Mormon studies
Many new publications started to publish history in this style, including Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, BYU Studies Quarterly, and Exponent II.
They published their own criticisms of the LDS church as well, which, unlike early anti-Mormon works, cite historical documents.
The films described Mormons as being a cult, abusing women and children, manipulating news outlets, and practicing Satanism.
The God Makers II received criticism from other anti-Mormons, including Jerald and Sandra Tanner, who stated it contained inaccuracies.
Most of these accounts combined various testimonies into a single narrative without questioning the validity of the eyewitnesses or other observers, especially those of church authorities.
After an invitation from Americana, Brigham H. Roberts wrote a chapter each month from 1909 to 1915 in what later became the Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Century One.
[16] Early academic writers on Mormon topics had a "naturalistic" approach to history, using theory from economics, psychology, and philosophy to guide their study.
[19] Andrew Love Neff wrote "The Mormon Migration to Utah," which he finished in 1918 but had started over ten years earlier.
[28] In 1950, Juanita Brooks, a Columbia University-trained housewife who formerly taught English composition at a nearby college, published a well-researched book on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which many saw as balanced.
Brian D. Birch argues that it should be a part of Mormon studies, as long as apologetic authors concede that their arguments are objective and subject to academic debate.
[33] In 1997, LDS church president Gordon B. Hinckley invited FARMS to be officially affiliated at BYU, and in 2006 it was subsumed by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious Scholarship.
[35] In 1997 the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR), a volunteer group including both laypeople and academics, was established to answer criticisms of the Mormon faith.
[41] Over the years, scholars raised within the Latter-day Saint tradition and professionally trained academically, often in the social sciences, began to enter the field.
[48] Leonard Arrington influenced important scholars of Mormon history, including Richard Jensen, William Hartley, and Ronald Walker.
[15] Other women hired by the Church Historical Department included Jill Mulvay Derr, Carol Cornwall Madsen, and Edyth Romney.
[56] They maintained their respect for the Mormon faith, admitted to flaws in people and policies, and avoided taking a defensive stance,[56] a tone which non-Mormon historian Jan Shipps wrote "made them seem more secular than they actually were.
[60] Apostle Ezra Taft Benson warned employees in the Church Educational System against New Mormon history in a 1976 speech.
[62] After Arrington's death in 1999, Ronald K. Esplin and Jill Mulvay Derr led the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History at BYU.
Carol Cornwall Madsen led research in the Women's History Initiative at the institute, where she wrote an important biographical study of Emmeline B.
[66] Jan Shipps asserts that this reluctance to support New Mormon history was a response to the Mark Hofmann document forgeries.
[citation needed] According to a 1997 report by the American Association of University Professors on academic freedom at BYU, Alan Wilkins was questioned about his motives for contributing to Dialogue and Sunstone in a tenure review.
[44] In 2005, the National Endowment for the Humanities held a seminar at Brigham Young University on the bicentennial of Joseph Smith's birth.
The Story of the Latter-day Saints (1992) by James Allen and Glen Leonard mentioned women in the context of auxiliaries like Relief Society and Primary, plural marriage, suffrage, and the ERA.
[83] That is gradually changing as non-Mormon scholars increase and universities not affiliated with the LDS Church have endowed chairs for Mormon studies.
This emerging movement is interdisciplinary and endeavors to place Mormon studies in a broader historical context, further eroding boundaries between disciplines.
[87] Contemporary historians like R. Marie Griffith, Grant Wacker, and Robert Orsi encourage the use of interdisciplinary tools in Mormon studies.
In 1972, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies was established at BYU, where Jessie L. Embry directed an extensive oral history project.
She co-authored The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-Day Saint Women's History with Jill Mulvay Derr, Carol Cornwall Madsen, and Matthew J.
[101] The Utah State Historical Society (USHS), which frequently engages Mormon history, also presents awards for books, articles, and student papers.
[111] BYU Religious Education presents annual awards to its faculty for teaching, research, and service, as well as books in the categories of church history or ancient scripture.
