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History of the Mormon History Association
Below are three essays that give perspective on the founding and early development of MHA.
1. Leonard J. Arrington, "Reflections on the Founding and Purpose of the Mormon History Association, 1965-1983" Journal of Mormon History 10 (1983): 91-103.
2. Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, "Entre Nous: An Intimate History of MHA" Journal of Mormon History 12 (1985): 43-52.
3. Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 58-61.
By Leonard J. Arrington, 1982
Journal of Mormon History, 10 (1983): 91-103.
"Reflections on the
Founding and Purpose of the Mormon History Association, 1965-1983"
Leonard J. Arrington was sustained as Church Historian at the LDS General Conference, in April 1972. Since his release in October 1980 he has been director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History at Brigham Young University and holds the Lemuel Redd Chair in Western History at BYU. He was founding president of the Mormon History Association.
During the years after World War II, partly because of the assistance given returning veterans by the G. I. Bill of Rights (Public Law 346), graduate research in the field of Mormon history began to flower. Whereas only a handful of historians had written doctored dissertations on topics connected with Mormon history before 1946, several dozen were completed in the late 1940s and early 1950s—twenty in the 1950s alone. A sizable group of scholars spent their summers working in the Church Archives in Salt Lake City and became intimately acquainted with each other and with each other's projects. We shared research finding. Perhaps more importantly, we shared strategems by which we could overcome the reluctance of A. William Lund, watchdog of the Archives, to allow us access to the rich materials housed there.
In the years that followed the granting of our degrees, as we prepared books and articles for publication, we continued to visit the Archives to fill in gaps in our research. We also kept in touch with each other by attending historical conventions, often staying up half the night in someone’s room discussing facts and interpretations of the Latter-day Saint past. Virtually all of us were practicing, believing members of the church, and we shared also our experiences in our various wards and branches. We hunted up persons we had not met who had written on the Mormons; and we speculated about the trends in church politics. We also made it a point to become acquainted with professional his-[p.92]torians who were members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and spent some evening discussing our common heritage with them. Some of us talked about the founding of a journal of Mormon history, even toying with possible names for the journal, such as Latter-day Saint Quarterly, LDS Historical Review, or Journal of Mormon History. These discussions were temporarily ended by the founding of BYU Studies in 1959. Although the first editors of Studies were anxious to run sound historical essays, we were taken aback when an interpretive article by one of us was published in the first issue, creating such an opposition on the part of one zealous general authority that the journal was suspended for a year.
Through these activities a community of LDS historians was developed. Our interrelationships at annual meetings of the American Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, and Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, were strengthened with the formation of the Western History Association in 1963. They were buttressed by meetings in Utah of the Utah State Historical Society, Utah Conference on Higher Education, and Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. On our various campuses there were also smaller study groups of historians and social scientists engage in Mormon studies. At Utah State University where I was teaching, for example, George Ellsworth, Eugene Campbell, Wendell Rich, and myself met once a month with our spouses to read and critique papers we had prepared on aspects of LDS history. We also shared with graduate students the excitement of seminars conducted by George Ellsworth on the sources and literature of Mormon history.
The dullest meetings Utah educators had to attend were the annual September sessions of the Utah Conference on Higher Education. At these sessions administrators from Brigham Young University, the University of Utah, Utah State University, and the various junior colleges in the state harangued us on administrative problems and policies. In anticipation of the conference to be held on September 9, 1965, at Logan, Utah, a group of us decided to hold our own “rump session” to discuss the formation of a Mormon History Association. Professors Ellsworth, Campbell, Rich, and myself arranged the meeting, to be held in the Hatch Room of the Merrill Library at Utah State University. We had strong letters of support from Davis Bitton and John Sorenson, both then at Santa Barbara, California. We also had verbal support from several scholars around the nation, as well as from many at BYU and elsewhere in Utah. In anticipation of such a meeting some of us had acquired information about the American Catholic Society which might be helpful. The following agenda was provided those expected to be in attendance:
AGENDA FOR A “RUMP” SESSION OF MORMON HISTORIANS
Hatch Room, USU Library
September 9, 1965 – 1:30-5:30 P.M.
1. Should we organize formally? If so, what is an appropriate name? Organization of Mormon Historians? Mormon Historical Association? LDS History Association? Or what? [p. 93]
2. Do we need a constitution? If so, maybe one of you would write a draft of one. At least, we ought to have a chairman or president or secretary who can serve as a focus for communications. Nominations for such a person or persons are now open!
3. Would it be desirable to publish a newsletter each quarter? If so, how to finance it? Assess each person $1 a year? There is good precedent for this in some of the professional organizations.
4. What stand should we take with respect to the new proposed journal Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought? Should we support it, at least temporarily, or make plans to sponsor our own journal?
5. What kind of arrangements should we make for meeting with other Mormon historians at the time of the American Historical Association meetings in San Francisco December 28-30? Someone should reserve a place and time for meeting and arrange for a program.
Any other business that any member would like to propose?
As the result of the meeting, the following letter went out to a wide circle of historians and social scientists interested in Mormon history.
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY
September 15, 1965
Letter No. 1
In line with the suggestions of many persons, a group of Mormon historians met in the Hatch Room of the Utah State University Library the afternoon of September 9, 1965, to discuss the desirability or forming a Mormon history association. Fourteen persons were in attendance, and they included historians from Brigham Young University, Utah State University, and the L. D. S. Institute of Religion in Logan. The following actions were agreed upon.
(1) To arrange to go to the annual meetings of the American Historical Association in San Francisco December 28-30 as a group. Professor Thomas Alexander of Brigham Young University will attempt to arrange a time and place for Mormon historians to meet at the time of that convention, Professor Richard Bushman of Brigham Young University, with the assistance of James Allen, agreed to arrange for a program. Professor Stanford Cazier of Utah State University will attempt to coordinate the transportation so that all of us can obtain group air rates from Salt Lake to San Francisco for ourselves and wives.
(2) To suggest to the Mormon historians gathered there the formation of an organization. The group was evenly divided between two names: Mormon History Association and Association for Mormon History.
(3) Professor Eugene Campbell of Brigham Young University accepted the assignment of preparing the draft of a constitution and by-laws to present to the assembled Mormon historians in San Francisco.
