American Zion: A New History of Mormonism

Antedating the earliest known usage of a word has the potential to reconfigure our understanding of its origins and relationship to morphologically related words, as well as its place in the cultural moment where it emerged. In this paper we explore the value of antedating by comparing the history of the lexeme Mormon (and related terms) as it is first attested in the Oxford English Dictionary to the account suggested by our own work on the history of Mormon (noun and adjective), Mormonism, Mormonite, and Mormon Bible. We suggest that the name Mormon, with its non-transparent reference for most early nineteenth-century speakers, expands from the title Book of Mormon to refer to the Mormon phenomenon in general, and is then derived morphologically to Mormonism and Mormonite. Meanwhile, the nickname Mormon Bible (for the Book of Mormon) sets up Mormon to shift into adjectival usage, and thence to its use as a noun. This more nuanced assessment of these words' earliest histories allows us a richer perspective on the way that these elements of the language have intersected with American history and culture.

Challenges and Solutions for Global Mormon History

No one is better qualified to comment on the state of Mormon history than Jan Shipps. Not only has she been an observer of the Mormon historiographical scene for half a cen tury; she has been one of the most vigorous and influential participants. Her Mormonism broke new ground in the conceptualization of the Mormon past. I meant it when I said for the dust jacket: This may be the most brilliant book ever written on Mormonism. She is to be believed when she says Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling stands squarely in the tradition of the new Mormon history.1 Shipps did not have the space to say more about the book's place in the other major current in Mormon intellectual life: apologetics. She knows full well the major role played by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (farms, now absorbed into the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship) at Brigham Young Univer sity, whose mission is to demonstrate the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon and to defend the faith wherever it is attacked. Like farms, the Foundation for Apolo getic Information and Research (fair), an independent organization comprising zealous amateurs and professional academics, sponsors conferences, runs a Web site, and tries to answer virtually every criticism of Mormon claims.2 In addition to these insitutionalized operations, scores of Mormon writers and thinkers collect evidence in support of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Situating Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rollingin the Mor mon apologetic tradition may serve to round out Shipps's illuminating analysis of the book's location in the new Mormon history. One might expect Mormon apologetics to be closely linked to the new Mormon his tory: both focus on the history of Joseph Smith. Mormon apologists seek to authenticate the miraculous beginnings of Mormonism; the new Mormon history recounts that story along with everything else that happened in Mormonism over the century and three quarters of its existence. As has been frequently observed, Mormonism is less a set of doc trines than a collection of stories. Apologetics and history writing necessarily overlap. In reality, however, the two developed in quite different environments with quite dif ferent outcomes. In her opening sentence, Shipps describes the cultural circumstance from which the new Mormon history emerged. It came about just as Mormonism itself was moving in from the margins to find a place on the American religious landscape as

Research Article| April 01 2012 Mormon History and "Lived Religion" Ryan G. Tobler Ryan G. Tobler Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Mormon History (2012) 38 (2): 119–125. https://doi.org/10.2307/23292757 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Ryan G. Tobler; Mormon History and "Lived Religion". Journal of Mormon History 1 January 2012; 38 (2): 119–125. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/23292757 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of Mormon History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2012 Mormon History Association2012 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| July 01 2018 The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History Matthew J. Grow and R. Eric Smith, eds. The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017. xvi + 201 pp. Index. Cloth: $21.00. David Golding David Golding DAVID GOLDING is a historian in the Publications Division of the LDS Church History Department. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Mormon History (2018) 44 (3): 150–152. https://doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.44.3.0150 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation David Golding; The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History. Journal of Mormon History 1 July 2018; 44 (3): 150–152. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.44.3.0150 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of Mormon History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2018 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Book Review| January 01 2012 Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore, W. Paul Reeve and Michael Scott Van Wagenen. BRANDON JOHNSON BRANDON JOHNSON Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Utah Historical Quarterly (2012) 80 (1): 98–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/45063383 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation BRANDON JOHNSON; Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore. Utah Historical Quarterly 1 January 2012; 80 (1): 98–99. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/45063383 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressUtah Historical Quarterly Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © COPYRIGHT 2012 UTAH STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY2012 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Moving Histories: On Mobility, Materiality, and Experience in Mormon Heritage

Jan Shipps: A Social and Intellectual Portrait

Who Tells Your Story? Analyzing a Century of Utah History

Journal Article Kingdom on the Mississippi Revisited: Nauvoo in Mormon History Get access Kingdom on the Mississippi Revisited: Nauvoo in Mormon History. Edited by Launius Roger D. Hallwas John E.. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996. viii + 282 pp. Notes, bibliographical essay, index. $36.50, cloth; $16.95, paper.) Thomas G. Alexander Thomas G. Alexander Brigham Young University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 28, Issue 1, Spring 1997, Pages 83–84, https://doi.org/10.2307/971219 Published: 01 February 1997

