Glenn Beck is the New "Parson" Mason Locke Weems

In case you have not heard, Glenn Beck has a new book out: Being George Washington: The Indispensable Man as You've Never Seen Him.  It currently sits at #11 on the ever-shifting Amazon list of best sellers.  The book is about George Washington, but Beck is featured prominently on the cover with a small bust of Washington in the background. Interesting.

I am not sure if I will ever read this book, especially after reading Biola University's John Mark Reynolds blow-by-blow and very thorough review at his blog. Reynolds concludes that the book is hagiography and not history, but it does offer a fair assessment of Washington's character. This leads Reynolds to wonder if Beck had a ghostwriter.  Reynolds likes the book, but does not hold back his criticisms.

Here is a small taste of Reynolds's rambling "live" review of the book:

Give Beck credit for pointing out that the evidence of Washington in prayer in a grove at Valley Forge is sketchy and extra credit for a Washington quote thanking the great “Author” for Divine aid there. The image of Washington at prayer is true to his attitudes, even if he did not kneel in a literal grove.

The truth of the story matters. We should get it right, but some “skeptics” miss the point of the myth (if myth it was). Washington prayed and thanked Providence for victory. Such humility can be faked, but Washington’s cautious use of power is evidence it was not.

Beck is on a whirlwind book tour which will be making a stop tomorrow (4:30pm) at the Camp Hill Barnes & Noble, located less than ten minutes from my house.  In fact, last Spring I did a book talk there for Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?  About ten people showed up.  They are expecting thousands tomorrow.

So what do you think faithful readers of The Way of Improvement Leads Home?  Should I go to Barnes & Noble tomorrow and give Beck a copy of Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? :-).

Nice Shoutout from the Evangelical Free Church of America

Greg Strand, the Director of Biblical Credentialing and Theology for the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA), has written a thoughtful post at the EFCA blog on Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical; Introduction. 

There is also a link to a lecture I gave last spring on the campus of the University of Minnesota as part of a series of lectures I did in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area for the MacLaurin Institute. 

Here is a small taste of Strand's post:

I appreciate the care and diligence with which Fea attempts to answer this important and sensitive question. With this topic, often myth or legend is spoken as fact/truth, and this is particularly true among many of our Evangelical brothers and sisters. For example, a reference to “divine providence” does not necessarily refer to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and it does not only come from the lips (or pen) of true Evangelical believers. These kinds of statements are often read through an Evangelical lens or grid thus leading the reader to conclude that the author of that expression must be an Evangelical. The author may be a true believer, but that reality must be based on and determined by other evidence to substantiate it. This is the sort of homework Fea has done, which I find helpful and I appreciate greatly. 

Thanks, Greg

Brooklyn

I had a great morning with Catholic middle-school and high school teachers from the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens.  We gathered in the basement of the Brooklyn Historical Society to participate in a Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History professional development seminar.

The topic for the day was "Religion in America."  I lectured on the way that "Christian America" rhetoric has been employed by Americans from roughly 1800 to the present.  I have now had two wonderful sessions with Catholic school teachers from the five boroughs.

When I do these seminars with teachers, I not only teach them content, but I try to challenge them to think historically and to get their students to do the same.  During the Q&A session, one veteran teacher, who has recently been doing some work as a substitute, shared a story with me related to his use of Was America Founded as a Christian Nation in his classroom.

In a recent class the teacher led a discussion of the Declaration of Independence. When the students learned that Jefferson, a slaveholder, wrote the words "all men are created equal," they began to protest, calling Jefferson and the slave-holding founders 'hypocrites." The teacher had a hard time controlling the student's outbursts on the subject.

In a related situation, the teacher read a letter from John Adams to his wife Abigail (the letter happens to be published, in part, in Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?). The letter, which was written on October 9, 1774, describes Adams's experience attending mass in St. Mary's Catholic Church in Philadelphia while he was in town serving in the First Continental Congress.  It describes Catholics as "poor Wretches, fingering their Beads, chanting Latin, not a Word of which they understood...."  Needless to say, Adams does not paint a very flattering picture of Catholicism.

The teacher prefaced the telling of these stories by saying that my book "got him in trouble" with his class. The African-American students did not like Jefferson, while the Catholic students were angry that the Adams letter was introduced..  The teacher wanted some advice as to how to deal with this, since everyone seemed to be angry with his choice of documents.

What kind of advice would you give to this teacher?

First, I said that it was not the responsibility of the history teacher to support or condemn, at least initially, the documents that he or she has assigned in class.  Nor should the teacher allow the students to do so until they have fully understood the documents as part of the historical world in which they were created.  What was it about Jefferson's world that made him defend slavery?  Why did Adams have such a negative view of Catholicism?  THIS is the primary task of the history teacher.

Students will naturally argue with ideas that they find to be immoral. They will be attracted to some of the characters that we introduce to them, and they will despise others.  This, according to Sam Wineburg in Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts, is their "psychological condition at rest."  It is natural to condemn Jefferson for his hypocrisy.  It is also natural, if you are a Catholic (or even if you are not), to be offended by the words of John Adams.  But if we allow this kind of condemnation or praise to dominate our history classroom, we make history, to quote David Hackett Fischer in Historian's Fallacies, a "handmaiden to moral philosophy."

As Wineburg suggests, historical thinking is an "unnatural" act.  It is not normal or natural to try to understand or empathize with people in the past that we might find morally reprehensible.  Yet this is what MUST happen if true historical learning is going to take place.

This is why it is absolutely essential that a history teacher develop a culture in his or her classroom that is conducive to the unnatural discipline of historical thinking.  Every classroom has rules of behavior--no talking when the teacher is talking, no chewing gum, raising one's hand to ask a question, respecting the teacher.  Yet rarely do we establish rules about what is a permissible mode of inquiry into a historic text and what is not.  I encouraged this teacher to explain to his students that they must treat a particular primary document as a guest in their classroom much in the same way that they have learned (I hope) to treat a guest in their classroom who does not come from the past.  I call this the "discipline of hospitality." Students must learn to listen before condemning.  They must show respect to the historical actors that they will encounter each day in their history classroom and beyond. 

A culture of historical inquiry must be established on the first day of class and sustained throughout the entire school year.  As a substitute teacher, this particular teacher has not had the opportunity to develop this kind of culture and it is obviously clear that the teacher he has replaced has failed to do so.