(4) Professor Leonard Arrington agreed to serve as a focus for inter-communication and to send out a newsletter to prospective members. If all of you will send a paragraph mentioning the research interests which you have and research projects on which you are currently working that have any connection with Mormon history, these will be included in the newsletter. For the purposes of supporting financially the preparation and mailing of the newsletter, each prospective member is asked to send $1.00 to me. [p. 94]
(5) We discussed at some length the problems connected with organizing the group. We agreed that it ought to be intended primarily for professionally trained historians interested in Mormon history. We assumed that most of the members would be Mormons, but there might be others who would want to participate. We also assumed that there would be Mormon members whose primary field of interest is something other than Mormon history, but who would want to belong because of professional kinship. We mentioned the following possible objectives:
a. To sponsor a session at the annual meetings of the Pacific Coast Branch, Organization of American Historians, and American Historical Association. While these would be partly social, we thought it would be useful to have two or three papers on subjects connected with Mormon history.
b. To encourage publication on Mormon history topics. After considerable discussion we agreed to recommend that Mormon historians support the new journal of Mormon thought, Dialogue – at least, for the time being. We are hopeful that we might induce the editors of Dialogue to publish frequent articles on Mormon history subjects and/or to devote at least one annual issue to Mormon history. We think Mormon historians will be among the most frequent contributors, as well as enthusiastic supporters, of Dialogue.
(6) After this discussion the group listened to an interesting paper by Jim Allen on "The Historical Significance of Joseph Smith's First Vision."
Leonard J. Arrington
Within the next few weeks I received letters from many persons - perhaps thirty-five or forty. Most of them enclosed $1.00. This enabled me to send out the following Letter No. 2 on November 10, 1965.
MORMON HISTORY ASSOCIATION
Letter No. 2 November 10, 1965
1. For those of you who just joined our mailing list, it is proposed that as many of us as can – our wives, friends, and others interested – meet for two or more hours at San Francisco in December in connection with the annual meetings of the American Historical Association. Tom Alexander has arranged for us to meet from 7:30 to 10:00 P.M. on Tuesday, December 28, in the Monterey Room of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, corner of Taylor and Center, San Francisco. There should be no convention conflicts. The room seats in excess of 60 persons, and should therefore hold all those interested. Jim Allen and Richard Bushman have arranged it program as follows:
Conducting: Leonard Arrington
Discussion of purposes and procedures: 10 minutes
Discussion of proposed name and constitution: Eugene E. Campbell 20 minutes
Election of officers for the coming year: 15 minutes
Discussion of projects and programs for the Association: Richard Bushman: 30 minutes
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought –Its possible relationship to the Association: G. Wesley Johnson – 30 minutes
Panel and discussion – “The Writing of Mormon History: Prospects and New Approaches.” Truman Madsen, Ralph Hansen, Alfred Bush – 30 minutes
2. Many of you responded to our first letter by sending $1.00 to provide money for stamps and paper, and secretarial help in connection with getting started. To this date, I have received $30.00. Of course, this will be considered your dues for the first year. [p. 95] Most of you also appended a note giving enthusiastic support to the idea of forming the Association. Several of you added names to our list of those interested. (The list now has 80 names.) Several of you made extended comments about purposes and procedures. (This is a very exciting thing. both intellectually and emotionally, to be in touch with all these kindred spirits.) On one point, may I respond that the original list was only a beginning, and was drawn up by thinking of those who would be most likely to attend the San Francisco meeting of AHA. No attempt was made to exclude Reorganized historians, non-Mormons, lapsed Mormons, persons who are not professional historians, or anyone else.
3. I have omitted mentioning "the doings" of some of the members in this letter because of the bulk of organizational items which must be included.
Leonard J. Arrington
The organizational meeting was held in San Francisco in connection with the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (their first meeting in the American West), in the Monterey room of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. Minutes of this founding meeting were as follows:
MINUTES OF THE FORMATIVE MEETING OF THE
MORMON HISTORY ASSOCIATION
San Francisco, California, December 28, 1965
This meeting was held in connection with the annual meeting of the American Historical Association. Leonard J. Arrington conducted, and fifty-two persons were in attendance. Among those present were representatives of the Church Historian’s Office, major western universities, L.D.S. Institutes of Religion, the Idaho Historical Society, and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. At least one prominent non-Mormon historian was present.
I. Meeting: commenced at 7:30 P.M.
II. Invocation by Earl E. Olson.
III. Introductory comments by
Leonard J. Arrington included the following:
A. Welcome and personal introductions of all present. Each person was asked to introduce himself and indicate his interest in the Association.
B. Dr. Arrington discussed the background of the organization, indicating that for some years various people interested in Mormon history had been talking about some kind of formal organization. Last fall in Logan, Utah, a group of historians got together during the Utah Conference on Higher Education and made definite plans which resulted in this meeting. Dr. Arrington was assigned to write the newsletter and do the necessary mailing; Eugene Campbell was assigned to write a proposed constitution; Thomas G. Alexander made arrangements for the meeting place; and Richard Bushman and James B. Allen arranged the program.
C. Dr. Arrington reported that only yesterday he had met with the board of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Society. The Pacific Coast Branch agreed to allow the Mormon History Association to become affiliated with this organization and to be included in the program of its annual meetings. The only stipulation was that the Mormon History Association remain a professional organization interested primarily in scholarly research and writing. Dr. Arrington was charged personally with keeping the Pacific Coast Branch assured that this was the case. The next meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch will be held on August 30, 31, and September 1, 1966, in Portland, Oregon. This will be our first annual meeting, and we will work to make it most rewarding. Chairman of the session will be Dr. James Clayton and arrangements are under the [p. 96] direction of Davis Bitton. A question was raised concerning the reason for having our organization meet at the same time as the Pacific Coast Branch – why not in connection with some other meeting? It was explained by Dr. Arrington that the location of most of the members of the association made it most convenient for the largest number to attend this meeting. It is planned, however, to also have meetings in connection with other associations, but this one will be the official annual meeting.
D. It was announced that three annual awards of $25.00 each will be announced in the next meeting in August. These will go to the author of the best book on Mormon history published in the preceding twelve months; the author of the best article on Mormon history published in the preceding twelve months; and the author of the best thesis or dissertation on Mormon history approved during the preceding twelve months. Awards in all three categories will not necessarily be made every year. For the present, judges will consist of the officers of the Association. Nominations for the awards to be given in August 1966 are welcome.
E. LeRoy Hafen raised a question concerning membership in the Association –is it restricted to Mormons? Dr. Arrington explained that the original thought was that it should include all persons who are interested in Mormon history, regardless of their church affiliation. It should also include professional historians who may not be doing actual research and writing in Mormon history, but who have a kinship of interest. It was seemingly the consensus of the group that there should be no restriction of this nature on membership.
IV. Eugene E. Campbell discussed the proposed constitution, and general discussion from the floor was held on each item. A modified version of the constitution was adopted, and accompanies these minutes. One of the most serious items raised concerned the term of office of the officers. It was suggested that a two-year term would be more meaningful than a one-year term. Dr. Campbell explained that those involved in writing the constitution agreed with this, but felt that it should not actually be written in, in case the people constituting the nominating committee saw the necessity of changing an unsatisfactory officer. It was assumed, however, that the nominating committee would work this out and would probably re-nominate the president and other officers for a second term. It was felt best, however, not to make a constitutional fiat in this respect. The group accepted this explanation. In connection with Article IV of the constitution, dues were raised from $1.00 to $2.00, and all present members were asked to pay their additional $1.00 as soon as possible.
