Whitney's father, Horace, had set type for the original publication of the Deseret News[2] and worked as a printer with the newspaper for 21 years.

In 1878, as a young man, Whitney began a career in writing with the business office of the Deseret News, later becoming a reporter and the city editor.

Whitney's historical works, although detailed, well researched and presented, are written from a Latter-day Saint perspective;[5][6] one 21st-century historian has commented that they are "locked in the ironclad orthodoxy" of Mormonism.

In 2012, Dennis B. Horne published an edited and expanded version of this work under the same title with Cedar Fort, Inc., of Springville, Utah.

Publications include: In 1905, two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles resigned over a dispute regarding the 1890 Manifesto, which prohibited any further plural marriages within the church.

At a general conference of the church on April 8, 1906, Whitney was called as an apostle, along with George F. Richards and David O.