This made for some very interesting conversation and reaffirmed why I really enjoy working with teachers.

Live Q&A Today at 2pm CT

Today at 2:00pm CST I will be doing a live Q&A (via Skype) on my book Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction.  You can watch the event here and, if I am not mistaken, you can contribute questions via e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook.  The event is sponsored by MinistryDirect.com, a ministry of the Assemblies of God church.

Looking for History Bloggers to Serve on a Panel on Blogging and the Popularization of Historical Knowledge

Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe and I are looking for history bloggers to join us on a panel at the 2012 annual meeting of the Historical Society in Columbia, South Carolina.  We are envisioning a panel of four or five (including us) history bloggers who can reflect on the practice of "popularizing historical knowledge" through blogging.  The deadline for proposals is December 1st, so if you are interested, let me know as soon as possible.  Here is the call for papers:

"Popularizing Historical Knowledge: Practice, Prospects, and Perils"
Columbia, SC, Thursday, May 31st - Saturday, June 2nd, 2012 

Professional historians in the United States are increasingly being called upon to produce more “popular,” more accessible history. How do and how should academic historians reach popular audiences? How and to what extent is “popular” history written around the world? Does the meaning of and audience for “popular history” vary from place to place? Along with professional historians, states, elites, and a variety of interest groups have long had an interest in sponsoring, supporting, and generating historical knowledge for popular and other audiences. We seek paper and panel proposals that will consider “popular” history in its various guises and locales. How and to what extent is the interest in “popular” history genuinely new? How do and how should historians interact with television and movie production or write op-ed pieces or blogs or serve as expert witnesses? Is there such a thing as a truly “popular” history? Do we need a distinctive “popular” history and are
historians properly equipped to write it?

We especially encourage panel proposals, though individual paper proposals are welcome as well. And our interpretation of “panel” is broad: 2 or more presenters constitute a panel—chairs and commentators are optional. As at past conferences, we hope for bold yet informal presentations that will provoke lots of questions and discussion from the audience, not presenters reading papers word-for-word from a podium followed by a commentator doing the same.  

ADDENDUM (8:34 EST on Nov. 29, 2011):  Thanks for all the responses I received today.  Earlier this afternoon Beth and I were snatched up by a historian at the Newberry Library in Chicago and a historian who writes for The Atlantic for a session on engaging the public in a digital age.  Stay tuned!

Kindle Edition of "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?" on Sale at Amazon

Get it today for just $9.99.  That's 67% off the retail price.

The paperback remains at 39% off the retail at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

For the history lover in your life....

Fall Membership Drive

As my regular readers know, we occasionally do "membership drives" here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. This is the time when we blatantly self-promote what we are doing here at the blog and try to convince you to connect with us.

As we enter the holiday season, let me remind of you of several ways that you can connect with The Way of Improvement Leads Home. If you have benefited from the blog or like what we are doing, feel free to think about some of these options to show your support. 

• Become a follower of the blog through Google. You can do that by clicking the "Join this Site" button in the right column of this blog. As you can see, we have 79 followers and counting!  While I don't have the space to elaborate here, there is a direct connection between the number of "followers" we have and the kind of content we are able to deliver. 

•  While the blog does not get a lot of comments, sometimes the discussion is more rigorous at Facebook.  Friend me at Facebook ("John Fea") and participate in the conversation.

• Are you a former history major doing something exciting with your degree? Have you transferred the skills you have used as a history major to a non-history related job? If so, we want to hear from you! Consider contributing something to our well-received "So What CAN You Do With a History Major Series." Please contact me if you fit the bill!

• Have you read The Way of Improvement Leads Home? Would you like to someday? Join the Philip Vickers Fithian Fan Club on Facebook.

• Interested in the Greenwich Tea Burning Project? Join the project's Facebook group.

• We are all about places here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. Take a picture of your favorite local place--it could be anywhere. And we will post it on the blog as part of our "Places" feature.

• We are always looking for correspondents to report on major historical conferences such as the AHA, the OAH, the Omohundro Institute, SHEAR, and others. If interested, please get in touch.

• We are trying do something different here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. We want to bridge the gap between academic American history/religious history and the general public.  Consider a speaking engagement at your college, organization, historical site, church, public library, etc...  Do you have an idea for a seminar at your church or a teacher-training session at your school, or a session or two on how to integrate faith and the teaching of history, or a historical tour, or something else related to American history?  If so, let us know and we would be more than willing to brainstorm with you and try to make it happen.  

• We have been exploring the idea of an institute on American history for a civil society.  Let me know if you are interested in being a conversation partner as we think about getting something off the ground.

Thanks for reading!

Sunday Night Odd and Ends

A few things online that have caught my attention this week:

College professors of the year.

Google scholar citations.  Check it out.

The Pilgrims before Plymouth.

Teaching the 1970s in the U.S. Survey course.

David Wallace-Wells reviews Nick Bunker's Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History


Are evangelical churches the least politicized of all the major churches and religious groups?

Nathan Pearl-Rosenthal reviews Jack Rakove's Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America.

In the praise of the Waffle House.

What happened to holiday windows?

"Me and My Man Shed."

Ben Franklin on turkeys and bald eagles.

Kevin Boyle reviews two books on the Ku Klux Klan, including Kelly Baker's The Gospel According to the Klan.

"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "John Brown's Body."

Analyzing what Middletown read.

Turkeys in America.

Six writers talk about building their libraries.

Is the power of a college degree dwindling?

Top Posts of the Last Week

Here are the ten most visited posts this week at The Way of Improvement Leads Home.

1.  What's going on at The Stony Brook School?
2.  The Top Ten Most Religious Cities in America
3.  Are Giberson and Stephens Preaching to the Choir?
4.  How to Cite Facebook and Twitter?
5.  Religion in Jamestown
6.  John Feinstein: The Penn State-Sandusky Scandal
7.  Penn State
8.  A Little History Humor
9.  The Benefits of a Classroom Lecture
10. Sunday Night Odds and Ends--November 13, 2011

Historian vs. Congressman

Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley stands up to Alaska congressman Don Young at a recent hearing over oil drilling in Alaska's arctic refuge.  Classic!