V. Eugene Campbell, as chairman of the nominating committee, nominated the following people as officers of the Association:
President: Leonard J. Arrington, Utah State University
1st Vice President: Eugene E. Campbell, Brigham Young University
2nd Vice President: James L. Clayton, University of Utah
Secretary/Treasurer: Dello G. Dayton, Weber State College
Council Members: Alfred Bush, Princeton University
Robert Flanders, Graceland College
Davis Bitton, University of California at Santa Barbara
Merle Wells, Idaho State Historical Society
Dr. Campbell explained that these nominations generally reflected the names which had been mentioned most frequently on the ballots that had come in. Nominations from the floor were called for. There being no further nominations, these officers were installed by acclamation.
VI. Richard Bushman discussed the general topic: “Projects and Programs.”
A. He indicated that his discussion was only to present ideas of what we might be doing, in addition to our regular meetings and research, but certainly not in-[p. 97]tended to commit the Association to any of these programs, or to call for immediate action on them.
B. Since Truman G. Madsen, who is director of the Institute of Mormon Studies at B.Y.U., could not attend because of illness, Dr. Bushman gave a brief report on some of the things the Institute might do, and which this Association might be interested in. He explained that the Institute was still involved primarily with doing special research projects of interest to church leaders. Some of these projects, however, would involve some historical research, and money may be available to scholars who are interested in working on such projects.
C. Dr. Bushman suggested that we should be looking forward to the possibility of preparing for a new comprehensive history of the church which could be published in connection with the 1980 sesquicentennial. The administration of B.Y.U. and the Institute of Mormon Studies are interested, and some money is available for appropriate projects. Several things might possibly be done in cooperation with the Institute.
D. It would be important to collect ideas on areas which need to be worked on – a broad survey which would include not only new ideas, but a way of collecting all the materials already being worked on. It would hopefully include a broad listing from many universities, libraries, etc. The Institute of Mormon Studies would volunteer to collect materials, and to dispense one-page summaries of items submitted. The Mormon History Association could contribute by collecting problems, materials, etc.
E. In discussion from the floor, objection was raised to the possibility of an official connection between this Association and the Institute of Mormon Studies. It was generally felt that this Association should stand alone, not being dependent upon any other group for its projects or its activities. Dr. Bushman explained that he did not intend to suggest an official connection, and agreed with the general feeling. He was merely presenting ideas about what needed to be accomplished
VII. Wesley Johnson, one of the managing editors of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, reported on the plans for this new publication, the first issue of which will appear in early 1966.
A. He indicated that it will include articles, a book review section (including essay reviews), and bibliographical essays.
B. The present thought is to put out three regular issues each year, plus a special issue on a particular topic or theme. He made an informal proposal that the Mormon History Association take over the third issue as the first of these special theme issues. Leonard Arrington was appointed guest editor for such an issue.
C. He expressed his hope that Dialogue would stand for the spirit of free but responsible inquiry. They have had a wide response from people in all parts of the country with a wide variety of backgrounds.
D. He indicated that Dialogue wanted to stimulate good writing as well as responsible scholarship. The editors invite all interested to submit good articles, and to help obtain good articles from others. Perhaps a series of annual prizes can eventually be awarded by Dialogue.
E. In response to a question about the relationship of the non-Mormon to Dialogue, he indicated that it was intended that basic control of the publication remain with church members. Articles, however, were solicited from all sources, regardless of church affiliation, and there would be absolutely no discrimination on the basis of church membership. The only basis for selection would be good scholarship, good writing, and appropriateness of material.
F. When Dr. Johnson finished, Dr. Arrington asked that all members submit to him ideas for articles to be included in the third issue which, it was generally assumed, the Mormon History Association would take over. He asked that mem-[p. 98]bers submit articles by June 1, 1966 and that we also inform others who have good material of this deadline, encouraging them to submit their work.
VIII. A panel discussion was held on the general topic of ideas for new approaches to Mormon history. Participants on the panel were Ralph Hansen of Stanford University and Klaus Hansen of Utah State University. James B. Allen was moderator.
A. Ralph Hansen emphasized the need for more research in primary sources. He suggested the possibility of a more concerted effort to collect more manuscripts and place them in depositories where they would be readily available for research. He decried the fact that so many valuable manuscripts were still highly restricted in their use, and suggested that the best insight into Mormon history can be obtained only when they are available.
B. Klaus Hansen suggested that many non-Mormons are now taking Mormon history very seriously and that Mormons ought therefore to take themselves a little less seriously. By this he implied that Mormons ought not to write their history with the idea of regulating the future, as some have done. An important function of the historian is that of critic. We need to clarify our criticism, and evaluate the past critically, but we should not see ourselves in the role of priest and prophet. That is, we should not assume that our history gives us all the answers. We need to explode a few myths, but we do not need to try to create a new society. We should take ourselves a little tongue-in-cheek, but we ought to consider ourselves as the memory, not the prophets of the future.
C. A brief discussion ensued.
IX. The meeting adjourned at 10:20 p.m.
James B. Allen
Secretary Pro tem
The following constitution was adopted.
MORMON HISTORY ASSOCIATION: CONSTITUTION
Article I—In order to foster scholarly research and publication in the field of Mormon history, and to promote fellowship and communication among scholars interested in Mormon history, an international organization is hereby formed with the name: “Mormon History Association.”
Article II—The officers of the Mormon History Association shall be as follows:
1st Vice President
2nd Vice President
Council – 3 year term – East: To arrange meetings in connection with the American Historical Association.
Council – 2 year term – Midwest: To arrange meetings in connection with the Organization of American Historians.
Council – 1 year term – Far West: To arrange meetings in connection with the Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association.
Council – 1 year term – Far West: To arrange meetings in connection with the Western History Association.
Council – 1 year term: Immediate Past President
Article III – The officers shall be nominated by an official nominating committee consisting of the president and any two of the council members. Nominations shall be listed in the newsletters preceding the annual meeting of the Association. Suggestions for nominations may be submitted to the nominating committee by any member, and [p. 99] additional nominations may be made from the floor at the elections to be held at the annual meeting. The term of office of the president, vice presidents, secretary-treasurer, and past presidents shall be one year. The term of office of each council member, beginning with those elected in 1966 shall be three years. All of the officers shall comprise the Executive Council of the Association.
Article IV – Annual dues of two dollars shall be assessed all members. Such dues must be paid within a month after the annual meeting in order for a member to remain in good standing for the ensuing year.
Article V – The annual meeting shall be scheduled in conjunction with the annual convention of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. Other meetings shall be promoted by the officers in conjunction with the annual conventions of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the Western History Association, and at the call of officers or at the request of members.
Article VI – Membership in the Association shall consist of charter members who have paid dues before February 1, 1966, and others who indicate their desire to join by the payment of annual dues.
