Joseph Smith Journals

John Turner

One of the great frustrations and blessings of Mormon History is operating within a remarkably deep well of sources and evidence. Thus, new discoveries regularly remind one of one's own relative ignorance. Depending on the day, I refer to this as the curse or blessing of D&C 21:1 ("Behold, there shall be a record kept among you..."), which adorns the wall above the entrance into the Church History Library in Salt Lake City.

Recently, the Church History Department published the second of three annotated volumes of journals kept by Joseph Smith, his clerks, and -- in this case -- Eliza R. Snow, a teacher living in Smith's home who became one of the prophet's plural wives in June 1842.

Much of the discussion of this volume has centered around Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy, first firmly documented with his marriage to Louisa Beaman (one of my favorite women in LDS History) in April 1841. That marriage came slightly before the first journal in this volume; Smith married approximately fifteen additional women by April 1843, when this volume ends. The pages of Smiths' journals provide precious little information about these marriages, but the subject comprises the heart of the editors' introduction to this volume. Those pages do not constitute what most scholars would consider a frank examination of polygamy, but they do affirm that some of the marriages were consummated and that some of the women involved were already married. Most notably, the editors document that Smith married Marinda Hyde, already the wife of Mormon apostle Orson Hyde. The editors (Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Richard Lloyd Anderson) conclude that the "polyandrous marriages ... were primarily a means of binding other families to his [Smith's] for the spiritual benefit and mutual salvation of all involved." While Smith's practice of plural marriage certainly involved more than lust and sex, in my mind that conclusion (which rests on Richard Bushman's analysis in Rough Stone Rolling) reaches beyond the very fragmentary and contested evidence. Despite a small mountain of scholarship on Mormon polygamy, we know relatively little about how most of its earliest practitioners -- including Joseph Smith -- understood it at the time.

Readers interested in such matters can readily find full treatments elsewhere. The value of this volume lies in the journals themselves, the annotations, and the remaining scholarly apparatus. All reflect the resources and talent that the Church History Department continues to devote to this venture.

I was quickly struck by the passage for December 27, 1841: "Joseph. was with. Brigham [Young], Heber C [Kimball], Willard [Richards]. & John [Taylor] of the twelve, at his office. instructing them in the principles of the kingdom." The annotation for that sentence references Wilford Woodruff's journal: "I had the privilege of seeing for the first time in my day the URIM & THUMMIM," the seer stones that Joseph Smith used during his translation of the Book of Mormon. I had never put those passages together, but I found it noteworthy that Brigham Young probably saw them for the first time on that date as well. Any student of Mormon History will encounter such nuggets throughout the volume.

The chronology, outstanding maps, biographical directory, complex charts of church officers, and bibliography will all also be of great use to anyone active in Mormon Studies. Any instructor with students who might write research papers on Mormon topics should have their libraries buy the (not inexpensive) volumes of the JSP. At this point, it is frustrating not to have access to the index, but it evidently will be available on the JSP website in teh near future. The JSP website also has a number of high-resolution scans of sources available on its website.

Mormonism's Apostle Paul

John G. Turner

In May 1857, a jilted husband found the man who had taken his wife and children. After tracking him to western Arkansas, he organized a posse to cut off his escape, followed him into a thicket of trees, pulled him from his horse, and stabbed him repeatedly near his heart. Hector McLean left to fetch a gun, returned, and shot Mormon apostle Parley P. Pratt in the neck.

Terryl Givens and Matt Grow's new The Apostle Paul of Mormonism tells the often dramatic story of Pratt's tumultuous fifty years. Shortly after deciding to become a Campbellite minister, Pratt encountered the Book of Mormon, read it, and believed. As the title suggests, the authors emphasize Pratt's missionary travels and writings. In the nineteenth century, Mormons leaders often recommended Pratt's 1837 Voice of Warning to inquirers as an introduction to the Mormon faith. As they follow Pratt across the United States and to England and Chile, co-authors Givens and Grow provide an accessible and colorful introduction to the first quarter-century of Mormon history, theology, and missions.

The book has many virtues. For a co-authored book, the narrative is seamless, though one can appreciate Givens's typically lucid exposition of the early evolution of Mormon theology. I am also impressed with their discussion of Parley's experience with plural marriage. Over the past fifteen years of Pratt's life, polygamy brought repeated bouts of estrangement and conflict. For instance, the widowed Pratt's second wife Mary Ann ultimately chose to be sealed by proxy to Joseph Smith for eternity in the Nauvoo Temple. In that same venue, Parley's own brother Orson Pratt accused him of adultery, a charge later repeated by Brigham Young in relation to unauthorized plural marriages. Regularly dispatched by Young on missions, Pratt endured considerable poverty and years of separation from his family.