NOTE:  This is an edited version of Brinkley's testimony.  For more, including how to access the entire video of Brinkley's testimony, check out the Alaska Dispatch.

The Forgotten Virtue of Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving!  Here is a piece I wrote a few years ago for Inside Higher Ed.  I have gotten into the habit of posting it on Thanksgiving. --JF

It was a typical 1970s weekday evening. The sky was growing dark and I, an elementary school student, was sitting at the kitchen table of a modest North Jersey cape cod putting the finishing touches on the day’s homework. The back door opened -- a telltale sign that my father was home from work. As he did every day, Dad stopped in the laundry room to take off his muddied work boots. As usual, he was tired. He could have been covered with any number of substances, from dirt to paint to dried spackle. His hands were rough and gnarled. I kissed him hello, he went to the bathroom to “wash up,” and my family sat down to eat dinner.

I always knew how hard my father worked each day in his job as a general contractor. When I got older I spent summers working with him. I learned the virtues of this kind of working class life, but I also experienced the drudgery that came with laying concrete footings or loading a dumpster with refuse. I worked enough with my father to know that I did not want to do this for the rest of my life. Though he never told me so, I am sure that Dad probably didn't want that for me, either.

I eventually became only the second person in my extended family to receive a college degree. I went on to earn a Ph.D. (a “post-hole digger” to my relatives) in history and settled into an academic life. As I enter my post-tenure years, I am grateful for what I learned from my upbringing and for the academic vocation I now pursue. My gratitude inevitably stems from my life story. The lives that my parents and brothers (one is a general contract and the other is a plumber) lead are daily reminders of my roots.

It is not easy being a college professor from a working-class family. Over the years I have had to explain the geographic mobility that comes with an academic life. I have had to invent creative ways to make my research understandable to aunts and uncles. My parents read my scholarly articles, but rarely finish them. My father is amazed that some semesters I go into the office only three days a week. As I write this I am coming off of my first sabbatical from teaching. My family never quite fathomed what I possibly did with so much time off. (My father made sense of it all by offering to help me remodel my home office, for which I am thankful!) “You have the life,” my brother tells me. How can I disagree with him?

Gratitude is a virtue that is hard to find in the modern academy, even at Thanksgiving time. In my field of American history, Thanksgiving provides an opportunity to set the record straight, usually in op-ed pieces, about what really happened in autumn 1621. (I know because I have done it myself!). Granted, as public intellectuals we do have a responsibility to debunk the popular myths that often pass for history, but I wonder why we can’t also use the holiday, as contrived and invented and nostalgic and misunderstood as it is, to stop and be grateful for the academic lives we get to lead.

Thanksgiving is as good a time as any to do this. We get a Thursday off from work to take a few moments to reflect on our lives. And since so many academics despise the shopping orgy known as “Black Friday,” the day following Thanksgiving presents a wonderful opportunity to not only reject consumer self-gratification, but practice a virtue that requires us to forget ourselves.

I am not sure why we are such an unthankful bunch. When we stop and think about it we enjoy a very good life. I can reference the usual perks of the job -- summer vacation, the freedom to make one’s own schedule, a relatively small amount of teaching (even those with the dreaded 4-4 load are in the classroom less than the normal high school teacher). Though we complain about students, we often fail to remember that our teaching, when we do it well, makes a contribution to society that usually extends far beyond the dozens of people who have read our recent monograph. And speaking of scholarship, academics get paid to spend a good portion of their time devoted to the world of ideas. No gnarled hands here. 

Inside Higher Ed recently reported that seventy-eight percent of all American professors express “overall job satisfaction.” Yet we remain cranky. As Immanuel Kant put it, “ingratitude is the essence of vileness.” I cannot tell you how many times I have wandered into a colleague’s office to whine about all the work my college expects of me.

Most college and university professors live in a constant state of discontentment, looking for the fast track to a better job and making excuses as to why they have not landed one yet. Academia can be a cutthroat and shallow place to spend one’s life. We are too often judged by what is written on our conference name badges. We say things about people behind their backs that we would never say to their faces. We become masters of self-promotion. To exhibit gratefulness in this kind of a world is countercultural....

Read the rest here.

The Umbrella Man and the Limits of Historical Knowledge

This video explains it all.  It is a good reminder for historians.

Bob Jones University Has the Best Collection of Catholic Art in the United States

Bob Jones Jr., the former president of Bob Jones University in Greenville, SC, once called the Catholic church a "cult," "the mother of harlots," "a satanic counterfeit," and "drunk with the blood of the saints."  So why does Bob Jones University have one of the largest collection of Catholic art in the United States?  The Washington Post explains.  Here is a snippet:

Providence, or market conditions, or both, were also kind to Jones. When he took over as president just after World War II, there was a lot of European art on the market, and “sophisticated” collectors viewed Renaissance and Baroque religious pieces as little more than artistic schlock.

“This style was just anathema,” Bowron said, and for years the major dealers and famous collectors “didn’t touch this stuff.”
Jones convinced the university’s board to allot him $30,000 a year to buy religious art. He canvassed Europe, establishing ties to sympathetic dealers and leaning on the advice of experts who knew quality and what Jones wanted.

And, Steel recalled, “he was a great bargainer. He loved the deal.”
Paintings that were already going at fire-sale prices often were procured for just a few hundred dollars. By the 1970s, BJU had amassed a collection of some 400 works that covers the 14th to the 19th centuries, with a few stellar Dutch and English pieces among the predominantly Italian Renaissance and Baroque works.

Today, tastes have shifted, and now the pieces are worth hundreds of thousands each; several would easily fetch more than a million dollars. Not that BJU is looking to sell.

American History: Dick Morris Style

Why do I need to teach my U.S. History to 1865 course when I can simply explain the movement from colonial settlement to Civil War in less than five minutes? 

All I need to do is explain how:

• The Pilgrims is settled Massachusetts Bay in the 1640s.
• Jamestown was settled by the English aristocracy fleeing the English Civil War 
• There is a direct link between Purtanism and the industrial revolution

And I could go on, but I will let Dick explain:




Dick "developed this theory kind of on my own."

