Hemming Village: Val and Alice Hemming and Memorializing Mormon Women’s History in Public Spaces

In yesterday?s post, “Eliza R. Snow as Dorm Mother and Concert Master” here, I wrote about the challenges faced when institutions fall short of representing their female members? historical presence, and how the limited efforts of BYU and BYU-Idaho have tried to meet those challenges in sometimes interesting ways, but have often fallen short. In contrast, I have also found an example, right here in Rexburg, Idaho, of how private individuals, families, or businesses, when equipped with adequate resources and far-sighted motives, can advance the purposes of public history, choosing to represent the contributions of women and other underrepresented groups in ways that tradition-bound institutions might not.

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Eliza R. Snow as Dorm Mother and Concert Master: Memorializing Mormon Women In Campus Spaces

One trip through Rexburg, Idaho, or any amount of time spent there, reminds visitors of the methods of honoring the institutional, religious, and pioneering heritage of western settlements, in ways that often emphasize the prominence of male actors in that history, and the absence, or lesser importance, of female actors.

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Youth Trek, Public History, and Becoming “Pioneer Children” in the Digital Age

In 2009 our stake organized its first trek for youth conference and put it into the regular rotation for youth conference planning. So 4 years later, we repeated the event this summer with roughly the same itinerary and logistics and presumably will keep it going in future years as well. Now, you may know that I live in New England, not in the Wasatch front region or along anything remotely resembling a traditional handcart route. Treks outside the historical landscape of the handcart companies have become commonplace: unusual enough to generate local news coverage, but frequent enough that a whole subculture has sprung up to support and celebrate it. With some similarities to Civil War reenactment in its emphasis on costuming, role play and historical storytelling, youth trek evokes and romanticizes selected aspects of the Mormon past to cement LDS identity and build youth testimony and unity. It is a unique (and, I?m arguing, actually very recent) form of LDS public history.

I?ve now attended and had a hand in planning both of the treks our stake conducted, so I?m of two minds about the whole experience. A double-consciousness, if you will.

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Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture,

For those of you not familiar with it, the Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture, headquartered at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), is a leading “research and public outreach institute that supports the ongoing scholarly discussion of the nature, terms, and dynamics of religion in America.” Among others things, they sponsor and host academic conferences, publish the bianual Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation, and host a seminar for Young Scholars in American Religion (whose roster of mentors and seminarians reads like a who’s who of the best and brightest in the field).  

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Bringing Jane Manning James into the 21st Century

Note: It is a pleasure to have Margaret Blair Young contribute to JI’s monthlong series on issues of Race and Mormonism. Margaret Blair Young has written extensively on Blacks in the western USA and particilarly Black Latter-day Saints.  Much of her work has been co-authored with Darius Gray.  She authored I Am Jane.

The first staged reading of I Am Jane was on the Nelke theater stage at BYU.  It was the climax of a playwriting class, and met some deserved criticism.  It was, as I recall, about 120 pages.  Too many words.  The first draft I wrote used a clichéd convention: rebellious teenager dreams about/ learns about/ re-enacts the life of a heroic ancestor and gains self-respect and courage.  But such a play is more about the teen than the character whose life I wanted to explore.  And I was researching it even as I was scripting the play.

After I had chiseled away at the script, I thought it ready for its debut, which happened on March 5^th, 2000.  The play was that month?s Genesis meeting.  There was no stage, so we threw a blanket over a trellis to suggest a covered wagon, used the sacrament table for Jane?s death bed, and the clerk?s table for other scenes.

I knew there was more sculpting to do, and revised several times before our performances in Springville?s Villa Theater.  During that two-week run, I played Lucy Mack Smith, who let Jane handle a bundle purportedly containing the Urim and Thummin. (This is according to Jane?s life story, which she dictated near the end of her life.)

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Guest post: Edward Blum, “On Mormon Racism: A Response to John Turner”

Edward Blum is associate professor of history at San Diego State University. He is the author of Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898 (2005), W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet (2007), and most recently, co-author (with Paul Harvey) of The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America (2012), which will be available next month. He is the co-editor (with Paul Harvey) of The Columbia Guide to Religion in American History (2012), (with Jason R. Young) The Souls of W. E. B. Du Bois: New Essays and Reflections (2009), and (with W. Scott Poole) Vale of Tears: New Essays on Religion and Reconstruction (2005). Ed also blogs at Religion in American History and Teaching United States History.

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In this so-called “Mormon moment,” everything about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seems to be getting attention. With newfound notoriety, media outlets have paid increasing attention to scholars far and wide. Jon Stewart featured Joanna Brooks and her memoir The Book of Mormon Girl on The Daily Show, while The New Yorker reviewed an assortment of books about Mormonism (from wonderful scholars, including Matthew Bowman, Spencer Fluhman, and John Turner). Businessweek ran a controversial story (and image) on how “Mormons Make Money.” In many ways, it is good to be a writer on Mormonism in these latter-days.

