Mormon studies
Mormon studies is the interdisciplinary academic study of the beliefs, practices, history and culture of individuals and denominations belonging to the Latter Day Saint movement, a religious movement associated with the Book of Mormon, though not all churches and members of the Latter Day Saint movement identify with the terms Mormon or Mormonism. Denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement include the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by far the largest, as well as the Community of Christ and other smaller groups, include some categorized under the umbrella term Mormon fundamentalism.
Before 1903, writings about Mormons were mostly orthodox documentary histories or anti-Mormon material. The first dissertations on Mormons, published in the 1900s, had a naturalistic style that approached Mormon history from economic, psychological, and philosophical theories. While their position within Mormon studies is debated, Mormon apologetics have a tradition dating back to Parley P. Pratt's response to an anti-Mormon book in 1838.
The amount of scholarship in Mormon studies increased after World War II. From 1972–1982, while Leonard Arrington was a Church Historian in the history department, the LDS Church Archives were open to Mormon and non-Mormon researchers. Researchers wrote detached accounts for Mormon intellectuals in the "New Mormon history" style. Many new publications started to publish history in this style, including Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, BYU Studies Quarterly, and Exponent II. Some general authorities in the church did not like the New Mormon history style, and Arrington and his remaining staff were transferred to Brigham Young University in 1982, where they worked in the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History. The institute continued to support scholarship in Mormon history until 2005, when the institute closed and employees transferred to the LDS Church Office Building.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, several other incidents made BYU faculty reluctant to voice unorthodox ideas about church history. Around 1990, BYU professors were asked not to contribute to Dialogue or Sunstone. Two historians were excommunicated in 1993, probably for their published unorthodox views. BYU Studies and other LDS church-sponsored publishers published more "faithful" scholarship at this time. Presses outside of Utah started to publish more books in Mormon studies.
Pre-1903 writings about Mormons
Before World War II, church histories were mostly either orthodox Mormon or anti-Mormon and written by faithful Mormons or hostile non-Mormons, respectively. A few writers in the first era of church history wrote about Mormons as a curiosity and focused on their peculiar ways.Anti-Mormon literature
Non-Mormons wrote for a non-Mormon public about how "primitive and dangerous" Mormons were in "extreme terms." Eber D. Howe published Mormonism Unvailed, or a Faithful Account of that Singular Imposition and Delusion in 1834, which claimed that Sidney Rigdon was the original author of the Book of Mormon and that Joseph Smith was a "vile wretch." Howe included affidavits from people who knew Joseph Smith collected by ex-Mormon Philastus Hurlbut. The book influenced future anti-Mormon literature by La Roy Sunderland, John Bennett, and John A. Clark. Origen Bacheler examined the Book of Mormon itself in Mormonism Exposed Internally and Externally, arguing that the book was inconsistent with the Bible and was written by Joseph Smith himself.In the 1960s, ex-Mormons Jerald and Sandra Tanner continued that anti-Mormon tradition by reprinting anti-Mormon works in the public domain as well as important but unflattering documents from LDS history through Utah Light House Ministry. They published their own criticisms of the LDS church as well, which, unlike early anti-Mormon works, cite historical documents. Ed Decker, an excommunicated Mormon, made two anti-Mormon films: The God Makers and The God Makers II. The films described Mormons as being a cult, abusing women and children, manipulating news outlets, and practicing Satanism. The God Makers II received criticism from other anti-Mormons, including Jerald and Sandra Tanner, who stated it contained inaccuracies.
Official church records and early histories
Official recorders have existed since Joseph Smith organized the Church of Christ on April 6, 1830. Church records continue to the present and are kept in the LDS church archives. The first official church history was published in 1842 when Smith and his associates began writing History of Joseph Smith as an official diary of Joseph Smith. This history was published in Times and Seasons in Nauvoo, and then in Deseret News and Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star up until 1863. History of Joseph Smith was followed by History of Brigham Young, which was also published in Deseret News and Millennial Star over the next two years. Church Historians and their assistants edited the material, which was published in official publications. Andrew Jenson made sizable contributions to documentary church history with the Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, Encyclopedic History of the Church, and an unpublished "Journal History of the Church" containing over 1,500 scrapbooks filled with published and unpublished records of daily activities in the church. Jenson made a special report on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and parts of the report were not openly used until Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Richard E. Turley, Ronald W. Walker, and Glen M. Leonard.The first historian to attempt to summarize Mormon history on a large scale was Edward Tullidge, who wrote Life of Brigham Young: or Utah and Her Founders, History of Salt Lake City, and History of Northern Utah and Southern Idaho. Hubert How Bancroft wrote History of Utah with the help of the Historian's Office. Bancroft's history of Utah portrayed Mormons favorably. Critics say he wasn't objective since he allowed LDS Church authorities to read the book before publication. Perhaps his favorable treatment was how he obtained access to the church records. Expanding on Bancroft's history, Orson F. Whitney wrote History of Utah in four volumes. Joseph Fielding Smith wrote Essentials of Church History in 1922. Most of these accounts combined various testimonies into a single narrative without questioning the validity of the eyewitnesses or other observers, especially those of church authorities.