(HT: Civil War Memory where Kevin Levin describes this as "Dick Morris's wacky world of American history")

New Pew Poll on Mormonism and the 2012 Election

You can read it here, but I have summarized the essential findings below:

• Half of all American voters know that Mitt Romney is a Mormon
• Half of all Americans say that they know "little or nothing" about Mormonism.
• Half of all voters think that Mormonism is a Christian religion.
• One-third of all voters say that Mormonism is not a Christian religion.
• Two-thirds of all voters say that Mormonism is "very different": from their own beliefs.
• White evangelicals are more inclined than the public as a whole to see Mormonism as a "non-Christian faith."
• Republicans who believe that Mormonism is a "non-Christian faith" are less likely to vote for Mitt Romney in the GOP primaries
• Should Romney win the GOP nomination, 91% of Republicans who believe that Mormonism is a "non-Christian faith" would back him over Obama in a national election.
• Overall opinions of Mormonism have changed very little since Romney ran for president in 2008.

Here is what I would like to know:  What percentage of Mormons will vote for Romney over Obama simply because he is Mormon?  Are there Mormons who supported Obama in 2008 who will vote for Romney over Obama in 2012 because they want to see a Mormon president?

The bottom line: Romney's Mormonism will hurt him during the primary season.  And frankly, I don't think that there is anything he can do about it.  He tried to address this issue with his 2008 "Faith in America Speech," but it did not seem to help.  This is a shame,  because I think Romney is the best the GOP has to offer.

McLemee Reviews "The Anointed"

Randall Stephens and Karl Giberson's The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age has been getting a lot of attention lately.  We have discussed it here and here and here.

In today's Inside Higher Ed, Scott McLemee reviews the book, focusing much of his attention on the book's "hero," Francis Collins.  Collins is an evangelical scientist and director of the National Institutes of Health. 

McLemee also tries to explain the difference between an "evangelical" and a "fundamentalist."

Here is a taste:


Neither an expose nor a screed, The Anointed is the work of educated evangelical Christians who reject the kitsch and anti-intellectualism that outsiders tend to equate with the faith itself. If the book has a hero (and the authors don’t call him that, but still, you can tell) it would be Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, who spent a decade heading the Human Genome Project. In 2003, he published The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press, 2006). And Collins didn’t mean some deistic clockmaker, either. As Stephens and Giberson note, he grappled with the arguments made by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, which “many evangelicals consider … to be the most important text written in the 20th century,” and underwent a conversion. “Collins speaks openly about his faith,” they write, “affirming his belief in the Bible, the resurrection of Jesus, and the virgin birth.”

What he doesn’t believe is that little Cain and Abel got to ride around on the dinosaurs who later died off because Noah didn’t put them on the Ark.

It might be a good moment to clarify the distinction between evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity, which are not the same thing even though the labels are often taken as synonymous. The evangelical Christian has had a transformative inner experience (Collins writes about how he “knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ”) and then communicates the message of the gospels to others. The fundamentalist regards the scriptures as literally and timelessly true. The Bible was dictated by God in plain terms requiring no interpretation at all, except in a very few places where He has laid the symbolism on so thick (beasts, crowns, horsemen with names like War and Famine, etc.) that nobody can miss it....

What Will 2012 Be Like for Springsteen Fans?

We know that there will be a tour with the E-Street Band.  We know that there will be a new album.  But questions remain as we wait eagerly for the announcement of the U.S. tour dates.  How will Bruce replace Clarence?  Will there be Asbury Park rehearsal shows?

Stan Goldstein takes some guesses about what we might expect.    Here is a taste:

I've been hearing a start of the U.S. tour on March 2 in Denver. That is only speculation. And would that mean rehearsals shows at Asbury Park's Convention Hall in late February? Bruce has had rehearsal show in Asbury Park for every tour (except the Vote For Change in 2004) since the Reunion Tour in 1999.

In past years, the Springsteen-tour template has been to start up in late February/early March, play arenas in the U.S. and Canada til May, head to Europe for a good part of the summer and come back to the U.S. for stadium dates in August and September and even October, as they did in 2009. They then go back to arenas during the fall.

I could see  a multi-night stand at MetLife Stadium at the Meadowlands this summer. Bruce has not played the new stadium yet. 

But then, as my colleague Jay Lustig pointed out, what if a new album isn't ready to be released by late February? Could that mean no U.S. dates til maybe April or so? 

My daughters are already begging me to take them to see Bruce next year. It will happen.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving--GOP Style

Jimmy Kimmel strikes again:

This Week's Patheos Column: Is a Historian Worth $1.6 Million?

Thanks to Newt Gingrich, people are talking about how much a historian is worth.

In a recent GOP presidential debate in which Gingrich was asked to explain why he earned $300,000 from Freddie Mac, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives claimed that he had given the mortgage company advice in his capacity as a historian. Later it was revealed that Gingrich had actually received between $1.6 and $1.8 million for his supposed work as a historical consultant.

By one definition, Gingrich is a historian. He has a Ph.D. from Tulane University where he wrote a doctoral dissertation entitled "Belgian Education Policy in the Congo, 1945-1960." He taught history at West Georgia College (now University of West Georgia) and, believe it or not, was influential in starting an environmental studies program there. When he did not receive tenure at West Georgia he set off on a political career.

Read the rest here and please "like."

The Resurgence of American Intellectual History

The New York Times "Arts Beat" covers the fourth annual U.S. Intellectual History Conference recently held at the CUNY Graduate Center.  Here is a taste:


Were the 1970s the most boring decade in history?

Anyone reading the popular press at the time might have been forgiven for thinking so. In 1972, The New York Times reported on the Ford Motor Company’s plan to fight boredom on the job and an alternative boredom-reduction plan put forward by the United Auto Workers. The Washington Post, meanwhile, fretted that boredom might be fueling interest in the occult. In 1976, Reader’s Digest declared boredom “the disease of our time.”

But boredom isn’t just boring, Jordan Grant, a graduate student at American University, said in a paper called “Meaning in the Malaise: Boredom and the Remaking of the American Mind in the Seventies,” delivered last week at an intellectual history conference held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Boredom is also a window into important shifts in American intellectual life — not to mention a new research frontier for the sometimes-embattled scholars who study it.  

