By Steve FlemingJuly 28, 2009
As a follow up to Mary Ann Jeffries’s letter that I posted, here is a comment in a letter form Caroline Grant Smith to her brother Jedediah Grant. Grant had been the presiding elder in Philadelphia but was back in Nauvoo.
?You must know the Church one and all are vary ancious to see you. The first inquery when any of the sisters come in is when do you think Brother Grant will come? Have your had any news? What no letter yet and sutch like expressions.? [1]
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By Steve FlemingJuly 27, 2009
This is sort of a statement of contrition as well as an advertisement for the upcoming EMSA which probably none of us can make it to.
My first trip to MHA was at the end of my master’s program. My paper was on the early Mormon branches throughout North America and why we should study them.
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By Ryan T.July 26, 2009
Ben?s previous post was an effort to highlight the ?personal agenda? behind Parley Pratt?s writing of his Autobiography. He outlined two chief forces behind its production: Parley?s desires (conscious or not) to relive and revive his preeminent influence in the Church, and to give a revisionist account of its history more favorable and forgiving to himself. To those two well-reasoned general motives, I would like to add a third fundamental impetus ? one that was relatively unique to Parley as an individual.
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By StanJuly 26, 2009
Freedom was closed the day I visited. A pity: I was curious to see what it was all about.
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By Steve FlemingJuly 24, 2009
So in my ever-stewing never-ending revisions of my work on Mormonism in the Philadelphia area, I’ve decided that I need to say more about women. This is a challenge since my sources are overwhelmingly written by men. I do have some detailed journals that I can mine better than I have though.
Anyway, up at the archives the other day and I came across another letter from a woman in the area (making a total of 5 letters by women in all).
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By Edje JeterJuly 24, 2009
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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By Jared TJuly 24, 2009
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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By David G.July 23, 2009
After months of anticipation, the JI’s Christopher has successfully completed his MA thesis at BYU. The thesis examines the influence of Methodism on early Mormon history, and will doubtless be a valuable contribution. It is available on-line here and I’ve reproduced the abstract after the jump:
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By Ben PJuly 23, 2009
[This is the first post of the “Perspectives on Parley Pratt’s Autobiography” Series]
The details behind the writing (compilation?) of the Autobiography will be detailed in Matt Grow’s post next week. This post, however, focuses on Parley’s motivation behind the book. I argue that the text was written for two central reasons, beyond the obvious reason of providing the Saints with a first-hand account of the Church’s early history.
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By Jared TJuly 22, 2009
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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