Carol Cornwall Madsen (born 1930) [1] is an emeritus professor of history at Brigham Young University (BYU) where she was a research historian with the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History. She also served as associate director of BYU's Women's Research Institute. She has written 50 scholarly articles and several books.
Born Carol Cornwall, she was the youngest daughter of J. Spencer Cornwall and his wife Mary Alice Haigh Cornwall. Her father was the conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and her mother was a noted soloist. Carol was the youngest of seven children.
Carol Cornwall married Gordon A. Madsen in 1953. They are the parents of six children. [2]
Madsen did undergraduate studies at the University of Utah and took one semester at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Madsen served as an associate instructor in the University of Utah's English department from 1960 to 1967. She then joined the Department of Continuing Education at the UofU in 1967, and in 1970 became an instructor with the Department of Independent Studies, a position she retained until 1991.
After she obtained her MA in history in 1977 Madsen became a research historian with the LDS Church Historical Department. Along with Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Jill Mulvay Derr Madsen was one of the first three professional historians in the Church History Department assigned to work on women's history.
She then moved to being a research historian with the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History when it was formed in 1982. In 1986, shortly after receiving her Ph.D., Madsen became an associate professor in BYU's history department. She became a professor in the History Department and a research professor in the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute in 1994. She held these positions until she received emeritus status in 2002 and remained a senior research fellow with the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute until it was disbanded, with various members relocating either to the Church History Department of the LDS Church in Salt Lake City to work on the Joseph Smith Papers Project or to the BYU History Department.
Madsen's most recent book is An Advocate for Women: The Public Life of Emmeline B. Wells, 1870-1920. She has also written a history of the leaders of the Primary. Madsen has a Ph.D. from the University of Utah, as well as B.A. in English literature and an M.A. in American history, also from that institution.
Madsen served as vice chair of the Utah State Board of History from 1993 to 2001. She was the president of the Mormon History Association from 1989 to 1990. She was president of the Utah Women's History Association from 1979 to 1980, having spent the previous two years as president elect. She has also been a member of the Coalition for Western Women's History, the Western Association of Women Historians and the Coordinating Committee on Women in the Historical Profession.
Madsen has also served on the editorial committee for the Journal of the John Whitmer Historical Association. [3]
BYU has a Carol Cornwall Madsen Student Paper Award in Women's History. [4]
Books by Madsen include In Their Own Words: Women and the Story of Nauvoo; Journey to Zion: Voices from the Mormon Trail; Battle for the Ballot: Essays on Woman Suffrage in Utah as well as An Advocate for Women: The Public Life of Emmeline B. Wells.
Madsen has also written an in-depth article on Doctrine and Covenants Section 25 and its meaning to Emma Smith over the rest of her life. [5] She also contributed several articles to the Utah History Encyclopedia . [6] Her article "'At Their Peril': Utah Law and the Case of Plural Wives, 1850-1900" was republished in Mary Ann Irwin's and James Brooks' Woman and Gender in the American West. [7]
Madsen also co-authored a chapter on women in the legal history of Utah with her daughter Lisa Madsen Pearson that was published in the book Women in Utah History: Paradigm or Paradox [8]
In 2016, the Church Historian's Press released the book The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women's History , which was edited by Madsen, Matthew Grow, Jill Mulvay Derr and Kate Holbrook. [9]
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Eliza Roxey Snow was one of the most celebrated Latter-day Saint women of the nineteenth century. A renowned poet, she chronicled history, celebrated nature and relationships, and expounded scripture and doctrine. Snow was married to Joseph Smith as a plural wife, and was a plural wife to Brigham Young after Smith's death. Snow was the second general president of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which she reestablished in the Utah Territory in 1866. She was also the older sister of Lorenzo Snow, the LDS Church's fifth president.
The Relief Society is a philanthropic and educational women's organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was founded in 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois, United States, and has more than 7 million members in over 188 countries and territories. The Relief Society is often referred to by the church and others as "one of the oldest and largest women's organizations in the world."
Leonard James Arrington was an American author, academic and the founder of the Mormon History Association. He is known as the "Dean of Mormon History" and "the Father of Mormon History" because of his many influential contributions to the field. Since 1842, he was the first non-general authority Church Historian for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from 1972 to 1982, and was director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History from 1982 until 1986.