Article VII – Amendments to this constitution may be proposed from the floor at the annual meeting or by petition signed by five members and forwarded to the president. Voting on proposed amendments shall be by secret ballot sent to each member. The proposed amendment shall become part of the constitution when a majority of the members who submit their ballots before the established deadline shall vote in the affirmative.
Subsequent correspondence invited the submission of articles to be published in the MHA issue of Dialogue; informed members of planned get-togethers at meetings of the Organization of American Historians, Western History Association, American Historical Association, and Pacific Coast Branch: and announced that eighty charter members had paid their dues by February 1, 1966, of which two were Reorganized Church historians and three were non-Mormons (Merle Wells, Jan Shipps, P. A. M. Taylor). The memberships included a liberal sprinkling of professors outside of Utah, LDS Institute instructors, and persons not affiliated with academic or archival institutions (e.g., Juanita Brooks, David L. Wilkinson,Ward Forman). Suggestive of the important role women would play in the organization, there were five women charter members of Mormon History Association. The roster of members included persons living in all sections of the United States and at least two in foreign Countries. Some were professors or students specializing in Western American history. Others were in ancient, medieval, modern European, Latin American, and American history. Some were in such other fields as literature, economics, sociology, and anthropology. Others were "amateurs" who wished to deepen their understanding of Mormon history and to support the various undertakings of the Association.
In the three years that followed, 1966-1969, MHA held its annual meeting in August in association with conventions of the Pacific Coast Branch. In 1970 the official meeting was in Los Angeles during the April meetings of the Organization of American Historians. In 1971 the business meeting was held in October in Santa Fe, in connection with the convention of the Western History Association. During these years meetings were also held in association with the Organization of American Historians in April, Pacific Coast Branch in August, [p. 100] Western History Association in October, and American Historical Association in December.
Finally, in 1972, the officers decided to hold three-day conventions in the spring in chosen settings separate from other historical groups. The flowering of scholarship was such that there was a need for dozens of persons to present papers, and also for the hundreds of interested nonprofessional historians to hear the papers. This move also coincided with the creation of the LDS Historical Department and the appointment of a group of professional historians to do sponsored research, writing, and publication in the field of Mormon history.
Since 1972 the custom has been for MHA to hold meetings one year in historic Mormon settings (Palmyra, Kirtland, Nauvoo, Independence, and Winter Quarters) and the next year in the Far West (Logan, SL George, Rexburg, Ogden, Provo, Salt Lake City). Officers have conscientiously sent out newsletters, arranged programs, and conducted other business appropriate for the Association. In 1974 the organization, with almost one thousand members, felt itself strong enough to begin the annual publication of the Journal of Mormon History. In addition to MHA business and announcements, the Journal has contained papers presented in the annual meeting and other submitted articles.
If one of the purposes of MHA was to stimulate research and the exchange of ideas among historians, the organization has been remarkably successful. The number of papers presented at our meetings now runs into the hundreds, and the vast majority of these have been published in refereed journals. In addition to its third issue sponsored by the Association in 1966, Dialogue has also published other issues specializing in historical topics. For its part, BYU Studies has carried a section in each issue entitled "The Historian's Corner," which carries short articles, notes, and documents of interest to historians. Each summer a special issue is devoted to articles on some historical theme. The number who attend the annual conventions now averages in excess of five hundred persons.
Some reflections on the functioning of MHA in encouraging
sound scholarship seem to be warranted. All who profess to be Mormon historians
suffer from a certain amount of tension because of a dual loyalty. On the one
hand, virtually all of us are loyal, believing, practicing Latter-day Saints.
We love the Church and want to render service on behalf of it, On the other
hand, we are seekers and writers of historical truth, and are therefore loyal
to the best ideals of our profession. We would be ashamed if we, consciously or
unconsciously, distorted events as they actually happened to fit the demands of
denominational or political prejudice. No one would suggest that our members from
BYU or Graceland, or LDS Institutes or seminaries, or the Church Historical
Department, or those who write for the Ensign
or Saints' Herald, are
any more orthodox or loyal than our members at non-Church universities, or who write for Dialogue, Sunstone, Exponent II; or Courage. Clearly, all of us have our place; all can honestly search for truth and make important contributions to our common culture. We all believe in vigorous, open-minded, and creative historical thinking and writing.
[p. 101] This tension between our historical training and our religious commitments manifests itself in several ways. Our testimonies tell us that God intervenes in history, and we see abundant evidence of this both in our personal lives and in our historical research. But our historical training tells us to be skeptical; we may be imagining this, or our religious beliefs may he intruding beyond their proper limits. We see evidence that God's love and power have frequently broken in upon the ordinary course of human affairs in a direct and self-evident way. But our caution in declaring this is reinforced by our justifiable dis-approval of chroniclers who take the easy way out and use divine miracles as a short circuit of a causal explanation that is obviously, or at least defensibly, naturalistic.
The professional in us fights against religious naivete believing too much. The religionist in us fights against secular naivete believing too little. And if this internal warfare weren't enough, we have a similar two-front war externally against non-Mormons who think we LDS historians believe too much, and against super-Mormons who think we believe not enough. There is no alternative to this encounter with the four kinds. If we are to succeed as Mormon historians, we must have deep within us a faith, counted to us as righteousness I trust, that a person may be a converted Latter-day Saint and a competent and honest historian. That others support us in this calling, even while criticizing some products of our labors, is suggested by the remark of President Kimball to me before: his recent illness, "Our history is our history, Brother Arrington, and we don't need to tamper with it or be ashamed of it." A similar statement was made to me before his death by his predecessor. President Harold B. Lee. "The best defense of the church," he said (in a statement similar to the one made earlier by Pope John XXIII), "is the true and impartial account of our history."
Let me suggest four principles to help guide us in our struggles to "do the right thing" in writing the history of our people. First, we should rise as far as humanly possible above all parochialism of time and place that might narrow or distort our historical vision. We must judge the people we write about by their own standards rather than by those of our own day.
Second, granted the inevitability of having to make judgments of men, women, organizations, policy-decisions, and programs, we should obtain and weigh all the relevant data before judgment is inferred. Those of us who have been in the field for many years recognize that the result of a long and honest attempt to get at all the historical evidence about any disputed event or personality is an overwhelming sense of the complexity and relativity of the issues. In trying to be fair, we tend to show mercy. To take a concrete case, any historian who writes about the Prophet Joseph Smith is sooner or later forced to take up an attitude toward him. Our ideal must be to see him as nearly as possible as the Lord saw him, in his weaknesses and his strengths, his compromises and his triumphs, his creative decisions and his forced compliances with circumstances beyond his control. In the resulting judgment justice is tempered with mercy.
Third, we should be realistic. We must deal with the competition of individuals and groups for wealth and power, the game of power politics, the cruel-[p. 102]ties which poverty forces on people, and the awful destruction of earthquakes and wars. At the same time, however, we see instances of unexpected and unexplainable triumphs in human nature Although we must be realistic, our realism must be balanced by a certain wonder and appreciation of the potentials of goodness and greatness in human beings.