Mr. Grant’s paper, and the conference where he presented it, is part of a resurgence in the fortunes of intellectual history — a discipline long considered, if not quite boring, then certainly musty, elitist and out of touch. While intellectual historians like Richard Hofstadter and Perry Miller once dominated the profession, they were swept aside in the 1960s by the rise of social and then cultural history, which regarded talk of “the American mind” as code for “the mind of white, male Americans who happened to write books.”

Today, however, a new breed of young intellectual historian is aiming to integrate the spirit of “history from below” with an approach that doesn’t chop American history off at the neck. Young intellectual historians, scholars at the conference were quick to emphasize, have fully absorbed the lessons of the profession’s increased attention to questions of race, class and gender, without losing hold of the premise that ideas matter, even in a culture that still considers “intellectual” a term of abuse.

“We still want to talk about ideas, but we see ideas everywhere,” said Andrew Hartman, a professor at Illinois State University and president of the newly formed Society for U.S. Intellectual History, which sponsored the conference. “Big ideas affect everybody. It’s not elitist to talk about them.”

Creepy Abandoned Waterparks

When we first moved to Pennsylvania, my wife took our daughters to Williams Grove Amusement Park, a historic park located in our hometown of Mechanicsburg.  Williams Grove is no longer open.  In fact, it has made Environmental Grafitti's list of the "10 Creepeist Abandon Waterparks on Earth."  Here is the write-up:

This water park might well have the farthest-reaching history out of those featured here. The predecessor of Williams Grove Amusement Park was actually little more than a bunch of picnics that the Williams family began hosting outside of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.

Soon, the picnic grove grew into a park and then a fairground, with the first rides appearing in 1928. Hurricane Agnes almost destroyed Williams Grove Amusement Park after it changed hands in 1972, and although it was rebuilt, it finally closed its doors in 2005, having provided decades of fun. Now, it is being reclaimed by nature, of course, and by the looks of things, the slides of its water park will soon be buried under vegetation. 

The "New" New York Historical Society

The New York Historical Society has recently reopened after a $70 million facelift.  Bruce Cole, a former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, takes us on a tour.  Here is a taste:

The firm of Platt Byard Dovell White Architects helped shaped this new mission with skill and tact, and always with respect for the original NYHS York and Sawyer Beaux Arts structure. Moving the entrance to Central Park West from 77th Street reoriented the axis of the building, creating a more visible and commanding presence on one of the city's grandest avenues. An enlarged entrance and new windows (expertly harmonized with the original facade) open the building to the park and flood it with light. Just inside the entrance, a clear-glass barrier, necessary to control atmospheric conditions, allows one to instantly see the wide expanse of the renovated interior.  

Throughout the renovation there is a seamless unification of the building's original Beaux Arts elements and the new construction, appropriate for an institution dedicated to the continuum of New York's history.

The first object the visitor sees is a very large and enigmatic installation, Fred Wilson's "Liberty/Liberté," originally made for a 2006 NYHS exhibition. This assemblage includes two busts of Washington, one of Napoleon, a balustrade from Federal Hall where Washington took his first oath of office as president, a wooden figure of a black man, and various chains and manacles. But what is it about? Slavery? Tyranny? The Constitution? No clear answer is given to the puzzled onlooker. Wouldn't it have been better to begin the visitor's experience with the clear message of a major work from the NYHS's collection, rather than this enigmantic, awkward and anachronistic construction, the single discordant note in the new building?

Obama, the GOP, and American Exceptionalism

Writing in The New York Times, Richard W. Stevenson suggests that Barack Obama's failure to affirm the United States as an "exceptional nation" might hurt him in the upcoming election.  Stevenson quotes from the writer Shelby Steele:

Conservatives have used the concept as part of a broader indictment of liberalism in the age of Obama. Writing in The Wall Street Journal in September, the author Shelby Steele suggested that Mr. Obama’s upbringing in the 1960s shaped him into the embodiment of an anti-exceptionalism world view.

“In this liberalism,” he wrote, “America’s exceptional status in the world follows from a bargain with the devil — an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. And therefore America’s greatness is as much the fruit of evil as of a devotion to freedom.”

I think Steele is correct.  The United States is a truly exceptional nation, but for Obama and others of my generation, that may not necessarily always be a good thing.  Obama's anti-exceptionalism appears to be driven by a deep-seated moralism that is concerned with curbing greed and materialism, cultivating peace instead of war, and promoting equality over discrimination. Obama is just as moral, if not more moral, than the GOP.  The reality is that the GOP does not like his particular brand of morality, even though much of it is very compatible with the teachings of Christianity.

Over at The Daily Dish, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan weighs in:

...a new Pew poll suggests that Americans are tiring of the national greatness agenda. For my part, as an immigrant, I need no lessons on why America is unique and worth loving. But the idea that this single country has some kind of divine blessing that makes it inherently different than and superior to every other country on earth that exists or has ever existed, has always struck me as bizarre.

Again, one notices the distinction between conservatism and the radical nationalism now espoused by a majority of the GOP (excepting Huntsman and Paul). Conservatism has a grasp of history and of morality that does not allow of a nation whose inherent superiority allows it to act with impunity in global affairs, by rules it makes up itself. Human nature is no different in this country than in any country in history or around the world. And this is my main fear about this new kind of exceptionalism - not just its ratcheting up of the McCarthyite "un-American" smear if you dissent from the notion of a divinely-guided super-nation - but its ability to blind us to our own faults.

Is it not telling, for example, that the party that tells us that America is exceptional is also the party that endorses torture but will not call it by its proper name? And the logic is very tight: because America is morally superior, it can act in ways others morally and legally cannot, and when Americans torture, it is not torture, precisely and only because Americans are doing it. It's the kind of perfect self-justification one finds among some of the more self-righteous "born-again", a hermetically sealed circle of self-love, designed not to expose and root out sin, but to reaffirm self-worth regardless. It's a very modern form of solipsism, the kind of thing conservatives would usually condemn if told to a child as a way to build his or her self-esteem. But that's how they see Americans, as children, whose memories evaporate instantly, who are only beguiled by the cliches of lost eras, who need to be told repeatedly, even as they slip behind, that they are still the best. And not just the best. But the Best Ever!

