examine the development of scouting oriented programs for young women.  A comparative examination of the ways that Mormons and Evangelicals encouraged appropriation of proper gender roles through these scouting programs reveals how each religious tradition attempted to achieve the same goal of engaging their youngest adherents. Adult religious leaders did not just promote and develop their own youth programs as a means of offering wholesome entertainment, but they believed that these programs were vital toward the perpetuation of new generations of believers.

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Mormon-themed Aphrodisiacs, Part 4 of 4: Masculinity and Orientalization

Note: this post discusses sexual activity in general and erectile dysfunction in particular, though mostly with nineteenth-century language.

Over the past few weeks I?ve looked briefly at the advertising and relative persistence of Mormon-themed aphrodisiacs. Today, in this concluding installment, I want to look at how such chemicals and advertisements fit within broader contexts. I did not succeed in turning it into an essay/blog-post, so it?s just a list. 

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Review of Kenneth Alford’s Civil War Saints

Kenneth L. Alford, ed.  Civil War Saints.  Provo, UT:  Religious Studies Center (BYU), 2012.  xxxiii + 569 pp.  Hardcover $31.99.  ISBN 978-0-8425-2816-0.

I have contributed here a thorough and lengthy discussion of this book; if you would like just the highlights, please read my first and last paragraphs below.  –NRR

As America continues its commemoration of the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War, it is fitting that at least one new book should come out examining the connections between Latter-day Saints and the war.  Kenneth Alford aims in this edited volume to update and add to the small body of literature surrounding Mormons, the Utah Territory, and the Civil War.[1] While he falls short of creating a one-volume comprehensive treatment of the subject, he and his co-contributors have explored important, previously-uncharted territory that make this book an important addition to any Mormon or Civil War History enthusiast?s library.

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On the Necessity of Interpretation: Three Examples

It is a truth universally (I think) acknowledged among academically-trained historians that all documents must be ?situated historically.? That is, we must interpret the words (and other aspects of an artifact) in light of the original audience, provenance, language of the time, potential knowledge of the creator, and so on. Of course, reasonable professionals may disagree about the type and degree of interpretation necessary for a given document, but I believe there is wide consensus on the idea that no document or artifact can speak entirely for itself. Students, however, do not always readily accept the necessity. In the interest of helping such students, I give three examples of artifacts that require historical interpretation.

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Position Opening: MHA Executive Director

 
The Mormon History Association is seeking qualified applicants for the independent-contractor position(s) of Executive Director/Business Manager. The position(s) may be best filled by two people, one of whom serves primarily as Business Manager. The Executive Director/Business Manager serve as officers and members of the MHA Board of Directors. The term is for three years, may be renewed, and begins in early 2014.

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Monthly Theme: Childhood, Children, and Youth

“The Family: A Proclamation to the World” the statement released by the church in September of 1995 declares that ?Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. ?Children are an heritage of the Lord? (Psalm 127:3). Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives?mothers and fathers?will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.? These words first read aloud in September of 1995 by church president Gordon B. Hinckley were another powerful iteration among many since the church?s early days that reaffirmed the theological and cultural significance of children within Mormonism.

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Mormon-themed Aphrodisiacs, Part 3 of 4: Advertising Strategies

Note: this post discusses sexual activity in general and erectile dysfunction in particular, though mostly with nineteenth-century language.

In this week?s post I want to look briefly at the marketing for Franklin Bosworth Crouch?s Mormon Elders? Damiana Wafer. To start, I think I should emphasize that to late 1800s non-Mormons, the ?Mormon Elder? in ?Mormon Elders? Damiana Wafer? almost certainly evoked a caricatured church leader—an old man with a long beard and many, younger wives—rather than the typically young-adult ?Elder? of today . [1] So… why name a drug for erectile dysfunction after religious leaders stereotyped as creepy old men? [2]

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“No Race Suicide in Utah:” Eugenics, Race, and a 1907 Postcard

This is a guest post by Cassandra Clark, a PhD student at the University of Utah whose work focuses on how religious communities thought about religious discourse and race.  Cassandra is the mother two lovely daughters – both of whom bear the names of Presidents!.  She also attended the University of Northern Colorado where she earned a MA in history and teaches courses at the community college in Salt Lake.

Filed away in the archives of the Church History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are two copies of a 1907 postcard with the by-line, ?No Race Suicide in Utah!?[1]  The scene printed on the postcard depicts an old bearded gentleman, decked out in a black suit and top hat, carrying a baby on each arm with eight children following him.  Each child is adorned in brightly colored dress, and several of them hold toys while two clutch balloon strings.   The artist, identified as C.R. Miller, printed ?No Race Suicide in Utah!? in all capital letters on one fourth of the top right hand corner of the card.

As I held this postcard in my hands, I realized that this one piece of material culture provided a physical representation of the conclusions I drew about Mormon involvement in the American eugenics movement.  The eugenics movement, or the scientific program pioneered by Charles Darwin?s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, encompassed two main objectives. First, the promotion of ?positive eugenics,? or the proliferation of the ?white? race by emulating Victorian gender roles and large family sizes, and second, ?negative eugenics,? or the sterilization of all people deemed ?unfit? because of their lifestyles and economic status.[2] For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in the midst of the American West, eugenics became a vehicle

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