In 2008, “technology in the service of the gospel” means websites and satellites and DNA-assisted genealogy.
In 1926, missionaries were no less eager than we are to employ the latest technology in pursuit of perfecting the saints and preaching the gospel: Continue reading Technology in Service of the Gospel, 1926
The Utah Historical Quarterly is a rich source of Mormon history that is less well known to the broader LDS community than the more obviously Mormon-themed periodicals like Dialogue, Journal of Mormon History, and BYU Studies. This review of an article from 1980 illustrates the kind of material that can be found in UHQ’s files. Continue reading From our exchanges: “‘The Goose Hangs High’: Excerpts from the Letters of Martha Hughes Cannon”
In our (that’s the editorial “our”) Salutatory, Mark IV commented on “how hilariously cool it is to think of Orson Pratt discoursing in the tabernacle for an hour on Sunday on the subject of spirit fluid, then on Monday going into the office of Keepapitchinin to write the 19th century equivalent of knock knock jokes under a pseudonym.” While we (the editorial “we” again) can’t vouch for which of the Keepapitchinin‘s writers contributed any particular item, here is a sample of what passed for knee-slapping humor in Mormondom, circa 1870:
American Southerners have been joining the Church since the 1830s. The Southern States Mission became the most successful mission field in the Church in the last generation of the 1800s. During those years when southern LDS meeting halls were burned and elders and even members were murdered, many thousands of Southerners responded to the gospel.
Two elders knocked on a farmhouse door in Lowndes County, Alabama, on a spring day in 1896. The door was opened by Sarah Day Hall, holding her six-month-old baby. Sarah believed the gospel message instantly, recalling later that “it was like taking a drink of water when I was very thirsty.” Continue reading Sarah Day Hall: Southern Mother in Israel (Redux)
Evan Stephens (1854-1930) was the musician who, more than any other, transformed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from an excellent stake choir to the world-famous professional musical voice of the Church. Our English hymnbook still carries 19 hymns written and/or composed by Stephens.
What follows is a selection from a talk Stephens gave in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, on 27 August 1916, during an evening in his honor upon his retirement as director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Continue reading We Sing Those Songs to Remind Us of What We Are
Last summer’s Crandall Canyon mine disaster cost the lives of nine men — six entombed in the initial cave-in, and three more who died in a rescue attempt. Now the U.S. Attorney for Utah is considering a congressional request to pursue a criminal investigation of the mine’s operators.
The following tribute to the heroism of Utah’s miners was written last August while we waited day after day for news from Crandall Canyon: Continue reading “To Succor Their Fellow Men” (Utah history)
Alfred Milnes was born in Bradford, England, in 1844. He and his parents and several siblings emigrated to the United States, landing at New Orleans in 1854; after a few years of wandering, during which time his mother and two of his little brothers died, Milnes settled in Coldwater, Michigan. He attended public school, served in the Michigan Infantry throughout the Civil War, and went into business in Coldwater, becoming a banker, postmaster, and dealer in real estate. Continue reading Two Little English Boys
Church Historian Marlin K. Jensen has recently responded to media confusion – to put it courteously – falsely equating the historic LDS practice of plural marriage with the modern FLDS practice of plural marriage. Correcting the assertion that arranging marriages of (presumably) young brides to (presumably) much older husbands, against the desires and inclinations of bride and/or groom, was a practice of the 19th century Latter-day Saints, he says: Continue reading Brigham Young — Marriage Broker?
Welcome to the Keepapitchinin, a new arrival in the Bloggernacle. The original Keepapitchinin was a comic newspaper – the Mad Magazine of its day – published at Salt Lake City sporadically from 1867 to 1871. Its chief editors were talented second-generation Mormons George J. Taylor (son of apostle, later President John Taylor), Joseph C. Rich (son of apostle Charles C. Rich) and Heber John Richards (son of apostle Willard Richards), with occasional help from apostle Orson Pratt and artists Charles R. Savage and George M. Ottinger. Ronald W. Walker’s “The Keep-A-Pitchinin, or, the Mormon Pioneer Was Human,” BYU Studies 14:3 (Spring 1974), 331-344, gives background on that publication. Continue reading Salutatory
8/2/2007
Morning of the Living Danites; or, Why I Am Not at FAIR Today
by Ardis Parshall
You know me, right? — Ardis Parshall, the crusading anti-Mormon, the rabble rouser, the one who never has a kind word for anything Mormon, she-who-must-disrupt? Most likely to need the blood atoning of the Danites? Right?
If that doesn’t sound like me, consider this: I was thrown out of the FAIR conference this morning for being a disruptive influence. Continue reading Morning of the Living Danites; or, Why I Am Not at FAIR Today