Amid the laughs and the groans, the thorny issue of race has started to become prominent in some of the discussions. The Daily Beast and The Atlantic ran stories on links among Mormonism, race, politics, and imagery, while the New York Times this past weekend printed John Turner’s op-ed piece “Why Race is Still a Problem for Mormons.” As a scholar of race and religion in the United States (and not as a scholar distinctly of Mormonism), I wanted to reflect on Turner’s essay and perhaps provide some twists.

On one hand, Turner’s op-ed piece builds upon his forthcoming biography of Brigham Young, a work I have read, enjoyed, recommend, and reviewed for The Christian Century (not sure when it will be out). One of the fascinating elements of his book is how and when Turner places Young and early Mormonism in the context of other trends and norms of nineteenth-century American Protestantism and evangelicalism. If Jan Shipps was dedicated to showing how Mormonism was to American Protestantism as early Christianity was to ancient Judaism, Turner wants to show how nineteenth-century Mormons were and were not a part of the broader society. This is the basic element of his New York Times essay–that Mormons have a history of racism and racial segregation, but one that is quite similar to other white Christians. As he writes, “Mormons have no reason to feel unusually ashamed of their church’s past racial restrictions, except maybe for their duration. Their church, like most white American churches, was entangled in a deeply entrenched national sin.”

There are three points about this approach that trouble me. First, it flattens American religious history and the relationships between race and religion. Second, it sounds strange when put in comparison. And third, it neglects the crucial importance of theology (and theological particularity) within Mormonism. (I want to stop here and say that I recognize Turner’s essay was an op-ed and can only be so nuanced; I also want to reiterate that I am a fan of his work and am making these points to broaden discussions, not to attack his scholarship in any way).

First, when I say that Turner’s claim flattens out history, I mean that it does not take into account that race in American churches has been wildly complex, contested, and changed over time. To simply say that white churches have been racist or parts of America’s racism is to miss so much. Nineteenth-century churches and denominations split over the problems of slavery. Many white Christians joined crusades to improve the lives of African Americans, some of which were even willing to be counted as “Negro” so that other whites did not disturb them. (I detail lots of this in my first book, Reforging the White Republic). Some white churches and colleges had study groups that read W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folks, while some revivalists (like Dwight Moody) agonized over what was right with regards to segregation. Blanket statements about race and religion just cannot be made.

But even more, Turner’s comparison renders Mormon history flat. As we already know from Newell Bringhurst’s exquisite work, early Mormon attacks on slavery were not necessarily pro-black statements. And changing contexts altered meanings. When LDS writers attacked education for African Americans during Reconstruction, it was not simply because of white supremacy. It was also because they (Mormons) were being legislated against. LDS leaders were appalled that the federal government was supporting rights for former slaves while hindering rights for Mormons. Then throughout the twentieth century, new Mormon art dramatically whitened and masculinized Christ at the same time some of its leaders expressed frustration  with George Romney for supporting civil rights marches. Race, even among Mormons, has never been stagnate, because the structures and cultures keep changing.

Second, for a scholar to simply claim that Mormonism’s white supremacy was just part of the broad context of nineteenth and twentieth-century America sounds strange if we put it into comparison with, say, scholarship on patriarchal sentiments among African American leaders in the early twentieth century. Over the past ten years, African American historians have gone to great lengths to study and expose the misogynistic and patriarchal elements of African American leadership (in church and outside of it). Barbara Savage and Kevin Gaines, for instance, have shown the gendered elements of black culture, society, and church lives. To my knowledge, no scholar has tried to give W. E. B. Du Bois, or Booker T. Washington, or Benjamin Mays a pass for this because patriarchy was the norm.

In large part, scholars of African American history do not give these fellows a pass because they were the ones confronting oppression. They were the ones who knew what it meant to be singled out and hated for perceived differences. They were the ones to be innovative, to think outside of the box, to question that which seemed unquestionable. So, the logic goes, they could have stood against patriarchy if they wanted. Why shouldn’t the same approach hold to studying Mormonism?

Many scholars of Mormonism have focused on the terrible experiences early Mormons had, and for good reason. They were attacked; they were forcibly exiled; they were maligned politically. They were mocked culturally. The prophet was assassinated. So why, when it comes to race, did Brigham Young advocate execution for anyone who married an African American? And what does it mean for the flagship university of a faith tradition to bear the name of that individual? Why did early Mormons not look at African Americans and say “we welcome you, downtrodden like us?” It is not because early Mormons did not have the intellectual capacity or imagination to do so–it is because sacred disclosures (to them) said not to, and “not to” in old and new ways.