Those looking for an entry point into Mormon History for themselves or their students should give this volume serious consideration. Pratt stands alongside Joseph Smith as a formative influence on key developments within Mormon theology, and he is at the center of struggles between "Many Mormonisms" (as the authors put it) after Smith's 1844 murder. The authors also took the care (and expense) to obtain a series of very helpful maps to accompany the narrative.

I've long found the furor over Pratt's murder fascinating. His murder sparked a mixture of outrage (mostly in Utah) and justification (in the rest of the country) in 1857. Historians debate its contribution to the ensuing Utah War and the September 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre (compare Ron Walker, et al., Massacre at Mountain Meadows and Will Bagley's Blood of the Prophets on those points). Givens and Grow point to the newspaper coverage of Pratt's violent death as a demonstration of "the profound depths to which American opinion of Mormonism had plummeted in the wake of plural marriage and the tumult over governance in Utah." That is no doubt true. Americans would probably have approved of Hector McLean's actions had his victim not been a Mormon apostle, but Parley's religion made his death a national story, and the circumstances of the case gave anti-Mormons considerable fodder.

I hardly think Pratt deserved to be stabbed and shot for his marriage to Eleanor McLean, who saw in Mormonism (among other things) a way to escape from an abusive marriage. But it's not surprising that many Americans concluded that Pratt deserved his bloody fate. "[A] man ought to be ashamed of himself," the Nauvoo Neighbor had quipped in 1843, "to run away with another man's wife, when there are so many maiden ladies with their trunks all packed ready for a start!" Mormon apostle George A. Smith had argued that "mountain common law" gave husbands the moral right to kill men who slept with their wives. The Utah territorial legislature codified such justifiable homicides in 1852 when it provided immunity for husbands to kill "in a sudden heat of passion caused by the attempt of any such offender to commit a rape upon his wife, daughter, sister, mother, or other female relation or dependent ... or when the defilement has actually been committed." In Texas, for instance, a cuckolded husband could kill his wife's "ravisher ... at any time before he has escaped from the presence of his victim." Unlike George A. Smith's comment, neither of those laws suggested that a man could act with McLean's level of premeditation. Across the country, though, juries in a series of high-profile murder cases in the 1850s and 1860s used an "unwritten law" to extend that privilege to include premeditation. [See Hendrik Hartog, "Lawyering, Husbands' Rights, and 'the Unwritten Law' in Nineteenth-Century America," Journal of American History 84 (June 1997): 67-96]. In keeping with such conventions, Americans justified Parley's murder. While he lay dying, Pratt insisted that he hadn't stolen another man's wife. "[T]hey were oppressed," he said, "and I did for them what I would do for the oppressed anywhere." McLean defended his actions with pride and enjoyed his moment of fame. "I look upon it as the best act of my life," he stated. Neither Hector McLean nor Parley Pratt regretted their actions.

From Prize-Winning Dissertation to...

Today I received a copy of Darren Dochuk's long-awaited From Bible Belt to Sunbelt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (Norton).

The book's amazon.com release date is December 13, just in time to find its places under the Christmas trees of RiAH blog readers.

Winner of the Allan Nevins Prize as a dissertation, Darren's book is an erudite and persuasive account of how southern evangelical migrants transformed California's culture and politics.

"Rather than an invention of Falwell and Robertson's Religious Right," he argues, "evangelicalism's politicization was a product of an earlier time made possible by an earlier generation, a generation that came of age on the West Coast during Roosevelt's time, not Reagan's." Until recent years, historians have paid relatively little attention to what one might call the pre-history of the Religious Right. That, however, is no longer the case, as books ranging from Lisa McGirr's Suburban Warriors, Dan Williams's God's Own Party to Bethany Moreton's To Serve God and Wal-Mart all provide careful analysis of how evangelicals gradually came to embrace conservative politics and free-market capitalism. Darren's book is a thorough culmination of this trend.

From Bible Belt to Sunbelt explores the religious and political interchange between the South and Southern California from the 1930s through 1980. "Jeffersonian Democratic" migrants quickly opposed California's version of the New Deal Coalition, constructed their own subculture of schools and organizations, and eventually helped propel Ronald Reagan to the presidency.

Several aspects of Darren's book thoroughly impress me. First, he very sensitively -- without a trace of scholarly condescension -- includes the voices of "plain folk," many of whom he interviewed for the book. Second, Darren mines untapped and rich veins of archival sources. Few historians have visited both the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Pat Boone Headquarters. He also gained access to the private records of many southern California churches. Finally, the book benefits greatly from Darren's clear and eloquent prose. Both specialists and students will find From Bible Belt to Sunbelt engaging and thought-provoking.

Buy it, read it, assign it.