Mormon Studies Commons^™

Qualities That Count: Heber J. Grant As Businessman, Missionary, And Apostle, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Growing Up In Early Utah: The Wasatch Literary Association 1874-1878, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

One day in early February 1874, Jim Ferguson, sensing the forlorn hope of advancing his courtship with Minnie Horne, suggested to Ort (Orson F.) Whitney and another of the boys that they organize a reading society. Ferguson "had heard, no doubt, of fond couples 'reading life's meaning in each others eyes,'" Whitney later mused, "and that was the kind of reading that most interested him." Since the seventeen-year-old Whitney found himself "in the same box with Ferguson on the girl question," the suggestion found a ready response. Whitney immediately invited those who "would make desirable members" to meet at the …

Young Heber J. Grant: Entrepreneur Extraordinary, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

When lecturing at the Harvard Law School, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes told students they could do anything they wanted to in life, if only they wanted to hard enough. Later in a private aside he added, "But what I did not tell them was that they had to be born wanting to."

Young Heber J. Grant's Years Of Passage, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

As Heber J. Grant came of age, Mormonism was as much a part of the Utah landscape as the territory's dusty valleys and vaulting mountain walls. Young Heber met religion everywhere—in his Salt Lake City home and neighborhood, at the Tabernacle on Temple Square, in the offices of Church and civic leaders where he sometimes ventured, and certainly in his native Thirteenth Ward, one of the most innovative and organizationally developed Latter-day Saint congregations of the time. Slowly young Heber internalized his religious culture, but not before encountering the usual perils of adolescence and coming of age. The process tells …

Strangers In A Strange Land: Heber J. Grant And The Opening Of The Japan Mission, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

When Heber J. Grant returned from a two-week vacation in Pacific Grove, California, in February 1901, the news he heard at first seemed favorable. One of his associates in the Quorum of the Twelve, Francis M. Lyman, had been asked to preside over the Church's European Mission. Elder Grant congratulated himself that "missionary lightning had once more escaped me," "heaved a sigh of relief," and embraced Lyman in mock celebration.

Crisis In Zion: Heber J. Grant And The Panic Of 1893, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

In late June 1893, Heber J. Grant, a pencil-thin, bewhiskered young man, waited nervously in the downtown office of New York businessman John Claflin. Thirty-six years old and conservatively dressed, Grant was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and president or director of at least a dozen Salt Lake City-based businesses. A financial panic had struck the nation and the Mormon businessman was urgently seeking a loan to save himself and his church from bankruptcy. Although similar dramas were being enacted in business and banking houses across the …

Jedediah And Heber Grant, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

On December 1, 1856, Elder Wilford Woodruff and Elder Franklin D. Richards left the Church historian's office for the home of Jedediah Grant, less than a block away. The hour was late, about 10:30 in the evening. It had snowed several inches during the day, and the weather was turning cold.

Rachel R. Grant: The Continuing Legacy Of The Feminine Ideal, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

We can imagine ourselves visiting Aunt Rachel Grant, longtime president of the Thirteenth Ward Relief Society and one of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint's "leading ladies," at her home on Salt Lake City's Second East Street. In the year of our visit, 1890, her two-story, plastered adobe home partakes of the prevailing feminine ideal that stresses homemaking and handicraft. The stove is highly burnished, while the arms of each chair are covered with homemade lace crocheting. A corner "whatnot" meticulously displays pictures, small framed mottoes, wax and hair flowers, and other curios. Rachel's person also reflects her …

Heber J. Grant And The Utah Loan And Trust Company, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

Before 6:00 A.M. on May 29, 1897, the portly and veteran Apostle Brigham Young Jr., himself ailing due to an attack of dropsy, called at the Heber J. Grant household to pray a blessing upon his associate. He found that "Bro Grant... had a poor night but he was going to the hospital with firm faith that all would be well." The day before, Grant awoke with sever lumbar and abdominal pain. The doctors diagnosed a ruptured appendix and advanced peritonitis and advised immediate surgery. As the hour-and-a-half operation progressed, the nine attending surgeons found "extraordinary suppuration and commenced mortification." …

Young Heber J. Grant And His Call To The Apostleship, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

A year following his call to become president of the Tooele Stake, twenty-four-year-old Heber J. Grant stopped by the Salt Lake studio of Charles Savage, the pioneer photographer. The conversation took an unexpected turn. Elder Grant wrote in his journal that Savage told him "to put it down that within one year I would be a member of the Twelve Apostles."

