Seven years old today! It started on January 15, 2001.

And the internet hasn’t been the same since!

“Making Mormon History” published in the Boston Globe over the weekend was written for me. Or so I like to think! Its been obvious for the past few years or so with Jon Krakaur’s book, the series Big Love, the pbs special, and the notable politicians Harry Reid and Mitt Romney that Mormonism is an official part of popular culture.

What I’ll concentrate on in this post is how Mormon and non-Mormon scholars approach the religion’s history.  One of the main but overlooked differences between Mormonism and other Christian religions (yes, I label it as a branch of Christianity) is that Mormons are not open about their history.  Mormons are quick to tell you about their religion but they are not open to various interpretations of it.  In fact, their archives are not free to the public.  What else sets Mormonism apart it the secretiveness and ritual of the religious ceremonies.  Additionally, Mormon officials are quick to officially exclude, or excommunicate, members who write questionable materials about the religion’s history.

A decade later, in 1993, the church excommunicated several scholars, including D. Michael Quinn, a tenured historian at Brigham Young University who had written a number of controversial works, including one about the persistence of church-sanctioned polygamy after its official ban in 1890. via

It’s not only a scholar’s research about Mormon history that raises eyebrows but its an individual’s political identifications that also causes potential issues.  It is believed that an invitation to speak at BYU was denied to acclaimed historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich because of her self-identified feminism.

The Mormon unwillingness to discuss the past was also evident in Mitt Romney’s speech last week.

Serious analysis of Mormonism has never been more important, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy. In Romney’s speech on faith last week, for example, the candidate spoke movingly about religious tolerance, and tried to highlight similarities between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity, but he said nothing substantive about Mormon theology or history.

I couldn’t agree more that now is the time that real work into the historical analysis of Mormonism is needed. It is also time to do some real comparative studies into similarities between Mormonism and other religious groups/minorities that are unique to the United States.   I hope to do some of that work.

This weekend, I decided to head to the New York Public Library, Mid Manhattan branch. I usually dread going here with a specific book in mind, as I can never find what I’m looking for. Even if the website claims to have it in stock, its just…not…there. The library in NYC is like a huge, labyrinthine abyss that things just disappear into and never emerge from.

HOWEVER, this time I used worldcat.org to look up some of the books and authors I wanted to read. I was secretly hoping some of the books would be at my beloved Brooklyn Public Library, but, alas, they weren’t there. But they were at the NYPL. One of the books was at the research library, which in all my years of living in NYC, I have never used. So, I decided to go for it and headed to the library on Saturday.

Lo and behold, all three books I wanted to check out from the Mid Manhattan branch were there. I was shocked.

Then I walked across the street to the main research branch and after a few bureaucratic twists and turns, I was reading what I came for.

Yeah! I think the next time I decided to go to the main NYPL branch, I will definitely be using worldcat!

The books I checked out:

The Devil’s Lane: Sex and Race in the Early South edited by Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie
Gods of the City: Religion and the American Urban Landscape edited by Robert Orsi

In the Shadow of War: The United States since the 1930s by Michael Sherry

Last weekend, I was in the middle of the Midwest on a business trip when my husband joined me for the weekend. He had a novel idea that I wish I would have thought of. However, the idea is even better coming from him, as there is nothing like hearing the person you love want to do something he or she knew you would love to do.

He suggested visting an AMISH SETTLEMENT!

What more would I love then going to visit a community that adheres to what we modern folk commonly consider crazy religious principles!!?!? Um nothing!

So, we decided to drive to Arthur, IL. After a few hours, we arrived and were soon both gawking at the buggys and horses.

But then I decided to stop gawking and start examining all of the cultural implications of these different, religious societies side by side.

Whenever, I go back to my hometown, I notice all the churches that have popped up over the years. I have always struggled to know the fundemental difference between each of these churches. I’ve asked family and friends who are and are not members of these religious institutions but there is no one answer that I have found satisfying enough.

Going into the Amish communities, I assumed that all I’d be seeing are Amish places of worship. I was wrong. I forgot all about the Mennonite settlements. The Mennonite churches were much more prominent than Amish ones. And there were books about Mennonite people in all of the little shops.

Prairie Mennonite Church

In addition to the Mennonite Church, we also saw a Southern Baptist Church and a Zion United Church of Christ.

Zion United Church of Christ

I couldn’t help but wonder what it is like for Amish and Mennonite people to live aside people who wear their religion on their sleeve. One could argue that the Amish and Mennonite communities do make everyone aware of their religious status through their style of clothing, family roles, ways of practicing religious customs and shunning certain aspects of modernity. But these are people who strive to live life simply not ostentatiously.

This sign from the Southern Baptist Church felt out of place amongst all the friendly men and women who greeted my husband and I wherever we went in Arthur.