Presidents, God, and Thanksgiving

The Huffington Post has posted an interesting slideshow of presidential thanksgiving prayers.  It has been customary for American presidents, at times of thanksgiving, to acknowledge God.  It is through these prayers that we see, perhaps most clearly, American civil religion at work.   For example:

George H.W. Bush (1990):
"This Thanksgiving, as we enjoy the company of family and friends, let us gratefully turn our hearts to God, the loving Source of all Life and Liberty. Let us seek His forgiveness for our shortcomings and transgressions and renew our determination to remain a people worthy of His continued favor and protection. Acknowledging our dependence on the Almighty, obeying His Commandments, and reaching out to help those who do not share fully in this Nation's bounty is the most heartfelt and meaningful answer we can give to the timeless appeal of the Psalmist: 'O give thanks to the Lord for He is good: for his steadfast love endures forever.'"

Lyndon Johnson (1964):
"As the harvest season draws to a close and our storehouses bulge with the bounty of the land, it is our desire to observe, in the custom and tradition of our forebears, a special day dedicated to giving thanks to God - a day on which to lay aside our daily tasks and cares and pay joyous homage to Him. We are impelled to raise our voices in His praise and to proclaim our heartfelt gratitude for another year in which we have been blessed with a bountiful harvest, with intellectual, humanitarian, economic, scientific, and technical advances and achievements, and with other gains too numerous to mention."

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941)
"We are grateful to the Father of us all for the innumerable daily manifestations of His beneficent mercy in affairs both public and private, for the bounties of the harvest, for opportunities to labor and to serve, and for the continuation of those homely joys and satisfactions which enrich our lives. Let us ask the Divine Blessing on our decision and determination to protect our way of life against the forces of evil and slavery which seek in these days to encompass us. On the day appointed for this purpose, let us reflect at our homes or places of worship on the goodness of God and, in giving thanks, let us ray for a speedy end to strife and the establishment on earth of freedom, brotherhood, and justice for enduring time."

Abraham Lincoln (1863):
"The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. ... No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy."

George Washington (1789):
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor..."

Mormons and Progressive Politics

Take heed, Glenn Beck.  Your church has been "progressive" for a long time.

Today's New Republic (website) is running a fascinating and very informative (at least to me) piece on the way that the Church of the Latter Day Saints responded favorably to the early 20th-century Progressive Movement.  The author is Matt Bowman, a young American religious historian who is becoming the "go-to guy" of late for all things Mormon. Bowman connects Mitt Romney's politics to this progressive longstanding tradition of Mormon progressivism.

Here is a taste:

But the political polarities that dominate American public discourse today are of relatively recent vintage, and there is a particularly Mormon version of classical American progressivism to which Mitt Romney stands heir. These progressives believed that effective organization and the promotion of virtue went hand in hand; they are two manifestations of a single commitment, and the former can indeed promote the latter. In a nutshell, these progressives believed that public organization can promote a moral imperative, that technocratic bureaucracy can in fact change lives for the better.

The Mormon affinity for American progressivism dates to start of the twentieth century, when the movement itself began. Advocates of the early twentieth-century progressive movement eschewed partisan commitments in favor of expertise, education, and a clear-eyed confidence that trained bureaucrats and voluntary associations could perfect American life. They created the Federal Reserve, the eight-hour workday, the NAACP, the women’s suffrage movement, Prohibition, and dozens of other laws and organizations designed to solve social ills and instill American society with middle-class values of democracy, industry, and education. Progressives were not merely bureaucrats; they were, in their way, utopians, combining practical problem-solving with a faith that bureaucracy could promote virtue.

In these years, after decades of persecution and retreat, Mormons were hungry for entry into mainstream American life. In the progressive impulse of the early twentieth century, they found some of their own ideals. In progressive proclamations of a stable and harmonious society, they heard an echo of their dreams of Zion. They saw, in progressivism’s aspirations to moral uplift, the mirror image of Joseph Smith’s rejection of original sin; and both progressives and Mormons believed in the unlimited possibilities of human potential.

Mormon leaders threw themselves into the progressive project, embracing the notion that organizations could instill virtue in human beings. In 1913, for instance, the church formally affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, a quintessentially progressive organization founded on the notion that participation in a quasi-military hierarchy and group activities would teach young men self-discipline. In the same decade, Mormon leaders endorsed the Prohibition movement, and influential progressive leaders like William Jennings Bryan and Theodore Roosevelt passed through Salt Lake City to commend the Mormons for their organizational talents and their embodiment of the American virtues that progressivism taught.

Barbara Franco Resigns as Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission

I just saw her a few nights ago at the Legacy of William Penn symposium in Harrisburg.  I had no idea that earlier in the week Barbara Franco had resigned as the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). (I did wonder why she was not introducing the event as per the published program).  I had worked with Barbara as a consultant on the 2011 PHMC "Religion" annual theme and appeared on a radio program with her a few years ago to discuss how Ed Rendell's budget cuts would effect the historical community.

She will be replaced by James M. Vaughan, who most recently served as Vice President, Stewardship of Historic Sites for the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C. 

Here is a taste of the press release:

...Vaughan comes to the PHMC with more than 30 years of experience in managing museums and historical organizations and has been the recipient of numerous national awards including being named to the American Association of Museum's Centennial Honor Roll which pays tribute to 100 of America's museum leaders who have worked during the past 100 years to innovate, improve and expand how museums in the United States serve the public...


Vaughan succeeds Barbara Franco, who leaves the commission after more than 7 years of service, effectively guiding the commission through challenging economic times and limited fiscal resources. Masich and the commission expressed their deep gratitude to Franco for her dedication and professionalism.

Confessing History on Sale at Notre Dame Press

I just received the Fall "History and Religion" catalog from Notre Dame Press.  If you have not purchased a copy of Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian's Vocation you can grab one for $24.00 through this special sale.

And keep an eye on the next issue of Books and Culture.  There will be a review of Confessing History and a special forum with the book's editors.  Stay tuned.

It's Official: Springsteen on Tour in 2012

This is the day Springsteen fans have been waiting for.  Bruce just announced that he and the E-Street Band will be setting off on a world tour in 2012--their first in three years.  U.S. dates have yet to be announced. Stay tuned.