Grant's Watershed: Succession In The Presidency, 1887-1889, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

Events during 1887-89, during Elder Wilford Woodruff's succession to the Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, remains an important but largely untold story—a time when differing views divided the Church's General Authorities and when the policies and procedures for installing a new president of the Church were tested and confirmed. These years are also important for the insights they offer in understanding the life of Heber J. Grant, who himself regarded that time as a personal watershed. While it is clear that he acted with candor, energy, and idealism throughout the episode, with hindsight he believed …

Heber J. Grant's European Mission, 1903-1906, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

Elder Heber J. Grant landed in Liverpool, England, in November 1903, and by the first of the year he officially assumed his new position as president of the European Mission. The mission began at Tromso, Norway; and ran to Cape Town, South Africa; with Iceland and India serving as distant east-west meridians. While the church had branches in each of these extremities, Grant's field of labor was more compact. Most of the mission's effort was reserved to the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, where he had a general superintendency, and especially in the British Isles, where he had duties that …

A Mormon “Widow” In Colorado: The Exile Of Emily Wells Grant, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

As the southbound Denver & Rio Grande train pulled out of the depot at Salt Lake City in November 1889, Emily Wells Grant breathed a sigh of relief, and relaxed. As a plural wife of Elder Heber J. Grant, she was used to dodging United States marshals. Her recent crisis, she admitted, was of her own making. Why had she insisted on attending her father's seventy-fifth birthday celebration in the Twelfth Ward after five years of secrecy? She had been spotted there, the grand jury had reopened her husband's cohabitation case, and she had been forced to flee again. The …

John B. Fairbanks: The Man Behind The Canvas, Rachel Cope

Theses and Dissertations

A biographical sketch of artist John B. Fairbanks, this thesis primarily probes Fairbanks' evolution as an artist. From amateur, to art missionary, to professional artist, Fairbanks influenced his cultural surroundings in Utah and in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His commitment to his career and his impact on others significantly affected Utah and Mormon art. Thus it is important to understand and recognize the full portrait of John B. Fairbanks.

John B. Fairbanks, born on 27 December 1855, developed an interest in art while still young. Until reaching the age of thirty-four, he often worked as an …

The Story Of A Disciple's Life: Preparing The Biography Of Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Bruce C. Hafen

BYU Studies

The story behind my work on the biography of Elder Neal A. Maxwell actually began in 1976, when he invited me to take leave from Brigham Young University and work for two years under his daily direction in the new Correlation Department at Church headquarters. In later years, when I was an administrator and a teacher at Ricks College and then at BYU, I saw him often in Church Educational System meetings, where he was a key figure on the Church Board of Education.

A Biographical Study Of Elizabeth D. Kane, Darcee D. Barnes

Theses and Dissertations

This is a biographical study of Elizabeth D. Kane (1836-1909), travel writer and wife of Thomas L. Kane, non-Mormon friend of the nineteenth-century Mormons of Utah. Primary source materials are mainly Elizabeth's fourteen diaries (spanning the years 1853 to 1909), letters and narrative accounts. Elizabeth was greatly influenced by Thomas, while maintaining her independence. She was interested in religion and feminist issues, and those interests, combined with her marital relationship, shaped her life's direction. Thomas Kane's interest in the Mormons also influenced Elizabeth's religious and feminist views, and she initially struggled with accepting Thomas's work for them because of their …

A Joseph Smith For The Twenty-First Century, Richard Lyman Bushman

BYU Studies

Since Henry Caswall published The Prophet of the Nineteenth Century in 1843, a year before Joseph Smith's death, nineteen book-length biographies of the Prophet have appeared in print, more than half of them since 1940. They differ wildly in tone and perspective, as might be imagined. Several are still worth considering by serious students of Joseph Smith's life. Among the more notable, I. Woodbridge Riley's The Founder of Mormonism is severely critical but ingenious and original, the first biography to attempt a scientific explanation of Joseph Smith's revelations. Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History is a magnificent piece of …

Mahonri Young: His Life And Art Thomas E. Toone; A Song Of Joys: The Biography Of Mahonri Mackintosh Young—Sculptor, Painter, Etcher Norma S. Davis, Todd A. Britsch

BYU Studies

Thomas E. Toone. Mahonri Young: His Life and Art. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997. xiii; 206 pp. Chronology, illustrations, notes, index. $75.00.

