Learn more about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including historical findings about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and more.
SALT LAKE CITY — Barbara Jones Brown has a well-earned reputation as a gifted historian and writer, but her relationship with history had a rough beginning. In college, she was turned off by the way professors taught history and found it entirely unrelatable.
Most Latter-day Saints grew up knowing about the Comprehensive History of the Church written by B. H. Roberts. What’s not as well known is that the history is filled with errors common to the time—much like the Journal of Discourses. In this interview, Matt Grow describes how Saints is different than earlier Church histories.
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.
Barbara Jones Brown is the new Executive Director of the Mormon History Association.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.