A Very Short History of Mormon Historiography

The command to keep a record has been one of God's command's in this dispensation. One of the portions of the Pearl of Great Price is "Joseph Smith: History". Yet Joseph Smith never was trained at all in the ways of being a historian.

Some would argue some of the deepest records of the Church would be obtained from reading the jouirnals of Wilford Woodruff, Spencer W. Kimball and Gordon B. Hinckley. I am hoping there is someone to cover the gap between Elder Woodruff's death and where Elder Kimball's record starts. Elder Kimball was three when President Woodruff died.

Church historians were not professionally trained and those writing histories of the Church had no professional training as historians for the first more than a century.

Early twentieth century historians such as B. H. Roberts, Orson F. Whitney (who wrote a biogrpahy of his grandfather, Heber C. Kimball) and John Henry Evans, had no professional training.

History by Mormons written by those trained professionally does not really start until after World War II.

The first figure is probably High Nibley, but he mainly writes apologetic literature, or broad essays on ancient history. He had little to say about history of Mormonism itself, and what little he did say involved an overly idylized view of the past which he then used as a curmudgeon on modern people who engaged in activities like trying to earn a living.

Another wave of professionally tained historians emerges, but many of these are best described as hobbyist who have expertise in other matters. Davis Bitton was an expert in mideval history. Stanley B. Kimball in central European history. These men propel the study of Mormon hsitory, but they are not professional grounded in it.

Joseph Fielding Smith, who lacked any college training at all, served as the Church Historian until 1970. In that year he is replaced by Howard W. Hunter, a man who had a law degree and thus more knowledge of close use of sources. He convinces President Smith and his counselors to professionalize the Church history department, and Leonard J. Arrington isborught in.

While Arrington is often called the "dean of Mormon history" he is a flawed dean. To begin with he is real an economist turned historian. His background allowed him to heavily study the work of Brigham Young, and to a lesser extent the LDS Church to the end of the 19th-century. He lacked the analytical tools to really study it in the 20th-century.

Arrington, Davis and others greatly expand the role of the Church History Department. However they were too quick to attack back when leaders of the Church were less than pleased with their publications exposing the flaws of past leaders, and Arrington himself was too quick to see the flaws in Church leaders at all times.

However it is really Mark Hoffman and his forgeries who destroy this era.

Alternately the Arringtonian failure to deal with deep issues creates its own flaws.

A period of time in the wilderness begins with Arrington moved to heading an institute at BYU, which basically functions to create and study history, and has little interaction with the teaching done in that university.

By the 1980s a slightly less extreme set of Mormon History hobbyist are emergying. These are men like R. Lanier Britsch, a specialist in Asian history who writes on LDS Asian history, or D. Lee Tobler who has the same role for German history. They still largely lack deep training in Mormon history, and their publications too heavily rely only on the accounts of American missionaries serving in those areas, especially in Britsch's case.

The true father of modern Mormon history does emerge in this time though. That is Richard L. Bushman. Bushman as a cultural historian is at the end of the rapid shifts in historical methodology and thought in the 1970s, while Arrington largely predates these shifts.

By the 1990s the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute of Church History had come under the direction of Scott Esplin. Esplin actually did his PhD on the interaction of the Twelves Mission to Great Britain and their becoming the leading quorum of the Church. He was a great admirer of Bushman's first book on Joseph Smith, and recognized that neither Donna Hill's "Joseph Smith: The First Mormon" nor any other book in print at the time took the measure of Joseph Smith. I can say these things with confidence because I had Esplin for a class in LDS Church History to 1844 in the winer term of 2000 and he told us these things.

Esplin was one person who encouraged Bushman to write a full biography of Joseph Smith. They assembled a summer graduate seminar to mine sources for this project. It did little on those lines, but Bushman pursued the continuation of these seminars none the less.

I draw on a recent speech at a Mormon History Association meeting by J. D. Haws for the rest of this article, although I could have placed many of these names before, without seeing they are really, deeply connected.