Research Article| January 01 2021 Eduardo Balderas, His Family and Their Place and Time as Refugees and Converts: Another Way of Writing Mormon History Ignacio M. García Ignacio M. García IGNACIO M. GARCÍA holds the Lemuel Hardison Redd Jr. Endowed Chair in Western & Latino History at Brigham Young University. He is the author of seven books, including the award-winning Viva Kennedy: Mexican Americans in Search of Camelot and When Mexicans Could Play Ball: Basketball, Race, and Identity in San Antonio, 1928-1945. The later work, a study of an underdog team in San Antonio and the racial discrimination and violence that ensued in the wake of their championship wins has been optioned for a feature film. Much of Ignacio’s scholarly work has followed the contours of his own life. Born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, he immigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of six and grew up in the San Antonio barrios attending a local Latter-day Saint congregation. Following high school, he enlisted in the US Army where he trained as a medic and served a tour of duty in Vietnam running a dispensary emergency room in the Mekong Delta. Thanks to the GI Bill, he earned a degree in journalism at Texas A&I University and launched his first career as a sportswriter, editor, and news correspondent covering the war in El Salvador. He later received masters’ and PhD degrees in history from the University of Arizona. The social injustice he experienced as a youth inspired Ignacio’s deep involvement in Chicano activism and La Raza Unida party. As a historian of the Mexican/Chicano experience, Ignacio has explored the intersections of race and ethnic identity, justice, political power, civil rights, and grassroots movements in the American Southwest in the classroom and in his writings. In 2015, Ignacio published an autobiography, Chicano While Mormon: Activism, War, and Keeping the Faith that explores how his faith bred his activism and how his Chicano identity shapes his faith. Now he is at work on a biography of Eduardo Balderas, who translated or retranslated works of scripture, temple ceremonies, and manuals into Spanish. Balderas is an immensely important figure for the more than four million Spanish-speaking Latter-day Saints around the world and the globalization of the faith. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Mormon History (2021) 47 (1): 1–28. https://doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.47.1.0001 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Ignacio M. García; Eduardo Balderas, His Family and Their Place and Time as Refugees and Converts: Another Way of Writing Mormon History. Journal of Mormon History 1 January 2021; 47 (1): 1–28. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.47.1.0001 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of Mormon History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2021 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2021 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Fifteen years in the making, Studies in Mormon History is the most complete and comprehensive bibliography ever attempted on historical literature about the Mormons. Created by three of the leading figures in Mormon studies, this volume provides author and topical listings of books, articles, theses, and dissertations dealing with the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints beginning with its inception in 1830. This massive compilation contains more than 2,600 books, 10,400 articles, 1,800 theses and dissertations, and 150 significant typescripts and taskpapers. While most highly polemical literature has been excluded, the authors have endeavored to include every English-language publication that contributes substantively to a historical understanding of the church's development and its place in the larger context of American history and religion. These writings range from works of serious scholarship to stories of the pioneers, biographical sketches of church officers, and devotional biographies of leading Mormon men and women. A monumental achievement, Studies in Mormon History is an indispensable guide to research and scholarship in Mormon history as well as in the history of the American West. This work also features an important topical guide to Mormon social science literature, compiled by Armand L. Mauss and Dynette Ivie Reynolds.

Book Review| January 01 1974 The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History, F. Mark McKiernan, Alma R. Blair and Paul M. Edwards. Reed C. Durham, Jr. Reed C. Durham, Jr. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Utah Historical Quarterly (1974) 42 (1): 91. https://doi.org/10.2307/45059662 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Reed C. Durham; The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History. Utah Historical Quarterly 1 January 1974; 42 (1): 91. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/45059662 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressUtah Historical Quarterly Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © Copyright 1974 Utah State Historical Society1974 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Research Article| April 01 2016 Prairie School in the Prairie: An Architectural Journey through Mormon History in Southern Alberta, 1888-1923 Brooke Kathleen Brassard Brooke Kathleen Brassard Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Mormon History (2016) 42 (2): 139–167. https://doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.42.2.0139 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Brooke Kathleen Brassard; Prairie School in the Prairie: An Architectural Journey through Mormon History in Southern Alberta, 1888-1923. Journal of Mormon History 1 April 2016; 42 (2): 139–167. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/jmormhist.42.2.0139 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveUniversity of Illinois PressJournal of Mormon History Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright 2016 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois2016 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Journal Article The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History. Ed. by F. Mark McKiernan, Alma R. Blair, and Paul M. Edwards. (Lawrence, Kan.: Coronado, 1973. viii + 357 pp. Notes. Paper, $10.00.) Get access Jan Shipps Jan Shipps Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 61, Issue 4, March 1975, Pages 1105–1107, https://doi.org/10.2307/1890677 Published: 01 March 1975