BYU Studies

Volume 59:3 (2020) - I was saddened but not surprised by the recent passing of Armand L. Mauss, an esteemed scholar, BYU Studies editorial board member, and a kind mentor to me. When I saw him last, he neither expected nor particularly wanted to live much longer. He had long since tempered his expectations for this life. His sights were set on the next one, especially after Ruth’s passing in 2018....

I study the history of women’s voting rights in Utah. For the past two years, I’ve been the historical director for Better Days 2020, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission to popularize Utah women’s history. The year 2020 marks the 150th anniversary of Utah women’s first votes, the centennial of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, and the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of...

Volume 59:3 (2020) - It is with pride and gratitude that we present this issue of  BYU Studies Quarterly —pride in recognizing the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution giving women the right to vote and the 150th anniversary of the granting of that right to the women of Utah, and gratitude to the excellent historians, other writers, and artists who h...

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Book notice about Salt Lake School of the Prophets, 1867-1883 by Devery S. Anderson

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Book notice about Alexander Campbell and Joseph Smith: Nineteenth-Century Restorationists by RoseAnn Benson

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Elder Steven E. Snow served as the Church Historian and Recorder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from August 1, 2012, to July 31, 2019. During this time, he oversaw significant developments in the work of Church history, from record keeping to publishing to developing historic sites and exhibits. The conversation in this article, between Elder Snow and Keith...

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Joseph Smith and his followers declared the Book of Mormon’s supernatural origin—that it was a divinely inspired translation of an ancient-American record, acquired by Joseph through visions and the help of an angel. This explanation, however, was widely rejected by outsiders from the outset. Within weeks after the Book of Mormon’s first pages came off the press, critics promo...

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Who would be more likely to survive in a wilderness setting, beset by starvation and extreme cold? Women or men? Single individuals or families? Would age make a difference? In Sex and Death on the Western Emigrant Trail, Donald Grayson looks at who died and who lived in three mid-nineteenth-century emigrant groups. An emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Wa...

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Although it is little known today, the Nauvoo Music and Concert Hall was an important part of Nauvoo’s cultural history. Joseph Smith designated a spot for it near the temple, the spiritual landmark of the city. The Saints completed the building after Joseph Smith’s death, with funds raised by the Nauvoo Music Association. Many musical concerts were given to packed crowds, and...

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Darren Parry is the chairman of the Northwest Band Tribal Council of the Shoshone Nation. On January 29, 1863, the U.S. Army attacked and killed 250 to 500 Shoshone people encamped at the Bear River, near present-day Preston, Idaho, in what was later named the Bear River Massacre. Parry tells how the Native American perspective of this history as he learned it from his ancesto...

Volume 58:3 (2019) - When Cris and Janae Baird first saw the painting She Will Find What Is Lost, by Brian Kershisnik, Janae felt a deep connection to it because it portrayed what she had felt when she had a severe illness: that God loved her and that ministering angels were with her, extending above her and caring for her. This essay tells how she became ill and dealt with that illness, and how t...

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Robbie Taggart tells of the couch he and some youthful friends found one day and decided to burn. When the fire got out of control, a fire truck showed up fortuitously, and a firefighter with a large extinguisher put out the flames. “So. What’s going on here?” he then asked. “I, uh,” the young Taggart stammered, “we were just being idiots.” The firefighter smiled broadly and s...

Volume 58:3 (2019) - Despite all the historical resources now available to members of the Church, it may still come as a surprise to many that, since its founding in 1830, the Church has had three official names (not including the fine-tuning of punctuation that came with the final refinement). Initially, it was the “Church of Christ,” then “The Church of the Latter Day Saints,” and then—as with s...

Volume 58:3 (2019) - This poem won second place in the 2018 Clinton F. Larson Poetry Contest sponsored by BYU Studies. This poem focuses on Adam and Eve and their big decision.

Volume 58:2 (2019) - The discovery of a Latter-day Saint artist from a former era, who had almost been forgotten to the vicissitudes of history, is a noteworthy event in the annals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Joseph Paul Vorst’s prolific painting career spanned two continents and two world wars during his short lifetime. Vorst excelled in a variety of techniques and media,...

Volume 58:2 (2019) - Moramona is the quintessential history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints in Hawai‘i. The book journeys from the first missionaries arriving on the islands in 1850 and their initial struggles to maintain a foothold there to the eventual success of the Church on the islands. The book concludes with a summary of the current prosperity of the Church in Hawai‘i, inc...

Volume 58:2 (2019) - If you are looking for excellent scholarship and insights into Latter-day Saint scripture, you might want to start with this new compilation from Greg Kofford Books. The authors of the fourteen essays in this volume explore a wide range of topics related to the Latter-day Saint canon and offer a surprisingly consistent level of discourse. Usually, anthologies include a few wea...

Volume 58:2 (2019) - There are two schools of thought about Utah’s participation in the Civil War: it was de minimis, unworthy of comparison to the blood-soaked contributions of nearly all other American states and territories; or, it was larger than the size of its troop commitment to the Union Army and has a record more complex than is often understood. With this book, Utah and the American Civi...

Volume 58:2 (2019) - Years after the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith on June 27, 1844, Amanda Benton Smith, a resident of Carthage, Illinois, and non–Latter-day Saint, recorded an account of the events of that day. Twenty-eight years old and a mother of six, Amanda was the wife of Carthage Grey captain Robert F. Smith—the militia officer responsible for protecting the Latter-day Saint prisoners i...

Volume 58:2 (2019) - This article presents the text of a recently located revelation from Brigham Young: “The word of the Lord that was revealed to his people, by his servant the Prophet seer and Revelator, President Brigham Young, February 1874” (spelling modernized). This revelation, commanding the Saints to live the united order, is all the more remarkable since Brigham Young dictated so few re...

Volume 58:2 (2019) - The bell that hung briefly in the first Nauvoo Temple was removed when the Saints left and carried to Winter Quarters and then to Utah. During the harsh winter of 1849—1850, the bell cracked and could not be repaired; it was most likely destroyed in an attempt to recast it. The bell that was installed on Temple Square in 1939 and labeled as the “Nauvoo Bell” was not the t...

Volume 58:2 (2019) - Volume four of the Revelations and Translations series presents for the first time a transcription and complete photographic reproduction of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ holdings of all the manuscripts, grammars, lexical aids, and other resources that were produced in the process of creating the book of Abraham. The publication of these materials comes at a...

Volume 58:2 (2019) - The question at the heart of the exchange between Korihor and Alma in the Book of Mormon concerns knowledge, what Alma calls the real. This essay probes Korihor’s appraisal of the Nephite’s Christian devotion, sorting out the basic stakes of his argument, and then looks at how Alma slowly and belatedly develops a full response to Korihor. Deviating from traditio...

Volume 58:2 (2019) - While not described as such, Martyrs in Mexico is a continuation of the story that author F. LaMond Tullis gave us in Mormons in Mexico, a classic work, first published in 1987, detailing the growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the country just south of the United States. Martyrs in Mexico, however, has a narrower scope, focusing on one community—San M...

Volume 58:2 (2019) - This essay begins with the author’s twenty-six-hour drive from Tucson, Arizona, to Everett, Washington, seven years after he had come out to his parents that he was gay. He was miserable, and his life had become unmanageable. His parents assured him that they would love and accept him, no matter what he decided to do. During his visit in his parents’ home, he arrived at the de...