Mormon History Association

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The Mormon History Association (MHA) is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to the study and understanding of all aspects of Mormon history to promote understanding, scholarly research, and publication in the field. MHA was founded in December 1965 at the American Historical Association (AHA) meeting in San Francisco under the leadership of Latter-day Saint and historian Leonard J. Arrington. In 1972, MHA became an independent organization with its own annual conferences and publications. The Journal of Mormon History, the official biennial publication of the association, began publication in 1974. MHA also publishes the quarterly Mormon History Newsletter and is an affiliate of both AHA and the Western History Association.

Contents

MHA "welcome[s] all who are interested in the Mormon past, irrespective of religious affiliation, academic training, or world location." It is not formally affiliated with the LDS Church. [1] Its members are composed of people both within and without the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and the Community of Christ, including those who reject Mormonism.[ citation needed ]

Presidents

MHA presidents are recognized contributors to the field of Mormon history and serve for one year.

YearsNameProminence at the time of service
1966–67 Leonard J. Arrington MHA co-founder; Utah State University historian; author of Great Basin Kingdom
1967–68 Eugene E. Campbell Brigham Young University (BYU) history professor
1968–69 T. Edgar Lyon Nauvoo Restoration
1969–70 S. George Ellsworth Utah State University history professor
1970–71 Richard D. Poll Western Illinois University vice-president; former BYU historian
1971–72 Davis Bitton MHA co-founder; University of Utah history professor
1972–73 James B. Allen MHA co-founder; BYU history professor
1973–74 Reed C. Durham Jr. Director of Institute of Religion at the University of Utah
1974–75 Thomas G. Alexander BYU history professor
1975–76 Charles S. Peterson University of Utah historian; former director of USHS
1976–77 Paul M. Edwards
1977–78 Douglas D. Alder USU history professor and director of honors program
1978–79 Milton V. Backman BYU Religious Education professor
1979–80 Jan Shipps Indiana University professor of history and religious studies
1980–81 Dean C. Jessee Joseph Smith researcher and archivist with the LDS Church.
1981–82 Melvin T. Smith
1982–83 William D. Russell Professor of history at Graceland University
1983–84 Kenneth W. Godfrey LDS Institute of Religion Director
1984–85 Maureen U. Beecher BYU English professor with the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute.
1985–86 Richard L. Bushman Columbia University historian; author of Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism
1986–87 Richard W. Sadler
1987–88 Valeen Tippetts Avery Northern Arizona University historian, Co-author of Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith
1988–89 Stanley B. Kimball SIU Edwardsville historian; biographer of Heber C. Kimball
1989–90 Carol Cornwall Madsen BYU historian with the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute.
1990–91 Richard P. Howard World Church Historian of the RLDS Church
1991–92 Ronald W. Walker BYU history professor
1992–93 Marvin S. Hill BYU historian; author of Quest for Refuge: The Mormon Flight from American Pluralism
1993–94 Roger D. Launius JWHA president; chief historian for NASA
1994–95 Mario De Pillis
1995–96 David J. Whittaker Brigham Young University archivist
1996–97 Linda King Newell historian; author of Mormon Enigma ; editor of Dialogue ; JWHA president
1997–98 Armand L. Mauss WSU professor of sociology and religious studies
1998–99 Jill Mulvay Derr BYU historian; authored women's histories
1999–2000 Newell G. Bringhurst
2000–01 William G. Hartley Director of the Family History and Genealogy Research Center at BYU
2001–02 Dean L. May University of Utah historian specializing in social history of the American West
2002–03 Lawrence Foster Georgia Institute of Technology professor of history, technology, and society
2003–04 Martha Sonntag Bradley
2004–05 Donald Q. Cannon Brigham Young University professor
2005–06 Philip L. Barlow Professor of theology and American religious history at Hanover College
2006–07 Ronald K. Esplin Joseph Smith Papers Project director; BYU historian; Joseph Fielding Smith Institute director
2007–08 Paul L. Anderson BYU Museum of Art curator
2008–09 Kathryn M. Daynes BYU historian; author of More Wives Than One
2009–10 Ronald E. Romig Community of Christ archivist
2010–11 William P. MacKinnon [2] Independent historian; author of At Sword's Point
2011–12 Richard L. Jensen [3] Research historian with LDS Church History Department
2012–13 Glen M. Leonard Independent historian; author of Nauvoo
2013–14 Richard E. Bennett BYU professor of Church History and Doctrine
2014–15 Laurel Thatcher Ulrich Harvard University historian of early America and women; Pulitzer and Bancroft winner
2015–16 Laurie Maffly-Kipp Professor at Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, Washington University in St. Louis
2016–17 Brian Q. Cannon BYU historian and director of the Charles Redd Center
2017–18 Patrick Q. Mason Utah State University Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture, professor of history. Former Howard W. Hunter Chair at Claremont University.
2018–19 W. Paul Reeve University of Utah professor of history and the director of graduate studies in the history department
2019–20 Ignacio M. Garcia BYU Lemuel H. Redd Jr. professor of Western American History at Brigham Young University.
2020–21 Jenny Lund Director of the Historic Sites Division of the Church History Department