Abraham Lincoln and the Mormons

Ted Widmer, writing at The New York Times, reflects on Abraham Lincoln's response to Mormonism during the American Civil War.  Here is a taste:

But the question was far from solved, and on Nov. 18, Lincoln attacked the Mormon question in a most Lincolnian way. Instead of ordering an invasion, Lincoln ordered information. Specifically, he asked the Library of Congress to send him a pile of books about Mormonism, so that the aggregator-in-chief could better understand them. These included “The Book of Mormon” in its original 1831 edition, and three other early studies of the Mormons, with extensive, lurid chapters covering their polygamy. For some reason, he also ordered a volume of Victor Hugo, in French, a language he could not read.

Fortified by his reading, Lincoln came to a great decision. And that decision was to do nothing. Sometimes that, too, can be a form of leadership — what Churchill called “a masterly inactivity.”

I wonder if Widmer is suggesting a similar course for Americans who worry about a Mormon president.  Perhaps we should just leave the Mormons alone or at least leave the "Mormon issue" alone.

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

A few things online that caught my attention this week:

Amazon offering Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction at 39% off.

Is America still exceptional?

National Book Award winners.

What Occupy Wall Street can learn from Martin Luther King Jr.

All you need to know about the history of Thanksgiving.

How many presidents have been accused of being the Antichrist?

Is Obama turning his back on Catholics?

Aluminum historical markers.

Study:  Schools that focus on the humanities face an uncertain future.

The Paterno Family Professor in Literature at Penn State weighs in on the scandal.

David Barton's new book.

Bruce Springsteen attends a Taylor Swift concert in Raleigh. 

Colonial Williamsburg "Past and Present" podcast.

Is the National Association of Evangelicals moving to the left?

Happy Birthday to "The Search for Piety and Obedience."

Alternative Newt Gingrich histories.

The moral failure of the baby boomers.

What is the purpose of education?

Julia Ward Howe's ambitions and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Thursday Night: William Penn's Legacy in Harrisburg

On Thursday night I was privileged to participate, along with three esteemed historians of Pennsylvania, in a conversation on the religious legacy of William Penn.  The event was sponsored by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) and it took place at the historic Camp Curtin Mitchell Methodist Church in Harrisburg.

Each year the PHMC chooses a theme on which to focus their programming.  This year's theme was religion in Pennsylvania.  Thursday night's session, and three others like  it, stemmed from conversations about how to promote this theme throughout the Commonwealth.

My co-presenters for the night were Randall Miller (St. Joseph's University), Dennis Downey (Millersville University), and Emma Lapansky (Haverford College).  It was good to finally meet them.  I have admired their work for years.  Miller's co-edited book on religion and the Civil War has long been a staple in my library.  Downey has done some very interesting work on violence in Pennsylvania.  And I first came across the work of Emma Lapansky when I was doing research on Quakers in New Jersey.  I also remember reading about a NEH summer seminar she did at Haverford on American religious history. 

My responsibility for the evening was to "set the stage" for the conversation by discussing the history of Penn's "Holy Experiment."  Dennis Downey gave a very interesting talk about the limits of the "Holy Experiment," particularly as it related to moments of religious violence such as the Paxton Boys, an early twentieth-century lynching in Coatesville, and the Molly McGuires.  Emma Lapansky thought about how Penn's legacy continues today amid our current religious diversity.  As the moderator, Randall Miller kept us all in line and offered some of his own introductory remarks.  The Q&A that followed was lively. 

I was especially pleased that the room was filled with Messiah College students who made the 15-20 minute trek from Grantham to come to the event.  You can always count of Messiah students to step up to the plate in support of a civic event like this.  After the session, nine of us (including my colleague Cathay Snyder) went out for ice-cream to discuss the event.

Overall, a great night of American history, American religion, and some good intellectual conversation.

Most Popular Posts of the Last Week

Here are the ten most visited posts this week at The Way of Improvement Leads Home.

1. John Feinstein: The Penn State-Sandusky Scandal
2.  What's Going on at the Stony Brook School?
3.  Are Giberson and Stephens Preaching to the Choir?
4.  Top Ten Most Religious Cities in America
5.  How to Cite Facebook and Twitter?
6.  Religion in Jamestown
7.  Perrin: Is education primarily about making a living or learning how to live?
8.  Penn State
9.  The Benefits of a Classroom Lecture
10. Sunday Night Odds and Ends

Should the Religious Faith of a Candidate Matter?

Yes and no.

Gary Gutting, a philosophy professor at Notre Dame, reflects on this question.  Here is a taste of his piece in today's New York Times:


According to Sullivan, all we should care about is how candidates would act as president, not what religious beliefs might or might not influence those actions. As she succinctly puts it, “It’s their decisions, not their deity, that really matter.”  She takes the example of Rick Santorum, a conservative Catholic, who believes that homosexual behavior is sinful.  According to Sullivan, this is of no political significance. “The only thing we should care about is whether a candidate like Santorum would seek to ban gay marriage as president,” she said. “So just ask him that. In the end, his motivation for taking the position is irrelevant.”

But suppose Santorum replies — as he has — that he would seek to ban gay marriage (in fact, he also supports anti-sodomy laws).  The question then is why he thinks this is the right thing to do.  If his only reply is that his Catholic religion condemns homosexuality, then we’ve hit a blank wall.  Debate is the life-blood of a democracy, and this means that leaders must offer discussable reasons for what they propose to do.  To say, “My religion says so” may explain why you believe something, but it has no function in a discussion with people who do not accept your religion.  Such an appeal to religion is, as Richard Rorty once put it, merely a “conversation stopper.”

My point against Sullivan, then, is that it’s important to know whether a candidate can offer discussable arguments for a position or merely holds it as a matter of religious faith.   Private citizens may be entitled to base their votes on religious faith or anything thing else, but those who aspire to lead a democracy have a responsibility to engage in meaningful debate with those who disagree with them.

Of course, every argument has to start from some basic premises that are not argued for, and it may be that a political leader’s religious faith suggests such premises.   Leaders of the civil rights movement made a case against segregation based on their view that all human beings, as created by God, have equal rights.  But what mattered for their political argument was that the principle of equal human rights has wide appeal among citizens of a democracy, regardless of their religious views.  That’s why it was effective in a political argument against segregation.  By contrast, a case for segregation based solely on Biblical passages that seem to forbid the mixing of races would have no purchase outside a narrow circle of believers.