Fourth, we must be relativists; that is, understand that all policies and procedures, standards and expectations, arc subject to change. But while man is immersed in history, he may also, with God's help, transcend history. In giving economic, political, and intellectual factors their due, we must also give faith and religion their due.
In a way, we LDS historians have certain advantages in writing the history of our people. We have an obligation to apply in our professional work the doctrine of consecration and stewardship. The work of historical inquiry is a way of sanctifying ourselves—a way of exercising our stewardship. This means that we have an added incentive to be diligent, hardworking, and honest, even when honesty (i.e., fidelity to the documents] forces us to speak contrary to the usual ideas on the subject. Historical research conducted with the usual rigor is for us not only a professional requisite but a spiritual adventure as well. Research into the history of the church is not only a vocation, but capable of becoming a religious experience.
If we members of MHA do our work properly, we will come to
be associated in the minds of our nonmember colleagues with a certain attitude
reward history, with the quality of our concern about it, with the sense of
reverence and responsibility with which we approach our assignments. To say this
another way, our self-image and our public image will be influenced by the quality
of our individual religious faith and life. There will be a certain reverence
and respect for the documents we work with, a certain feeling for human tragedy
and triumph in history. We will try to understand before we condemn, and if we condemn we will do it with the sense that we, too, being human, are
involved in any judgment we may make of others. We will not use history as a storehouse
from which deceptively simple moral lessons may be drawn at random. We will not
know it all, and will submit our analyses as tentative and
subject to refinement We will neither sell our fellow human being short, nor overrate them. Behind the personal decisions and the vast impersonal forces of history we will also see divine purposes at work. We will look for the working of God both in the whirlwinds and in the still small voices.
One of the things that excites me about our work is the way
in which it enables us to have an encounter with our fellow Saints of former
years. LDS history is more than the establishment of certain objective facts -
dates, places, numbers, and names. It is a history of Saints, in their mutual
their conflicts and contacts, in their social intercourse and in their solitude and estrangement, in their high aspirations and in their errors and corruptions. In fulfilling our obligations as scholars we must be responsible to the whole amplitude of human concerns -- to human life in all its rich variety and diversity, in all its misery and grandeur, in all its ambiguity and contradictions.
I trust that we will all, as members of MHA, resolve that our histories will he marked by thorough research, superior writing, and the display of the true [p. 103] spirit of Latter-day Saintism, and that our history will give us and our readers new understandings of Mormon experiences in the past and present.
I will shortly he
turning over my file of MHA early documents to the MHA official
archives at the Utah State Historical Society. The documents included here, together with
documents supporting all the historical statements will be found there.
With respect to my reflections in the last half of the article, I have profited from reading the following: C. T. McIntire, ed. God, History, and Historians: An Anthology of Modern Christian Views of History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977); Frank E. Manuel, Freedom From History and Other Untimely Essays (New York: New York University Press, 1971); Christopher Dawson, Progress and Religion: An Historical Enquiry (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1929), and The Historical Reality of Christian Culture (New York: Scribner’s Sons, Publishers, 1950); E. Harris Harbison, Christianity and History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956); Page Smith, The Historian and History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1954); Arnold Toynbee, An Historian’s Approach to Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956); Robert N. Bellah, Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional World (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); and George Santayana, The Life of Reason: Reason in Religion (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, Publishers, 1936).
Latter-day Saint essays, which deal with these problems include: Richard L. Bushman, "Faithful History," Dialogue 4 (Winter 1969): 11-25; Leonard Arrington, "The Search for Truth and Meaning in Mormon History,” Dialogue 3 (Summer 1968): 56--66; Richard D. Poll, "God and Man in History," Dialogue 7 (Spring 1972): 101-109; Robert B. Flanders, "Some Reflections on the New Mormon History,” Dialogue 9 (Spring 1974): 34-11; Rodman W. Paul, "The Mormons as a Theme in Western Historical Writing," Journal of American History 54 (December 1967): 511-523; Louis C. Midgley, "A Critique of Mormon Historians: The Questions of Faith and History," typescript, paper delivered at the Western History Association, San Antonio, Texas. October 15, 1981; Philip L. Barlow, "Since Brodie: The Writing of the Mormon Past, 1945-1981," 1981, typescript, copy provided the writer by the author; Davis Bitton, "Ten Years in Church History: A Personal Memoir," typescript, 1982, copy provided the writer by the author, Thomas G. Alexander, "Toward the New Mormon History: An Examination of the Literature on the Latter-day Saints in the Far West," in Michael P. Malone, ed. Historians and the American West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 344-368; James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company 1976); Leonard Arrington and Davis Bitton, The Mormon Experience (New York: Alfred Knopf, Inc., 1979); Boyd K. Packer, "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect," BYU Studies 2l (Summer 1981): 259-278; LeAnn Cragun, "Mormons and History: In Control of the Past" (Ph.D. diss., University of Hawaii, 1981); and Clara Viator Dobay, "Essays in Mormon Historiography" (Ph.D. diss., University of Houston, 1980).
Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, 1985
Journal of Mormon History 12 (1985): 43-52.
Entre Nous: An Intimate History of MHA
Maureen Ursenbach Beecher is a senior research historian at the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History and Associate Professor of English at Brigham Young University. This paper was delivered as her presidential address honoring the twentieth anniversary of the Mormon History Association, May 5, 1985, in Independence, Missouri. [Footnotes in the published article are represented in brackets in this transcript at the place they appeared in the original publication.]
I have spent the past few months “where angels fear to tread,” researching through documents and interviews of the Mormon History Association. That a student of comparative literature should deign to write history is foolish enough, but that she should choose to write a history of a group of historians, using as sources their own descriptions of their activities, and then deliver her findings to those same historians as audience - that is the ultimate idiocy. The only justification I can claim is the meaning that the exercise has had for me; on some very basic levels it has been a venture into a past I shared, a past I acknowledge as intensely mine. So now I offer, in acknowledgement of this, its twentieth year, an intimate history of the Mormon History Association.
For the purposes of this work, I have set aside my conviction that the historical past begins where my memory stops and have replaced the search for any sense of historical absolute with the more literary value of tenuous subjectivity. The usual sources for historical research, the dusty documents neatly flied in gray fiberdex boxes, were in this case those already collected at the archives of the Utah State Historical Society and some few still in the hands of their originators. They tell as much of the MHA story as is revealed in newsletters, convention programs, and correspondence files. But there is missing in those sources an essential element the je ne sais qua that makes this organization different from all other organizations. So in search for that essence, and with the incomparable assistance of Gordon Irving, I have interviewed, in greater or lesser length, as many of the past presidents of the association as possible, considering my time and that of secretaries and staff. The documents thus created, and others yet to be added, will in the long run prove the most significant contribution of this presentation.