Journal of Mormon History

Cover of the Fall 2008 issue (Vol. 34, No. 4). Covers between 1991 and 2009 were variations on this abstracted window from the Salt Lake City Tenth Ward building. JournalofMormonHIstory.gif
Cover of the Fall 2008 issue (Vol. 34, No. 4). Covers between 1991 and 2009 were variations on this abstracted window from the Salt Lake City Tenth Ward building.

Since 1974, MHA has produced the Journal of Mormon History, an academic journal in the field of Mormon studies. From the founding of MHA until 1974, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought was a principal venue for articles on Mormon History written by MHA members.

A DVD archive of past issues of the journal is available at MHA's web site.

List of editors

NamePositionTerm
Richard SadlerEditor1974–1981
Dean L. May Editor1982–1985
Leonard J. Arrington Editor1986–1987
Lowell M. Durham Jr.Editor1988–1990
Lavina Fielding Anderson Editor1991–2009
Martha P. Taysom [5] Editor2009–2016
Jessie L. Embry [6] Editor2016–2019
Christopher James Blythe
Jessie L. Embry
Co-editors2020–2022
Christopher Cannon Jones
Jessie L. Embry
Co-editors2023-

Mormon History Association Awards

Among the awards presented by the association are: the Leonard J. Arrington Award "for distinguished and meritorious service to Mormon history" named for the MHA's founder, and father of New Mormon history; Best Book Award; Best First Book; Best Documentary or Bibliography; Best Biography; an award for an outstanding International Mormon history; an award for an outstanding history of a Mormon family (or grouping of families in one community). [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonard J. Arrington</span> American Mormon historian

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Shipps</span> Historian of Mormonism

Jo Ann Barnett Shipps, known as Jan Shipps, is an American historian specializing in Mormon history, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century to the present. Shipps is generally regarded as the foremost non-Mormon scholar of the Latter Day Saint movement, having given particular attention to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her first book on the subject was Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition published by the University of Illinois Press. In 2000, the University of Illinois Press published her book Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons, in which she interweaves her own history of Mormon-watching with 16 essays on Mormon history and culture.

Thomas Glen Alexander is an American historian and academic who is a professor emeritus at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, where he was also Lemuel Hardison Redd, Jr. Professor of Western History and director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies. After studying at Weber State University (WSU) and Utah State University (USU), he received a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965. He taught history at BYU from 1964 until 2004, and served in the leadership of various local and historical organizations.