Cornell West Leaving Princeton for Union Theological Seminary

From Inside Higher Ed:

Union Theological Seminary, in New York City, has announced that Cornel West will be leaving his Princeton University professorship to become a professor of philosophy and Christian practices at the seminary. West has been a key figure in philosophy, cultural studies and African-American studies at Princeton and, before that, at Harvard University. Earlier in his career, he taught at Union Theological. West told The New York Times that he was going to be taking a significant pay cut to leave Princeton, but that he was ready for the move because Union is “the institutional expression of my core identity as a prophetic Christian.”

Image of the Day

I always enjoy passing this bridge on the train from Trenton to Philadelphia.  If only it were still true!

Tonight: William Penn's Religious Legacy

We had a great morning with over thirty Catholic school teachers who teach in the Bronx.  The event took place place at Lehman College and we focused on some of the material in Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?  The teachers were great! Very intelligent and very engaged.  Many of them were people of faith who were eager to learn more about religion and the founding era.  Some of them taught Catholic history at their respective schools.  It was also good to work again with Anthony Napoli, the director of education at the Gilder-Lehrman Institute.

I am now on the train getting ready for tonight's event in Harrisburg,

If you live in the central Pennsylvania, I hope you will consider joining us for an evening of Pennsylvania religious history.  The Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission will be a hosting an event entitled "William Penn's Legacy: Does the Holy Experiment Continue?"  Historians Randall Miller, John Fea, Dennis Downey, and Emma Lapansky will be reflecting on Penn's legacy of religious freedom and whether or not the "Holy Experiment" continues in Pennsylvania today.

The event will take place on Thursday, November 17, 2011 from 7:00-9:00pm at the Camp Curtin Memorial Mitchell United Methodist Church on 2221 N. 6th Street in Harrisburg, PA.   (See the above link for details).  The event is free and open to the public.

Hope to see you there!

Double-Shot Thursday

It will be a busy Thursday.

Tomorrow morning I will be spending a few hours with high school and middle-school teachers from the Diocese of Brooklyn as part of  a Gilder-Lehrman Institute seminar on religion and the founding.

Then, tomorrow night at 7:00, I will be back in Harrisburg where I will be speaking at a public program on the religious legacy of William Penn.

That's a lot of time on Amtrak, but at least there is free WiFi!

History at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting

Over at Religion in American History, Kelly Baker reports on the American religious history panels at this weekend's annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Francisco.  It looks like a full slate.

Analyzing Rejection Letters

We have all received them, but few take the time to  study them.  Over at Inside Higher Ed, Nicholas Hengen Fox analyzes over 100 letters of rejection for academic jobs (not all of them are his) and tries to find a "silver lining." (I am assuming that this is essay is a piece of sarcasm, but I could be wrong).  Here are his conclusions:

1.  These letters affirm the candidate's potential.
2.  These letters affirm the discipline.
3.  These letters affirm the candidate's future.

Fox concludes:


Job applicants, even when you receive letters with blunt phrases like "This letter is to inform you that we have decided not to pursue your candidacy," or "We have concluded the search and hired someone for the position," or "Unfortunately, we've decided to suspend the search for this year," do not fear. You may be rejected from a slew of jobs over many years. But you are still remarkable. To remind yourself of this, don’t hide from your rejection letters. Read these brave, generous, and hopeful missives closely. You will be affirmed.

Indeed, we all can be. For the lessons of these letters are not just for applicants, but for the discipline as a whole. While some critics would tell us these are dire times for the humanities, each spring’s flood of rejection letters can help us see the truth: our field is thriving, our potential is great, and brighter days have already arrived.

Yale Experiences a Significant Decline in the Number of History Majors

Welcome to the club, Yale University.

The number of history majors across the country continues to decline.  Yale University is no exception.  Ten years ago history was the most popular major at Yale.  Today the history major has been surpassed by politics and economics. 

Read all about it in the Yale Daily News:

 The History Department hopes to determine why the number of history majors has dropped significantly in recent years as it prepares for an external review next semester.

The University awarded 131 history degrees in the 2010-’11 year, down from 217 in 2001-’02, according to data from the Office of Institutional Research. History professors interviewed said the department is investigating the cause of the decline, but they and students disagreed over whether it should be cause for concern.

“We want to be reactive to any kind of changes in the undergraduate environment,” Steven Pincus, director of undergraduate studies for the History Department, said. “Yes, there has been a decline in the number of majors — it is not a catastrophic decline, but we want to know why that’s happening and what we can do to make the major more attractive to undergraduates.”

Read the rest here.

The Joseph Smith Papers Project

Over at her blog Flunking Sainthood, Jana Riess interviews Matthew Grow and Robin Jensen, the editors of The Joseph Smith Papers Project.  A new volume of the project was the released today.  (The project also has a very snazzy and informative website).

Here is a taste of the interview:

Can you explain the Joseph Smith Papers project in general?

Grow: The goal of the Joseph Smith Papers project is to publish every extant document owned, created, or authorized by Joseph Smith. Eventually there will be about 20 volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers in print, and even more material available online. The website will be comprehensive in that it contains every document that falls into those three categories.

We have done four so far, and [on November 15] the second volume in the journal series will come out. The first volume was 1832-39 journals, while the second takes us into the Nauvoo years, 1841-43. We’ve also done two volumes in our Revelations and Translations series.

What is special about this particular volume?

Jensen: Historians want to understand Joseph Smith as a person, but he shied away from creating his own records, which means we get very little glimpse of his personality. The instances where you capture his voice are really exciting. The first journal of 1832-33 is in his own hand, and very often he just slips into prayer. Then later in Nauvoo where we have imperfect and incomplete records of his sermons, even then Joseph really shines out and you get a glimpse of his charisma and why people gravitated towards him. 

Grow: The Joseph Smith papers are not only a record of Joseph Smith, but of how early Mormonism grows up. You see in the early documentary record how Joseph is able to coalesce a following.

We expect this volume and the next two to have the widest interest – this one has the beginnings of the Relief Society, as well as the growing opposition [to Mormonism]. It talks about Joseph Smith’s legal troubles in Illinois. The two volumes next year are the histories that Joseph Smith wrote or dictated, including a short personal history that he wrote in 1832, or that the earliest historians wrote.

Read the rest here.