With his call as official LDS Church Historian in 1972, Leonard J. Arrington was given a mandate to professionalize its historical publications. Arrington’s team was prolific and its output impressive, but before long, they encountered opposition from a few members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and church bureaucrats. Signature Books’s long awaited, 2,600-page …
Speaker: Gary James Bergera
To Redact, or Not to Redact? That Is the Question: The George Q Cannon Journals
This panel will discuss the release of the George Q Cannon Journals and the redactions made by the Church Historian’s Press when publishing the journals online. A press release stated in part: “some passages of the original journal will be withheld in accordance with policies of the Church History Library to redact sacred, private, and …
STUDENT POLITICAL ACTIVISM AT BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY, 1965-1971
On 11 May 1970, Ernest L. Wilkinson stated, “There is certainly a spirit of unrest throughout the country and while it is manifest only slightly at the BYU it is nevertheless manifested here.” Student political activism at BYU during the late 1960s to early 1970s was, like student activism elsewhere, as much a function of …
SL09273 Panel: Community of Christ Principles of Church History: A Turning Point and a Good Example?
Unlike the Community of Christ, the LDS Church has no formally defined history principles, but it does have fairly clear positions enunciated by officials on various levels toward various historical events and attitudes. This panel discusses the origins and implementation of these nine principles in the Community of Christ with particular attention to the questions: …
Love, Sex, And Transgression: Approaching The Unapproachable In Mormon Biography
Treating episodes of sexual transgression in the lives of Church leaders is necessary if we harbor any hope of realizing truthful, hence faithful, biographies. This presentation explores reasons for approaching such unapproachable subjects with examples from the lives of four Church officials, including Albert Carrington and Richard R. Lyman. Gary James Bergera
David O. McKay And The Rise Of Modern Mormonism By Gregory A. Prince
In September 2004, with a presidential election approaching, the state of Utah was prepared to declare itself “Bush Country.” However, this conservative calm was jolted when Utah Valley State College student leaders announced that they had invited liberal filmmaker Michael Moore to speak at their campus. An explosion of outrage tore the community apart, and …
GLIMPSES INTO THE PAST: EDITING MORMON DIARIES
Journal, diaries, and memoirs can offer the most intimate glimpses into the lives of those who have long since died. Yet they are limited to only one perspective and are hardly the final word on a subject’s life. How can diaries help shine light in dark places, helping to illuminate the past? What are their …
Author Meets Critics: Conflict in the Quorum: Orson Pratt, Brigham Young, Joseph Smith
SL03091, This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the March on Washington, at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and the thirty-fifth anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. It also marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the revelation reversing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ policy of …
‘Illicit Intercourse,’ Plural Marriage, and the Nauvoo Stake High Council, 1840–44
SL03091, This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the March on Washington, at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, and the thirty-fifth anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination. It also marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the revelation reversing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ policy of …
Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise
Originally commissioned as part of the sixteen-volume sesquicentennial series on Church history, and thirty years in the making, Glen Leonard’s highly anticipated history of Nauvoo has finally arrived. This panel of historians and careful readers will discuss this book and its contribution to our understanding of this pivotal time in Mormon history. Devery S. Anderson, …