The group I have chosen to focus on, the past presidents, is simply a handy collection of those MHA members who represent the geographical spread. The nominating committees of MHA have consciously chosen presidents from a variety of places and institutions; people who have come from various specialties western history, European history, economics, religious studies, philosophy, even law; and people who have represented in some way the various "constituencies" of which we are so aware. More than that, they have demonstrated, at least at some point in their careers, commitment to the Mormon History Association. The past presidents are simply a handy group; another eighteen people similarly selected would have served almost as well.
Those informal chats, which had they been conducted by a more qualified practitioner would be termed oral histories, have in themselves been an education in historical humility. Lawrence Durrell, English novelist, demonstrated in fiction a principle I have found deeply imbedded in these accounts of events viewed simultaneously by different observers, His Alexandria Quartet (1957-60) related a series of happenings through the accounts of four of the participants in the events, each telling creating its own novel. The varied tellings, independently convincing but mutually contradictory, finally wove together in the final resolving novel to suggest not only that truth is a matter of point of view, but also that that is truth which most contradicts itself. So it is with these accounts of shared real-life events and explanations of their causes and effects. The difference is that where the literary genius can weave his own story, make his own determinations, the historian must re-create the reality from external evidence, not all of which are available. Just as well, I suppose. No one can legitimately alter a novelist's "truth"; a historian's truths are always subject to revision.
In my re-creation here, then, of some of the
events of our shared history, I will surely present events not exactly as they
are remembered, even by those
individuals whose accounts I have as sources. Be humble, historians, and remember
that we all commit the same offense upon our sources, alive or dead, and that
"the truth" is not singular and simple, but multifaceted and complex.
The lesson of literature is to glory in that rich texture as we identify its
Leonard Arrington told the basic story of the beginning of the Mormon History Association in his account published in our 1983 Journal of Mormon History. [Leonard J. Arrington, “Reflections on the Founding and Purpose of the Mormon History Association,” Journal of Mormon History 10 (1983): 91-103.] His account is of the Mormon History Association as an organization. My interest here is in the MHA in the lives of its members, in those interrelationships it has fostered that in turn have enhanced the MHA and had impact on the field of Mormon historical scholarship. If these observations partake of the nature of celebration, so be it. “Ourselves we sing” is a mode made comfortable by writers contemporary with our Mormon beginnings.
“The old boys’ club” is a sometimes pejorative term
for what I see more positively as the network on which MHA is built. The
linking of scholar to scholar is the lively force behind its generation and
development, and the most satisfying aspect of its being. There is no surprise to the revelation that
the building of that network is Leonard Arrington's work, but how deliberately and
with what energy and persistence he built is not so well known. Almost
without exception every president has been brought to the organization by some
connection with Leonard. His files would provide a "how-to" for the academic entrepreneur: letters congratulating a scholar on a publication; letters inviting a colleague to present a paper; letters noting a professor's anticipated presence in Logan, accompanied by an invitation to dinner and an evening's talk (in this light, let us herewith pay tribute to Grace's culinary skill and southern hospitality, and acknowledge her co-parenthood, with Leonard, of MHA, a role now assumed by Harriet). Such letters preceded by several years the auspicious one inviting his correspondents to attend a 1965 meeting to begin the organization itself.
The Logan connection, then, was Leonard. All the signs were propitious. As he observed in his own account, there was flourishing a rebirth, since the war, of scholarship on Mormon history. Serious historians were meeting during summers in the Historian's Office of the Salt Lake church—and, presumably, also in Independence at the RLDS archives—where, overcoming official tightfistedness with documents, they were sharing both materials and strategems for obtaining materials. [Paul Edwards notes the strangeness of the sharing of materials: “I was raised in graduate school to understand that you didn’t say what you were doing, because someone would steal it. And you certainly didn’t share sources.” The MHA people, he noted, “were passing information back and forth, Xeroxing their own work and sending it to you—unbelievable, just marvelous.” Paul Edwards Oral History, interviewed by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, 1983, typescript, p. 21.] Dissertations were coming at the rate of two or three a year (in 1952 there were five), Mormon history was no longer polemic; it was academic. Not that everyone recognized this: an LDS educator challenged Jim Allen's use of Great Basin Kingdom in a syllabus, accounting the work to be anti-Mormon. Wendell Rich, in Jim's account, "just jumped in dramatically. I've never seen Wendell quite so excited about defending somebody." Several scholars had anticipated the need for publication outlets, and BYU Studies had begun publication in 1959. [Arrington, however, relates the near doom of that publication when one piece in the mode of the current scholarship caused offense and the journal was suspended for a year. Arrington, “Reflections,” p. 92] Even as MHA was aborning, it was being twinned by Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, in what was to prove it most beneficial symbiosis.
In Logan the field was white, ready for harvest. There George Ellsworth was becoming the resident expert on historical scholarship. The young Turk of his Utah State University department, he was seldom privileged to teach in the area of his first Jove, the history of Greece and Rome, and so had created seminars on historical method. And, as Jan Shipps later discovered when she attended USU, the only materials out of which to learn proper research there were Mormon. George taught his seminars, and Leonard, already a faculty member in economics sat at his feet.
The "underground church," as Leonard calls it, flourishes wherever the organized church exists. Study groups, collections of like-minded Saints in need of a closer brotherhood based on special interests or attitudes, gather to share and compare. In that pattern, Leonard and Grace, George and Maria, together with Eugene Campbell a


Sunday, October 18, 2009
Florida Air Museum Receives Grant to Fund a February 2010 Aviation Adventures
The Florida Air Museum in Lakeland, Florida has revived a grant to fund a February 2010 Aviation Adventures lecture by Florida documentary filmmaker Jon Anderson in observance of Black History month. Jon Anderson will lecture on "Silver Wings & Civil Rights: The Fight to Fly," which focuses on the Tuskegee Airmen. The lecture by Jon Anderson will be on February 19, 2010, 7PM in the Florida Air Museum on the Sun 'n Fun campus on Lakeland Linder Regional Airport in Lakeland, Florida.


DID PROPHET MUHAMMAD REALLY EXIST? a commentary
A COMMENTARY WRITTEN BY:
|Agnosticism / Atheism|
Does God Exist?What is Atheism?What is Agnosticism?Myths About AtheismQuestions About AtheismAdvice for AtheistsAtheist Activism & PoliticsSkeptics, Critical ThinkingEthics and MoralitySecular, Religious HumanismEvolution & CreationismChurch/State SeparationReligious Right, ExtremismReligion & TheismBible Analysis, Commentary
|Islam FAQ |
Not very much is known about Muhammad's early life, although he is widely believed to have been born in 570 C.E. in Mecca. The earliest accounts we have of him date to 750 C.E. with the book Life by Ibn Ishaq, more than one hundred years after Muhammad's death. Although this is the first and most basic source for information about the life of Muhammad for all Muslims, it does not present a very flattering portrait of him.