Emmeline Blanche Woodward Harris Whitney Wells was an American journalist, editor, poet, women's rights advocate, and diarist. She served as the fifth Relief Society General President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1910 until her death. She represented the state of Utah at both the National and American Women's Suffrage conventions and was president of the Utah Woman's Suffrage Association. She was the editor of the Woman's Exponent for 37 years. She was a plural wife to Newel K. Whitney, then Daniel H. Wells.
New Mormon history refers to a style of reporting the history of Mormonism by both Mormon and non-Mormon scholars which departs from earlier more polemical or faith-based styles of history. Rather than presenting material selectively to either prove or disprove Mormonism, the focus of new Mormon history is to present history in a more humanistic and dispassionate way, and to situate Mormon history in a fuller historical context. Because it is a break from past historical narratives, new Mormon history tends to be revisionist. In many cases, the new Mormon history follows the perspectives and techniques of new history, including cultural history. The Mormon historian Richard Bushman described it as "a quest for identity rather than a quest for authority." New Mormon historians include a wide range of both Mormon and non-Mormon scholars, the most prominent of which include Bushman, Jan Shipps, D. Michael Quinn, Terryl Givens, Leonard J. Arrington, Richard P. Howard, Fawn Brodie, and Juanita Brooks.
Brigham Young University Press was the university press of Brigham Young University (BYU).
James Brown Allen was an American historian of Mormonism and was an official Assistant Church Historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1972 to 1979. While working as Assistant Church Historian, he co-authored The Story of the Latter-day Saints with Glen Leonard. After Ezra Taft Benson dismissed the book as secular new history, other events led to the dissolution of the LDS Church History department in 1982. Allen resigned as Assistant Church Historian in 1979, returning to work at Brigham Young University (BYU) full-time.
Karen Lynn Davidson (1943–2019) was a Latter-day Saint hymn writer, author, and literary critic. Davidson wrote widely on the hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of the Community of Christ.
Sarah Melissa Granger Kimball was a 19th-century Latter-day Saint advocate for women's rights and early leader in the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Kimball's involvement in the church led to the establishment of the women's Relief Society as well as participation in the national suffrage movement.
Maureen Ursenbach Beecher is a historian and editor of the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She studied at Brigham Young University (BYU) and the University of Utah. She worked in the History Department for the LDS Church from 1972 to 1980, and became a professor of English at BYU in 1981 while continuing her work in Mormon history at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History. She published a popular book of Eliza R. Snow's writings.
The Church History Department (CHD) manages the historical and publishing activities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This includes the Church History Museum, Church Historian’s Press, and various research and collection projects. Kyle S. McKay, an LDS general authority seventy, is the current Church Historian and Recorder (CHR).
Jill Mulvay Derr was a senior research historian in the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 2005 to 2011. She previously served as Managing Director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History at Brigham Young University (2003-2005), where she was also Associate Professor of Church History (1998-2005). Her research and publications have focused on the history of Mormon and Utah women, and she is past president of the Mormon History Association (1998-1999).
C. Brooklyn Derr was the Staheli Professor of International Business and the director of the Global Business Management Center at the Marriott School of Management of Brigham Young University (BYU).
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 (CoC) and other smaller groups, include some categorized under the umbrella term Mormon fundamentalism.
Matthew J. Grow is an American historian specializing in Mormon history. Grow authored a biography of Thomas L. Kane, Liberty to the Downtrodden (2009), and co-authored a biography of Parley P. Pratt (2011), with Terryl Givens. He formerly directed the Center for Communal Studies housed at the University of Southern Indiana. As of 2012, Grow was the director of publications for the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was among scholars preparing for publication of the Joseph Smith Papers.
The John Whitmer Historical Association (JWHA) is an independent, nonprofit organization promoting study, research, and publishing about the history and culture of the Latter Day Saint movement. It is especially focused on the Community of Christ, other midwestern Restoration traditions, and early Mormonism. The Community of Christ's approach to its own history was influenced, in part, by historical problems raised and explored through JWHA publications and conferences, and those of its sister organization, the Mormon History Association. JWHA membership numbers around 400 and is open to all, fostering cooperation with LDS and non-Mormon scholars.
This is a bibliography of works on the Latter Day Saint movement.
Kate Holbrook was an American historian and writer. She worked as the managing historian of women's history in the Church History Department (CHD) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