No one can say that some church signs don’t attempt to be creative with wording. I wondered if the language offended the Amish and Mennonites but assumed if most of the people riding in the buggys and in their yard would wave at my husband and me in our our rented Jeep Liberty, that they didn’t really care about the Southern Baptists.

Our day trip also got me thinking about a research project: a historical look at religion in Illinois. There is a lot going on there religious wise from the Amish and Mennonites to Joseph Smith and Mormons in Nauvoo.

From the wikipedia page for Illinois:

With a mixture of factory and farm, urban and rural, Illinois is a microcosm of the United States; an Associated Press analysis of 21 demographic factors determined Illinois was the “most average state.”^[6]

I wonder what the religious experience is for the average citizen in the “most average state.” After Saturday’s trip, I know there is a lot of stories and research to sink my teeth into.

(On a side note, I found the perfect gift for my mother. I cannot name the sort of shop we went to for it would give the gift away. But the lovely Mennonite (I think) woman named Wilma who rang me up didn’t blink twice when I asked if they took debit cards. She also asked for me to input my pin number with the slightest ease. Several of my preconceived notions were put to bed that day!)

I’m currently reading His Favorite Wife: Trapped in Polygamy.

OK the cover and back book cover reads as though the author Susan Ray Schmidt is abused.  Well, that ain’t the case so far.  Sure, she is neglected, as many child brides of polygamists are. But I feel like the cover and back cover is a bit misleading.  However, I haven’t finished it.  I’m halfway through it so far.

As I’m reading it, I’m learning a lot about fundamental mormon sects.  I find myself wanting to look up these groups on wikipedia or just on google in general, but I feel like I could possibly be ruining important information I could be learning from the text.  Its funny how in the past I would just try to read another book on the subject but now possible answers are immediate.

So far the book is good if not a bit beach readish but its August.  Now is the time!

I want to see this movie RIGHT NOW!

And every other John Ford western ASAP!

I hope I have his dedication!

Queen star finishes PhD thesis after 30 years 

I cannot believe I just found this article, A Hipper Crowd of Shushers, especially since I troll the NYTimes every day like the liberal I am.

Anyway, when I finished my MA in women’s black, a lot of my classmates went onto library school and loved it.  It was (and is) something I’ve been considering for a long time.  Every time I go to the Brooklyn Central Library, I feel a calm peace within myself.  I know I’m weird.  Anyway,  I’m still hellbent on getting my PhD in American history (or studies), but I have to apply again and all that.  But my intense love of books and libraries makes me second guess myself.  It’s true if I do become a professor, I’ll be spending a whole lot of time in libraries and archives.  It’s not like the two don’t go together.

The odd thing about the article was that it spent a lot of time trying to prove that these librarians seem cool.

On a Saturday, after a day of panels, a group of librarians relaxed and danced at Selam Restaurant. Sarah Mercure nursed a blueberry vodka and cranberry juice and talked about deciding on her career after hearing a librarian who curated a zine collection speak. Pete Welsch, a D.J., spun records and talked about how his interest in social activism, film and music led him to library school.

The article mostly seemed to be concerned with how these people were cool not what they loved about their jobs.

What I did love about the article was dispelling the myth that because google exists, libraries and books aren’t needed.  So not true.  Librarians are so much more relevant today, as they help the patron map through all the information the Internet gives out. While google and wikipedia are great sites, we need help discerning what is “good” information and what is “bad” information.  Fact is getting mixed in with opinion way too much these days.

This page from UIUC’s site (which is the highest ranked information science program I believe) proves how cool Librarians are.  They all discuss their favorite books, libraries and if they dogear their pages.  Totally awesome!

Every single person, especially those who publish, write or edit, should own an actual dictionary.

REPEAT! One should own an actual dictionary NOT depend on the internet.

This does not mean I don’t like online dictionaries.

The end.

I’m at my quirky hotel in Boston. I’m sitting here trying to figure out the T. My hotel has some strange features. There are Trojan condoms in the mini bar. I think great for safe sex and the best place if you need them in the hurry. I’ve just never seen them anywhere beside on an RA’s door or a store or bathroom vending machine.

And the hotel charges .29 cents per page to print in the business center. BAH! I got hit by an urge to cut things out of my paper, so I needed a new copy. Would I have done that if I knew my print out would have cost me roughly $2.00…I don’t know?

I got to Boston at 5:30 and went by the conference location to catch a 6:00 panel entitled:

Composition & Rhetoric VIII: Oprah, Dr. Phil, & Letterman:

Inviting Popular Culture into the Composition Classroom

It really deserves a lot more of a detailed description than I can give it right now. It made me go back and think over my talk in my head because the panelists were all talking about teaching composition.