July 24th is a state holiday in Utah, designated Pioneer Day. It commemorates the entry of the first wagon train of Mormons into the Salt Lake Valley in the summer of 1847. They came down Emigration Canyon, somewhat north of the present I-80 corridor which comes down Parley’s Canyon. Brigham Young was part of that…

In the small world of Mormon Studies and online blogging, the term “inoculation” refers to teaching mainstream Latter-day Saints enough accurate LDS history that they won’t contract a terminal case of apostasy when they encounter publications or talks that use select historical events and interpretations to present an anti-LDS message. [And, speaking broadly, that also…

I finally secured a copy of Richard L. Bushman’s Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction. Bushman, a historian, is the author of Rough Stone Rolling, the definitive biography of Joseph Smith, as well as the Howard W. Hunter Professor of Mormon Studies in the School of Religion at Claremont Graduate Univeristy in Southern California. This is…

The Mormon Times reports on the remarks of historian William P. MacKinnon at the recent MHA meetings. MacKinnon summarized his paper, “Stephen A. Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, and the Mormon Problem: The 1857 Debate.” Relying on what he admitted to be “rumors and reports,” Douglas supported the use of military force to “to remove Brigham Young…

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