At the same time there is a general shift at BYU. The emerging historians there, such as Mathew Mason and Donald Herald, do not dabble much at all in Mormon History. Mason can in class weave a deep and informed reading of the Doctrine and Covenants on the Civil War. However his teaching of a class on the Civil War is using his work later than his main period of expertise. He is really trained in the study of American slavery and the status of African-Americans in the period before 1820. He also has tried to reemphazixe the importance of the religious view for those against slavery, he is willing to directly combat apologism for the south more than some historians. Nor is he like some willing to let his view stay caught in the past, he is very vocal in support of the group "Historians Against Salvery". Herald is a leading historian at BYU, yet his expertise is the Dutch Republic from its formation to its fall during the French Revolution. Eric Dursteller, who is the current BYU history department chair, gave me strong encouragement to do my paper for his class on the LDS Church in France, but his expertise is early modern Italy, ending about 1797, especially Venice. Karen Carter, one of the associate chairs, studies religion and education, but focuses on counter-reformation activities in the early Modern period, nothing directly affecting Mormon studies.

A few BYU professors still study Mormon history, but many have been moved back to the Church History Department, and many who study this subject are located in the BYU Department of Church History and Doctrine.

Brian Q. Cannon and J. Spencer Fluhman both specialize at least in part in Mormon history. The third who has clearly made some contributions to the field is Jay Buckley. He directs the Native American Studies program in the history department. However in the long list of Bagley's publications, he had one article related to the Mormon Trail back in 1997, co-authored a book on Orem that probably mentions the LDS Church a little, and has an article on the Northern Indian Mission he co-authored in progress. His main focus is on William Clark and the history of the west in the days of the fur trade. The chapter in an upcoming history of Utah he co-authored is about Utah from 15000-1846, thus excluding Mormons. He did write a chapter on the history of the early Cape Town Mission for a book edited by Neilson and Woods, but in many ways this is taking him beyond his expertise, although he was a missionary in South Africa and can point out commonalities between the experience of the Afrikaans as Voertrekers and the westward migration in the US. He also contributed the chapter "Exploring Utah" to Mapping Mormonism. He has also contributed several parts to the History of the Saints series.

The moving forces in a new wave of Mormon history, written by believing Latter-day Saints, published in major university presses and avoiding pushing the faith while also avoiding direct attacks on it have been Matthew Grow, J. Spencer Fluhman, Reid L. Neilson, Kathleen Flake, Patrick Q. Mason, and more from a literary perspective than a historical one Terryl S. Givens. Other than Givens all the people I just listed took the summer seminary with Bushman. Steven C. Harper is another I should list, although his work has less often appeared in university presses.

There are a few strong figures from an earlier era. Fred E. Woods is truly prolific and broad in his work. Alexander L. Baugh has very much advanced our understanding of the Missouri period of LDS History. Grant Underwood is another BYU history expert in Mormon history, having been moved from the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute to the History Department. He however like Fluhman appreaches Mormonism from the perspective of American religious history, not from regional western history as was done by Arrington.

Even though Bushman is an expert in more 18th than 19th century American history, his students have used new methodologies to advance the study of 20th-century LDS History.

The study of LDS History is still mainly pursued in the framework of American history.

The Department of Church history and doctrine has many who have little background in history and only expertice in doctrine. Mauro Properzi. He has given a lecture on the History of the LDS Church in Italy in the pioneers in every land series. However the more exciting thing is Properzi's broad international background. He has a bachelors degree in social work from BYU. An MA from Harvard Divinity School. An MPhil degree from Cambridge University. That is some hard hitting degrees. He has a Ph.D. from Durham University in Mormon Studies. Add to this his post-doctoral work at the Pontifical Gregorian University, This is the oldest Jesuit university in the world.

Properzi studies Mormon/Catholic interaction, and with his deep expertise on theology and philosophy is positioned to do for Mormon/Catholic dialogue what Richard L. Millet and Stephen E. Robinson have done for Mormon/Protestant dialogue.