Review
Title: Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources
Editors: Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, Sharalyn D. Howcroft
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Genre: Textual Analysis
Year Published: 2018
Number of Pages: 429
Binding: Cloth
ISBN: 978-0-19-027437-5
Price: $74.00
Reviewed by Andrew Hamilton for the Association for Mormon Letters
As an individual who spends part of his time teaching freshman English Composition at the local college, it is probably a bad idea for me to start a book review by using a cliché or a hackneyed metaphor, but I’m gonna do it anyway (and ho honestly, lots may show up in this review!). So many excellent books of documentary history have been released in the last few years that trying to keep up with all of them has been like trying to drink from a full blast firehose. Allow me to list just few of the volumes that have been made available in the last 10 or so years. So far there have been 16 volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers released, the 8 volume Critical Edition of Joseph Smith’s History, The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter Day Saint Women’s History, At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-Day Saint Women, The Nauvoo City and High Council Minutes, The Council of Fifty: A Documentary History, The Early Patriarchal Blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and many more. While most of these published volumes of document collections have included essays and footnotes to provide some historical context, the context that has been provided for many of them so far has just been the tip of the iceberg (hey, I warned you that I was going to use some cliché metaphors!).
Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources, edited by Mark Ashurst-McGee, Robin Scott Jensen, and Sharalyn D. Howcroft, attempts to fill in some of those gaps of historical context for some of the more important early Mormon documents. Foundational Texts contains 12 essays and an introduction by 15 scholars of Mormon historical studies (a 16th contributor, Harry S. Stout, wrote a five paragraph “Foreword”). The documents were chosen as “foundational” based on two criteria. The editors used “Foundational” to refer to Mormonism’s “founding period” or the time between Joseph Smith’s “First Vision” in approximately 1820 and his death in 1844. The second criterion used to choose the documents examined in this volume was that they selected documents that are “major sources that historians repeatedly use in their research when they study Joseph Smith and early Mormonism and upon which they primarily build their historical narratives and arguments” (p. 2).
The names of the essays and contributors are available on the Oxford website, so I will not list them all here, but among the texts that are examined in this volume are the Gold Plates, Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible, Joseph Smith’s Missouri Prison Letters, Joseph Smith’s Nauvoo Journals, Wilford Woodruff’s Early Diaries, and Lucy Mack Smith’s history[i]. The purpose of Foundational Texts, according to its introduction, “is to provide a deeper level of understanding of (the included documents) so historians and other scholars can use them more critically in their work” (p. 2). After spending some time carefully reading and examining the 12 essays and the introduction, it is my opinion that the authors and editors succeeded in fulfilling their stated goal.
The first chapter of Foundational Texts, which also functions as its introduction, was written by the book’s three editors. This essay does an excellent job of setting up what the rest of the book will accomplish and letting the reader know just what to be looking for. For instance, after briefly recounting the beginnings of the “New Mormon History” and of the related rush to publish and mine previously restricted documents for their information, the introduction points out that in the hurry to make documents and information available, these documents were “seldom (subjected to) a deep scrutiny…as documents.” (p. 2). This volume was created to do just that. To do this the authors of the essays in Foundational Texts, instead of providing a study of the “incident(s), episode(s), (and) development(s) in early Mormonism” instead focus on the document itself as their “primary subject” (p. 6). While it is likely that many readers have read and even studied the covered documents before, it is unlikely that they have ever studied them in the way that this book does. Foundational Texts does an excellent job of fulfilling the purpose established in its introduction and gives new insights into the covered documents and into early Mormonism itself.
There are many potential things to write about or try to highlight for you from this volume. Rather than try to give you a smattering of everything from this fantastic volume, I will highlight some of the things that I enjoyed from my favorite essay in the book. Jennifer Reeder, who was one of the editors of the books The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter Day Saint Women’s History, At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-Day Saint Women, and The Witness of Women contributed to this volume’s chapter seven which is an essay entitled “The Textual Culture of the Nauvoo Female Relief Society Leadership and Minute Book.” To sum it up in a word or five, WOW! This essay is excellent. Reeder’s research, information, and insights about the early Relief Society documents and the women who created them are fascinating. I can’t believe how much I learned just from this one essay. If I could pick just one essay in this book and make it available to every Mormon and scholar of Mormon history, it would be this one.