<i>Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought</i> Academic journal

Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought is an independent quarterly journal that addresses a wide range of issues on Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint Movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Barlow</span> American academic (born 1950)

Philip Layton Barlow is a Harvard-trained scholar who specializes in American religious history, religious geography, and Mormonism. In 2019, Barlow was appointed associate director of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. Barlow was the first full-time professor of Mormon studies at a secular university as the inaugural Leonard J. Arrington Chair of Mormon History and Culture at Utah State University (USU), from 2007 to 2018.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Davis Bitton</span> American historian (1930–2007)

Ronald Davis Bitton was a charter member and president of the Mormon History Association, professor of history at the University of Utah, and official Assistant Church Historian in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints working with Leonard J. Arrington.

Dean Cornell Jessee is a historian of the early Latter Day Saint movement and leading expert on the writings of Joseph Smith Jr.

Brigham Young University Press was the university press of Brigham Young University (BYU).

<i>The Story of the Latter-day Saints</i>

The Story of the Latter-day Saints is a single-volume history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, first published in 1976.

James Brown Allen is 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.

The Association for Mormon Letters (AML) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 to "foster scholarly and creative work in Mormon letters and to promote fellowship among scholars and writers of Mormon literature." Other stated purposes have included promoting the "production and study of Mormon literature" and the encouragement of quality writing "by, for, and about Mormons." The broadness of this definition of LDS literature has led the AML to focus on a wide variety of work that has sometimes been neglected in the Mormon community. It publishes criticism on such writing, hosts an annual conference, and offers awards to works of fiction, poetry, essay, criticism, drama, film, and other genres. It published the literary journal Irreantum from 1999 to 2013 and currently publishes an online-only version of the journal, which began in 2018. The AML's blog, Dawning of a Brighter Day, launched in 2009. As of 2012, the association also promotes LDS literature through the use of social media. The AML has been described as an "influential proponent of Mormon literary fiction."

Paul L. Anderson was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was an architectural historian, museum curator and hymnwriter.

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 Religious Studies Center (RSC) at Brigham Young University (BYU) sponsors and publishes scholarship on the culture, history, scripture, and doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Reed Connell Durham, Jr. is a historian of the Latter Day Saint movement and former director of the Institute of Religion in Salt Lake City, Utah for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Durham is remembered for a controversial speech given in 1974 about Freemasonry and the Latter Day Saint movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ronald W. Walker</span> American historian (1939 – 2016)

Ronald Warren Walker was an American historian of the Latter Day Saint movement and a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) and president of the Mormon History Association. His work, acclaimed by the Mormon History Association, dealt with the Godbeites, the Utah War, and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, among other topics.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard P. Howard</span> American historian

Richard P. Howard is an American historian emeritus of Community of Christ, having served as world church historian of that organization from 1966–1994. He was the first professionally trained scholar to occupy that position. Howard has frequently been compared to Leonard Arrington, his counterpart in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both church historians are recognized as pioneering scholars of the New Mormon History. Howard's contributions include foundational work on Latter Day Saint scripture and the professionalization of the history of the Reorganization and the Community of Christ. His research into the origins of Mormon polygamy helped change his church's official stance on the subject.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Whitmer Historical Association</span>

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.

References

  1. Swensen, Jason (2018-06-11). "Mormon History Association conference says the past of the LDS Church is not frozen". Deseret News. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
  2. "MHA Officers and Board Members". Mormon History Association. July 14, 2009. Retrieved 2009-07-14.
  3. R. Scott Lloyd (June 4, 2011). "'Utah's Dixie' is site for annual Mormon History Association conference". Church News . Archived from the original on September 16, 2014. Retrieved 2014-09-22.
  4. "COVER". Journal of Mormon History. 34 (4): ii. Retrieved 2015-11-23.
  5. Ben (January 29, 2009). "New JMH Editor: Martha P. Taysom". Juvenile Instructor . Retrieved 2009-10-26.
  6. J. Stuart (October 21, 2015). "New Editor of the Journal of Mormon History: Jessie Embry". Juvenile Instructor . Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  7. "MHA Awards", MormonHistoryAssociation.org, Mormon History Association