Even then, we don't have any original copies of Ibn Ishaq's work - we only have a later recension by Ibn Hisham (a recension is a critical revision of a text which incorporates plausible elements which can be found in varying sources). Because Hisham died in 834 C.E., that means that our earliest sources appear two hundred years after Muhammad died. Not even the evidence we have from the Sufyandi period, 661-684, makes any mention of Muhammad.
Surviving papyri of that era say nothing, and the coins invoke only Allah, not his Prophet. As late as the second century of the Muslim era, scholarly opinion on Muhammad's birth date differed by as much as 85 years, demonstrating that even at that point there was a great deal of variation in what people knew about Muhammad.
The focus on Mecca is also questionable. Muslim tradition teaches that Mecca was an important crossroads for trade caravans, but the location of Mecca today is not a natural stopping place for the incense route from south Arabia to Syria. Contemporary non-Muslims sources also don't make any mention of such a city, which is very strange if Mecca was indeed important for commerce and religion.
By and large, it appears that the Muslim belief that we have accurate eyewitness reports for every aspect of Muhammad's life is not unlike similar beliefs among Christians regarding Jesus and Orthodox Jews regarding Moses. The motivation lies more in a need to believe than in a sound foundation based on confirmed historical evidence.
Given that, the following description of Muhammad's life is based almost entirely upon the traditional beliefs of adherents and not upon historically confirmable fact. However, where such confirmations exist, they will be noted.
By the time of Ibn Hisham's writings, Islam had entered into extended contact with Christianity, and some scholars suggest that Muhammad's biography was deliberately constructed in an effort to offer a contrast to the gospel stories of Jesus. Indeed, for the first two hundred years of Islam, the Arab conquerors were a minority ruling a non-Muslim majority. Some scholarship estimates that by the middle of the eighth century, Muslims constituted only eight percent of the subject populations, vastly outnumbered by Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and others.
The accounts we do have suggest that Muhammad was an honest and moral man because, for example, the rich widow fifteen years his senior who had put him in charge of her trade business offered herself to him in marriage. Whatever his early life might have been like, tradition has it that as he grew older, he became more distressed at the state of society around him and regularly retired to the cave Hira' outside of Mecca. Here he would sometimes spend days at a time, contemplating life.
During one of these retreats in the year 610 C.E., at about the age of forty, Muhammad experienced "the Call," a common event for religious reformers and revolutionaries. According to his own reports, he was in a dream or dream-like state when he received instruction from God (through the angel Gabriel) on what he must believe and what he must do. These instructions were not a one-time event, however, and lasted throughout his life.
The first instruction was that there existed only one god, and that strict monotheistic belief was required of all people. The second involved socioeconomic justice for all, and the third involved the existence of a final judgment for both the just and the unjust.
Muhammad's preaching of his new revelations was not especially welcome among his fellow citizens of Mecca. Muslims today believe that this was due largely to the fact that Muhammad emphasized economic and social justice too much for the rich and greedy traders there. Even if that is true, and the preaching of these ideals did impede his efforts at first, the doctrine of zakat, or alms for the poor, was important in the development of a tightly knit community of believers - and, ultimately, of Islam's success.
After thirteen years of preaching, the small band of followers he gathered was simply not powerful enough to take control of the city of Mecca. Nevertheless, even if his standing among the city's leaders was not especially good, he must have had a good enough reputation for the city of Medina (located 200 miles north) to approach him and offer him the position of ruler there.
He thus moved his group to Medina in 622, an event which is called the hijra and marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar. In Medina he established a charter which guaranteed freedom of religion for the local Jews - but evidently he expected them to quickly convert to Islam once they heard what it had to offer, and he was disappointed when they didn't.
It is at this point where we have the only really secure date for early Muslim history, 622 C.E., which has been confirmed on coins as a the beginning of a new era. What exactly this new era meant is unclear, and there is no indication that it is the hijra of tradition. The only information that we have about it is from documents 676 and 680 C.E., two Nestorian documents which refer to 622 as the year of "the rule of the Arabs."
At this time, then, Muhammad changed the nature of the salat, the daily prayers which each Muslim must recite. Previously all Muslims had faced Jerusalem when saying the prayers, but now they all faced Mecca. This was surely connected to his disappointment with the Jews, but it may have also been connected to his hope of eventually winning over the city to his new religion. Some scholars also take this as a sign of his desire to create a national/ethnic religion for Arabs.
There are normally three reasons offered for Muhammad's interest in taking Mecca. The first was that it was supposed to be an important religious center for Arabs at the time - for his new religion to become widespread, he needed that city. Second, it was supposed to be the seat of Muhammad's own tribe, the Quraysh. If they could be won over, he could use them and their allies to further spread his message.
The third was that the Meccans simply didn't like him very much and continued to harass him and Medina in an effort to repress his efforts. The property and possessions of all of those who left with him had been seized, and a genuine state of war existed between Mecca and Medina.
Various skirmishes eventually lead to a major battle at Badr, where 300 Medinians are supposed to have defeated one thousand Meccans. Because of this, Muhammad was able to sign a treaty with several Bedouin tribes and gain their aid; but he lost it again after a defeat to the Meccans the next year.
During all of this, Muhammad accused local Jewish tribes of conspiring to aid Mecca. After Badr, the Medinese Jews were attacked and forced to emigrate to Syria. After the defeat at Uhud, the Nadir tribe of Jews received the same fate. Two years later, after a failed Meccan siege of Medina was over, the Qurayza tribe of Jews was attacked and all the men were killed.
Eventually, eight years after the hijra, Mecca was forced to negotiate a peaceful surrender to Muhammad and almost all citizens became Muslims. Thereafter Mecca would remain a center of devotion for Muslims all over the world. During the next two years, Islam swept across Arabia with most cities voluntarily joining, but a few remained stubborn and had to be brought in by force.
On June 8, 632 (eleven years after the hijra), Muhammad died. By the 640s, Arabs possessed most of Syria, Iraq, Persia, and Egypt. Thirty years later they were conquering parts of Europe, North Africa, and Central Asia.


This year’s Memorial Lecture will be presented by Eileen Wheeler. Ms Wheeler is a researcher and writer in the social history of textiles, with a particular interest in the relationship between textiles and women’s history. She is a published author and has presented her work at international textile conferences. This is going to be a fascinating talk. Come early to make sure you have a seat.
Engaging Women’s History through Textiles: Narratives of Memory by Eileen Wheeler
This lecture explores how ‘textile narratives’, stories imbedded in women’s long association with textiles, are historical sources that can help ‘clothe’ women’s history. With examples drawn from an imprisoned suffrage embroiderer, a World War II Latvian refugee knitwear designer, and a Japanese-Canadian textile artist, we see how women have negotiated particular historical circumstances that include political resistance and dislocation to give ‘voice’ to their history, culture and identity. These textile narratives, expressions of agency, can be used to enhance women’s history and its stories, too often marginalized in the past.