Let me whet your appetite for this fine essay (and hopefully the whole book!) by providing a few intriguing and interesting details. At the beginning of her essay Reeder examines the “Textual Cultural and Documentary Context of the Nauvoo Relief Society” (157-159). This section of her essay puts the Nauvoo Relief Society into the context of similar women’s societies of the time and allowed me to understand the history and creation of the Relief Society in a way that I never had before. Next Reeder spends some time on “The Founding of the Society” (pp. 159-165). In this section she explains that “Presidentess” Emma Smith and her counselors were to “stand as a living constitution according to Joseph Smith: ‘let this Presidency serve as a constitution – all their decisions be considered law; and acted upon as such’” (p. 163). When I read that it was honestly mind blowing (there are those clichés again!). Until I read that statement and Reeder’s later explanation of it, and her exploration of how this “living constitution” teaching was applied over time, I never realized how much authority, including revelatory authority, that Joseph Smith intended the Relief Society to have. Another aspect of Relief Society history that Reeder explores in as much detail as can be had in a short essay is the Relief Society’s connections to Masonry in Nauvoo. I am guessing that a person could walk up to 90 plus percent of the members of the LDS Church and say, “Did you know that the Nauvoo Relief Society was connected to Masonry” and they would all tell you no. This essay has a lot of information that will be new and exciting for most readers.
I can imagine that some potential readers might ask something along the lines of “Is this book honest? Does it share and explore controversial and potentially embarrassing aspects of Mormon and Joseph Smith’s history? Or does it pull its punches and try to present things in the best light possible?” One of the things that I liked most about Reeder’s essay is that it unequivocally demonstrates that yes, the scholars in this book laid it all out. They hide nothing, they try to give all the context for the studied documents, even if that context is not what readers expect, even if it clashes with correlated narratives.
Going back to Reeder’s essay to provide examples of this, here are a few potentially controversial things that Reeder writes about that would have been verboten in earlier Mormon publications. Reeder explores how the Nauvoo relief Society both pushed boundaries with gender roles but also “demonstrate(d) institutional as well as gendered expectations.” She writes about how the various women who contributed to and recorded in the Relief Society Minute book had their own personal “subjective slant(s)” and how this impacted the preserved record. She writes about the social structure of Nauvoo: how it is not only important to see who was admitted into the Nauvoo Relief Society but also “it is important to examine the women not admitted to the Relief Society” (p. 178). She even quotes John C. Bennett to reference how there were accusations of a “cliquish proclivity among the Nauvoo Relief Society’s members” (p. 180).
A final controversy that I will mention that Reeder takes on is the impact of polygamy on the Nauvoo Society (see pp 182-184). Reeder discusses how “First Counselor Sarah Cleveland…Secretary Eliza R. Snow…Second counselor Elizabeth Ann Whitney’s daughter, Sarah Whitney…Third secretary Hannah Ells…treasurer Elvira Cowles Holmes…(and) Presendia Huntington Buell” were all plural wives of Joseph Smith, many of them without Emma’s initial knowledge. She also points out that Sarah Kimball, who originated the idea for the Nauvoo Relief Society, was approached by Smith to be a plural wife but she turned him down. Reeder not only lists the names of Smith’s wives who were in the Society, she describes some of the awkward and “complicated” situations these relationships created at social functions, how Eliza Snow and others were essentially banished from Nauvoo over these relationships, and how it is speculated that these relationships ended friendships and created other problems for the women involved.
I cannot emphasize enough how important and essential Reeder’s essay is for understanding the Relief Society, its history, the early intent in its creation, the authority it was meant to have, and the struggles that came about because of Smith’s polygamy and Brigham Young’s later distrust of Emma and the women involved in the Society.
