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Latter-day Saint History

Historians Comment on Mormon History Association and Barbara Jones Brown

Barbara Jones Brown began her tenure as the new Executive Director of the Mormon History Association on May 1, 2018. Several of the historians she considers mentors have shared a few thoughts for an upcoming feature in the Deseret News.

The full text of comments by Rick Turley, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and Bob Goldberg are available here.

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Latter-day Saint History

Barbara Jones Brown of the Mormon History Association

Barbara Jones Brown is the new Executive Director of the Mormon History Association.

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Latter-day Saint History

Meet Latter-day Saint Historian Benjamin E. Park

Benjamin E. Park is an assistant professor of history at Sam Houston University and the author of “American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, 1783-1833.” He has also written about the political culture of Navuoo in the 1840s, and previously served as a Visiting Fellow with the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Studies at BYU.

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20th Century Latter-day Saint History

Elder McConkie’s Personal Account of the 1978 Priesthood Revelation

The 1978 priesthood revelation extended the blessings of the Melchizedek priesthood regardless of race. Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles afterward recorded his account of “a great Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit such as none of those present had ever before experienced.” Dennis B. Horne provided the following description drawn from his book, I Know He Lives: I Know He lives: How 13 Special Witnesses Came to Know Jesus Christ.

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20th Century Latter-day Saint History

Leonard Arrington: Diaries of a Latter-day Saint Historian

Leonard J. Arrington is often known as the “Father of Latter-day Saint” history. In this interview, Gary J. Bergera discusses Leonard Arrington’s journals, including the historian’s encounters with Latter-day Saint leaders like Bruce R. McConkie and Ezra Taft Benson.

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Devotional Latter-day Saint History

Meet Biographer Dennis B. Horne

Dennis B. Horne is the author of several books, including a biography of Elder Bruce R. McConkie of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Horne’s writing can also be found on sites such as The Interpreter Foundation, LDS Living, and FAIR.

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Latter-day Saint History

In Their Footsteps: Latter-day Saint Pioneers of Faith

Donald G. Godfrey shares background from his life and insights from his Brigham Young University Religious Studies book, “In Their Footsteps: Mormon Pioneers of Faith.”

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Latter-day Saint History

Mormon scholars ‘shoot for the top’ in new Oxford publication that shares 13 essays in historical context

SALT LAKE CITY — From the gold plates and the Book of Mormon to the Nauvoo Female Relief Society Leadership and Minute Book to several of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s journals and letters, the collection of 13 essays in “Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources” (Oxford University Press, $74, 448 pages) utilizes insights from the Joseph Smith Papers and a focus on historical context to more fully understand foundational texts of Mormonism.

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Latter-day Saint History

The Joseph Smith Papers: The First 10 Years

The Joseph Smith Papers recently published its 17th volume associated with the life and works of Joseph Smith. The project, which began with the work of a single individual, has grown in scope and influence over its first decade.

Along the way, the project has changed in numerous ways, overcome challenges, garnered unprecedented popularity, secured academic prestige, and set the stage for a new era of Mormon history.

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Latter-day Saint History

Meet Archivist Sharalyn Howcroft

The Joseph Smith Papers Project publishes documents from the life of Joseph Smith—but the team doesn’t collect them. Instead, the Joseph Smith Papers team uses archivists like Sharalyn Howcroft to scope out new manuscripts for inclusion in the groundbreaking academic papers project.