Norma S. Davis. A Song of Joys: The Biography of Mahonri Mackintosh Young—Sculptor, Painter, Etcher. Provo, Utah: M. Seth and Maurine D. Horne Center for the Study of Art, Brigham Young University Museum of Art, 1999. 305 pp. Illustrations, notes, index. $65.00.

George Q. Cannon: A Biography Davis Bitton, William A. Wilson

BYU Studies

Davis Bitton. George Q. Cannon: A Biography. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1999. xiv; 554 pp. Photos, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $34.95.

Fawn Mckay Brodie: A Biographer's Life Newell G. Bringhurst, David J. Whittaker

BYU Studies

Newell G. Bringhurst. Fawn McKay Brodie: A Biographer's Life. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. xviii; 350 pp. Photographs, bibliography, notes, index. $29.95.

Minerva! The Story Of An Artist With A Mission Elaine Cannon And Shirley A. Teichert, Robert C. Freeman

BYU Studies

Elaine Cannon and Shirley A. Teichert. Minerva! The Story of an Artist with a Mission. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997. 156 pp. Index. $19.95.

The Sound Of Utah: The Presence Of Geographical Elements In Music Written About The State Of Utah, Kamia Walton Holt

Theses and Dissertations

Music is a by-product of place and time. Musicians have opportunities to use the idea of place in their music. Thus, music has regionally distinctive characteristics which reflect human perceptions of the physical environment. Artists of the past and present focus on geographical themes, and paint a picture of ‘place’ in their music. This thesis focuses on the music of a geographical location: Utah. Musicians wrote of Utah in hymns of the past, and contemporary musicians continue to write music about Utah. This thesis answers the questions: Is music characterized by geography? How have the local musicians been influenced by …

My Best For The Kingdom: History And Autobiography Of John Lowe Butler, A Mormon Frontiersman By William G. Hartley, Michael N. Landon

BYU Studies

William G. Hartley. My Best for the Kingdom: History and Autobiography of John Lowe Butler, a Mormon Frontiersman. Salt Lake City: Aspen Book, 1993. xiii; 511 pp. Illustrations, maps, appendix, bibliography, index. $24.95.

Aberrant Mormon Settlers: The Homesteaders Of Highland, Utah, David T. Durfey

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a history of the original thirty-seven homesteaders of Highland, Utah. It covers a period of about twenty-five years, 1875-1900. The study provides an example of a aberrant community which was not established in the same, distinctive style of settlement as the typical Mormon village. In addition it describes the relationship between the original residents and non-residents of Highland with the surrounding villages of Lehi, American Fork, and Alpine.

Study Of The Pioneers Of Providence, Utah And Their Children, Hazel Mclean Tibbitts

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis poses a number of questions about the pioneers and their decendants: Where did the pioneer settlers of Providence come from? What skills and resources did they bring with them to "tame" the wilderness? Did they come as family units or as single men? What happened as the community grew and the resources were limited? Where did the settlers go or what did they do as the land became scarce? Was limited land the reason for the movement out of the community or were there other considerations? What effects did emigration have on the family ties of the second …

Let 'Em Holler: A Political Biography Of J. Bracken Lee By Dennis L. Lythgoe, F. Ross Peterson

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Belle S. Spafford: Leader Of Women, Gayle Morby Chandler

Theses and Dissertations

This historical/descriptive study analyzes the speaking career of Belle S. Spafford and attempts to document the relationship between her speaking and her influence with her peers. For over fifty years, the dedicated woman served as a spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the National Council of Women, briding the gap between the secular and religious world of women. A rhetorical analysis of four speeches indicates the following findings: Mrs. Spafford appealed to her audiences through a focus on shared values; she had credibility because of her positions of authority and used it wisely; she effectively …

J. Reuben Clark: The Public Years Frank W. Fox, Robert E. Riggs

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Heber C. Kimball, Mormon Patriarch And Pioneer Stanley B. Kimball, Ronald W. Walker

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Emma: The Dramatic Biography Of Emma Smith Keith And Ann Terry, Donald Q. Cannon

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.