This really is a very great book. I learned from it, it was interesting, it was hard to put down, it was great, awesome, cool, spectacular. You won’t regret buying it. But I will admit, I do have a few minor quibbles. First, sixteen very fine scholars contributed to this volume. I will not take away from their work. They did an excellent job. If you read the “Contributors” section of the book, you will see that everyone who contributed to this volume was immensely qualified to contribute to this work. I enjoyed and learned from every essay. Every author in this volume is an excellent craftsperson and they all wrote fine essays. But despite the great work that the writers did and their immense qualifications, I do have one complaint about the makeup of the team of writers who wrote this book. Almost all of them were men. 16 authors contributed to this volume and only 3 of them (18.75%) were women. As I mentioned above, Jennifer Reeder wrote my favorite essay in the book. The other two women authors, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Sharayln Howcraft, also wrote excellent essays. I just wish that more women would have had the chance to contribute essays to this book. There are many fine established female scholars in Mormon studies and many more rising up through the ranks. It seems to me that the editors could have found more qualified female writers to contribute to this book and balance out the male and female contributions.
On a related note, while I have no idea of the racial/ethnic backgrounds of the contributors, based on their names I would guess that all or practically all are White. I don’t honestly know how many minority scholars study Mormon historical documents, but it would have been nice to have the additional perspectives in this book that some minority writers could have provided.
My second minor quibble relates to something that I read in the article “A Textual and Archival Reexamination of Lucy Mack Smith’s History.” On pages 332 and 333 the article discusses attempts to publish a documentary edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s history in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. It states, “in 1996, amateur historian Dan Vogel made the first attempt to publish a text of Lucy’s history…”. It seemed odd to me that the essay describes Vogel as an “amateur historian.” I must admit, I don’t know what Vogel’s full-time profession is, and I am not sure what qualifications the authors and editors of Foundational Texts consider necessary to make someone a “amateur” versus a “professional” historian. By my count, since the 1990s, Vogel has written, edited, or contributed to at least a dozen books. Most recently he edited the eight-volume John Whitmer Historical Association Best Documentary Book Award winning, a critical edition of Joseph Smith’s original History of the Church (I’m not counting those individual volumes in the total of 12 published books). Along with that, winner Vogel has received four other prestigious awards from the Mormon History Association and the John Whitmer Historical Society. Vogel has authored 24 articles published in Journals and has presented at least 26 papers at academic symposia. On top of all of these professionally published works, Vogel has a Mormon History channel on YouTube and regularly posts articles online. While not all of his books have been histories, many of them have been. The article could have just said “in 1996 Dan Vogel made the first attempt to publish a text of Lucy’s history…”. Personally, I can see no reason for the article to label Vogel “an amateur historian.” Other than that one statement, the article was quite good, one of my favorites actually. I even agreed with some of the author’s criticisms of Vogel’s interpretations of Lucy Smith’s writing. I just feel that the article would have been much stronger without labeling Vogel an “amateur.” Even if it wasn’t the author’s intention, to me it came across as a swipe at Vogel’s credibility.
My final complaint is about the price. I admit, I have no idea how book prices are set. I understand of course that book publishers need to make money and the authors need to be paid. I have been told that it is hard in this day to make money in the book publishing business and that profit margins are very small. At 16, this book does have a high number of contributors/authors/editors. I will add that physically, it is a quality book, it is quality bound on good paper, there is no doubt that it is a fine product. But still, $74.00 seems like a high price. The essays in this volume are of a high quality and are very important. In my opinion, the more people who read this book, the better, but that price tag is going to limit the number of potential buyers. My personal book budget is very tight and a price this high will usually get a book kicked of my list of potential acquisitions.
Most of the volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers (which admittedly are subsidized and published by the LDS Church and not a for profit publisher like Oxford) are available in the 50 to 55-dollar price range. Those books are very fat and are of the highest collectible, archival quality. I imagine that if Foundational Texts had been priced in about that same 50-dollar price range that, Oxford would sell a lot more copies.
Minor complaints aside, I encourage all those who enjoy Mormon historical studies to save their pennies and buy this book. Foundational Texts quite successfully achieves the goals that it set for itself. It is packed full of new information and context for a dozen very important foundational Mormon documents. If you read it, you will learn valuable information. The firehose is still on full blast, but Foundational Texts of Mormonism: Examining Major Early Sources makes it a lot easier for readers and scholars of Mormon Historical documents to absorb and understand the stream of documents that is coming at them.
[i] See http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190274375.001.0001/oso-9780190274375 for a complete listing of author and essay names.