Mormons wrote accounts for other Mormons, often published in church-sponsored venues like The Juvenile Instructor and in church-published lesson manuals. These writings were written for a Mormon audience to support their beliefs. Brigham H. Roberts was an associate editor of the Salt Lake Herald and, while on a mission to England, was the editor of the Millennial Star. Upon returning to Utah, he became a General Authority. After an invitation from Americana, Brigham H. Roberts wrote a chapter each month from 1909 to 1915 in what later became the Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Century One. The history had some of the first historical analysis of events in church history. It was serialized in Americana 1909–1915.
From 1830-1930, women were victims or symbols in historical accounts. Church historians mentioned their suffering but rarely mentioned them by name. Anti-polygamy tracts also described Mormon women in general terms, describing them as deluded or miserable. In an effort to combat the way anti-polygamists portrayed Mormon women, Edward Tullidge and Eliza R. Snow compiled The Women of Mormondom, a book that portrayed Mormon women as hardworking and independent in a combined history, biography, and theology. Heroines of Mormondom highlighted faithful Mormon women's lives. Women wrote short biographies of other women and recorded them in Women's Exponent and through publications from the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers.
Early Mormon studies
Early academic writers on Mormon topics had a "naturalistic" approach to history, using theory from economics, psychology, and philosophy to guide their study. Richard Ely contributed to the professionalization of Mormon studies with his early dissertation "Economic Aspects of Mormonism". In the work, he praised Mormon irrigation and communalism as a good model of economic development. He influenced Leonard Arrington's interest in economics and Mormons. Andrew Love Neff wrote "The Mormon Migration to Utah," which he finished in 1918 but had started over ten years earlier. He was interested in how Mormons helped colonize the West. Mormon Ephraim Edward Ericksen wrote "The Psychological and Ethical Aspects of Mormonism" while studying at the University of Chicago. His dissertation, influenced by functionalist theory, argued that Mormonism was a product of conflicts with non-Mormons and harsh environments. Lowry Nelson, a Mormon, studied at the University of Wisconsin in the 1920s. He worked in agriculture and was dean of BYU's College of Applied Science and director of the Utah Agriculture Experiment stations. He wrote articles about how the Mormon village was designed to promote unity and sociability, which allowed Mormon settlers to colonize the Great Basin Desert. He left Utah in 1937. Nels Anderson studied at the University of Chicago and studied hobos in Utah, where he converted to Mormonism. His book Desert Saints recounted the history of saints in the St. George, Utah area. Other scholars publishing on Mormonism from this time period include I. Woodbridge Riley, Walter F. Prince, Franklin D. Daines, Hamilton Gardner, Joseph Geddes, Feramorz Fox, Arden Beal Olsen, William McNiff, Kimball Young, Austin Fife and Alta Fife.In the 1950s, after World War II, an increasing number of Mormons studied history professionally and wrote dissertations about Mormon history. Non-Mormon sociologist Thomas F. O'Dea wrote a dissertation entitled "Mormon Values: The Significance of a Religious Outlook for Social Action" after living in a rural Mormon farming village in New Mexico for six months and subsequently teaching at Utah State University. This study of Mormon culture "stunned Mormon readers with its objectivity and sympathetic insight," according to Mormon scholar Richard Bushman. Bernard DeVoto, Dale L. Morgan, Fawn McKay Brodie, Stuart Ferguson, and Juanita Brooks did not have graduate degrees in history, but made significant contributions to the foundations of Mormonism's "New History" movement. Brodie wrote No Man Knows My History, which some contemporary reviews praised as definitive and scholarly. Other LDS scholars, notably Hugh Nibley, criticized Brodie's biography. In 1950, Juanita Brooks, a Columbia University-trained housewife who formerly taught English composition at a nearby college, published a well-researched book on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which many saw as balanced. Brooks's Mormon neighbors did not like "the frankness" of her book.