Since Mormonism taught so many new customs, mores, texts, and ideas (many of which are beautiful and full of the respect for abundant life), why was anti-black white supremacy so vital? (and, of course, their positions on people of African descent different dramatically from other people groups) Instead of avoiding the question, we should look into the particularities. One particularity brings sheds light on an important distinction of Mormon theology: its emphasis on corporeality and the anthropomorphized sacred. Unlike many nineteenth-century Protestants who wanted to avoid from the body (in spiritualism, for instance), Mormonism moved the body to center stage. God has a body. Jesus had and has a body. Early Mormon doctrine dissolved the supposed separation between body and soul that many Christians had tried to make. And when they linked physical bodies to spiritual essences, they participated in the long and tangled history that Paul Harvey and I detail in The Color of Christ, which is basically a book about how race and religion get woven together in America from 1500 to the present.

This is what makes race so important to talking about Mormon history and Mormonism. Not because anyone should label Mormons as “racists” or not; not because they segregated the priesthood. Race matters, in part, because Mormonism’s conceptions of the body collided historically with American obsessions with defining and categorizing bodies, with uniting them and separating them, and with representing holy celestial bodies among moral humanity. This is why the physicality of Jesus in John Scott’s “Jesus Christ Visits the Americas” matters (and it does not just replicate other art, and its’ place in LDS Bibles is important as well) To respect Mormons and Mormon history is not to avoid any of these issues or to shoo them away. Instead, we should dive deeply into them so that we can all understand the faith and the church in the broader sweeps of time and space.

“Linking One Generation to Another”: Dedicating the “This is the Place” Monument, 1947

At 6 a.m. on July 24, 1947, the centennial of the Mormon Pioneers’ entrance into the Salt Lake Valley, the first spectators arrived at the mouth of Emigration Canyon, Utah. By mid-morning, perhaps ten thousand cars were parked over several square miles, with as many as fifty thousand attendees waiting for the festivities to begin. They had gathered to witness the dedication of the sixty-foot tall ?This is the Place? Monument, which would honor not only the Latter-day Saint Pioneers, but also the Spanish, British, and American forerunners who had laid a foundation for the Mormon settlement of the Great Basin. At 9:30, the Boy Scouts raised the American and Utah state flags, while the U.S. Marines band from San Diego, California, began playing ?America.? Church President George Albert Smith, as master of ceremonies, introduced the program and delivered the dedicatory prayer. Speakers included J. Rueben Clark and David O. McKay, Smith’s counselors in the First Presidency; the Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, bishop of the Salt Lake Catholic Diocese; Rt. Rev. Arthur W. Moulton, retired Episcopalian bishop of Utah; and Rabbi Alvin S. Luchs of Temple B’Nai Israel, all of whom were members of the monument commission. The dedication marked an important occasion in what Laurie Maffly-Kipp has called the ?Long Approach to the Mormon Moment,?as Latter-day Saints sought to claim a prominent place both in the present and the past of the American nation.

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Introducing: Dictionary of Mormon Biography

I want to start off this post by thanking you for your kindness since my first post. The feedback and general excitement I received via comments and email was palpable and kind of amazing.

The announcement I am now making is closely related to my work on the Saints of Alberta Project (SAP), which is still taking shape thanks to your comments. The Dictionary of Mormon Biography (DMB) is a new site, which will shortly become a platform like unto a Wikipedia, for Mormon biography. Currently, the site is a mockup of the kind of database I’d like to and am assembling though the next iteration will run on a similar software to Wikipedia: Semantic Mediawiki.

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Alberta Saints and Digital Ephemera

I have been a student of Mormon history for over a decade now and have also been an active participant of the Web since I was a young man. I rolled with the revolutions of HTML, GIFs, Flash, web standards, and ?HTML5? more recently. These two worlds, Mormon history and the Web, have increasingly been gravitating toward and colliding into each other, inevitably spilling out new galaxies of information [1]. This makes me a chipper boy in the 21st century, an age of expanding data, information, knowledge, and wisdom.

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Our Modest Proposal for BYU Women’s Conference: A Mo-TED Talk on Female Ritual Healing

This post co-authored by JI contributors Tona H and J. Stapley

We’ve been thinking…

Each spring, more than 14,000 women converge on the BYU campus for Women?s Conference. The annual 2-day event is cosponsored by BYU and the Relief Society, and it has a remarkable influence among its physical attendees, amplified by the larger sessions being broadcast on BYU-TV and because Deseret Book issues a ?greatest hits? compilation volume of talks from the conference each year. Given its quasi-official status, alongside Deseret Book’s touring production of regional women?s retreats, ?Time Out for Women,? BYU Women?s Conference provides an important venue for devotional talks by and about women?s experiences in the Church. Many LDS women see both as ?approved? forums and use them as a spiritual retreat.

However, BYU Women?s Conference is more like a business conference/trade show than an academic conference. Which got us wondering…

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