Time: Mark your calendar for 7:30 p.m. Thursday 7th of March. This event is free and is open to the public as well as Guild members.
Refreshments: The Guild members are asked to bring a plate of finger food as a contribution to the post-talk refreshments. Thank you.
Location: Kanata Co-operative Community Building, 7155 Blake Street, Vancouver, BC
Driving Directions: From the east and north: Get yourself onto Boundary Road travelling south. Go straight on Boundary, crossing 49th Ave and turn right at Arbor St., the first traffic light south of 49th Ave. Turn right at Matheson Ave and continue. Follow the curving road along until the road straightens out. On your right is a small parking lot beside the Community Building.
From the west and south: Travel east along 49th Avenue to the corner of Tyne Street. The Salvation Army has a building on the north east corner of this intersection you can use as a marker. Turn right down Tyne and continue past 54th Avenue. At this point Tyne becomes Champlain Crescent. Turn left at the second street on your left after 54th Avenue. This is Blake Street. The Community Building will be on your left about halfway up Blake with the parking lot adjacent to it.


We want to pay honor to our veterans today and show them respect for the dedication and sacrifices they have made for the love of our country. Veterans have always had a special place in our heart.
A part of what makes my hometown special is our WWI Doughboy statue. It stands in front of our public library. It is one of less than 150 doughboy statues in our country and we're very proud that our little hometown has one.
So here's a big thank you for the men and women who have served our country. We're very proud to be able to pay tribute to you on Veteran's Day!


Today was National Coming Out Day. An event that was started over 2 decades ago. Today at NCSU hundreds of students got their I <3 Diversity shirts from the NCSU GLBT CA and about 100 of them came over to my Democracy NC table and registered to vote. The free expression tunnel was painted in recognition of this event. There are a whole week of celebratory events. It was a good day for democracy and equality.
National Coming Out Day (NCOD) is an internationally observed civil awareness day celebrating gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, etc. people and communities. The name coming out describes their process of publicly identifying their sexual orientation. It is observed annually by members of LGBT communities and their straight supporters on October 11.
A little more wikipedia history:
NCOD was founded in 1988 by Robert Eichberg, a psychologist from New Mexico and founder of the personal growth workshop, The Experience, and Jean O'Leary, an openly-gay political leader from Los Angeles and then head of the National Gay Rights Advocates. The date of October 11 was chosen because it was the anniversary of the 1987 National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights.
It is also the anchoring event of LGBT History Month:
LGBT History Month is a month-long annual observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, and the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements. It is observed during October in the United States, to include National Coming Out Day on October 11


Frequently Asked Questions About the History of the Lois & Clark Fanfic Archive
This FAQ page last updated Oct. 14, 2023
The very first Lois & Clark fanfic story was "Lois and Clark Meet the X-Files," written by Zoomway. She said her L&C/X-Files crossover story was written in 1994 and that it was a joke-type story "inspired by the fact that the same actor who played 'Deep Throat' on the X-Files that year also played farmer Wayne Irig in the episode 'Green Green Glow of Home' on Lois & Clark."
You set the bar very high, Zoom! Thank you.
Lois & Clark fanfiction has been around nearly as long as the show itself — from the very first season, fans were putting pens to paper (or fingers to keyboard!) and creating wonderful stories about our favorite couple.
In the early days of the fandom, there was an email distribution list to get the stories out to the fans. Beginning in 1994, Rhen Brink ran the listserv and every few months would compile an index of all the stories that had gone out. By 1995, past stories were archived on an automated majordomo server, and readers, after consulting Rhen's index of filenames and story descriptions, could send a command to the majordomo site via email, requesting that stories be sent to them. Then Rhen moved the stories into an FTP archive, which let readers more easily download stories.
In the spring of 1996, LaurenW came up with a Web-based front end to the FTP archive that allowed people to read stories from the FTP archive simply by clicking on a link. This website — which at the time was a huge innovation! — was the first incarnation of the Lois & Clark Fanfic Archive.
In the summer of 1997, Rhen decided to retire from fanfic, and L&C fanfic found itself at a crossroads — how would fans continue to get new stories? Fortunately, the answer came quickly. Demi emailed a group of people who were active in fanfic at the time with a proposal — why not form a committee to take over the running of the archive? By spreading the workload (which at that time was increasing rapidly) among several people, no one person would be have to shoulder all the work by themselves, as Rhen had done for so many years. (Sadly, Rhen passed a few years later, but she left FoLCdom with a wonderful legacy. Without her, L&C fanfic would not be what it is today.)
By September 1997, the new team was in place — including Kathy Brown in the newly created "Editor in Chief" position — and the L&C Fanfic Archive began to see a number of big changes. New stories were now uploaded once each weekend rather than sporadically as they came in. A new header format was added to each story, making it easier to find the author's name, email address, submission date, and — something else brand new to the archive — a G, PG or PG-13 content rating. Perhaps the biggest change to the way the archive operated, however, was the creation of a team of "General Editors" who began reviewing each story in order to correct grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes. All of these changes helped form the archive into the entity it is today.
In April 2001, Kathy Brown stepped down as Editor in Chief, passing the reins on to LabRat, who held the position for 22 years. The current Co-Editors-in-Chief are KSaraSara and SuperBek. Since its beginning, the archive has grown to include more than 4,000 stories, with still more being uploaded every year. The archive continues to be extremely popular, getting thousands of hits every month. And be sure to look out for the upcoming implementation of our newest feature — a keyword search function that will allow readers to generate lists of stories based on their specific tastes!
My most sincere thanks go to everyone who has contributed to the success of the L&C Fanfic Archive, either with their time or with their donation to our fundraiser. The outpouring of support that the archive has received over the years proves once again why FoLCdom is a wonderful place to be. :)
L&C Fanfic Archive
(updated with new info in 2023)


A little TRUTH about good ol' St. Patrick...
The REAL St. Patrick ~ by Ted Olsen from Christianity Today
Meet Patrick ~
Allow me to introduce myself. You may have heard of me. My name is Patrick. But before everybody celebrates another day, I decided to come back 1,500 years to set the record straight about who I am and what I've done.
You see, people say all kinds of strange things about me. They draw these pictures of me with a green hat and a red beard, short and putting out my fists or holding a mug of beer. As if I were a leprechaun. They think I carry around three or four leaf clovers. And then there's that legend that I got rid of all the snakes in Ireland. Well, how would you like your memory to forever be associated with slithering reptiles?
First, a few misconceptions about Patrick:
Patrick isn't really a Saint with a capital S, having never been officially canonized by Rome. And Patrick couldn't have driven the snakes out of Ireland because there were never any snakes there to begin with. He wasn't even the first evangelist to Ireland (Palladius had been sent in 431,about five years before Patrick went). Patrick isn't even Irish. He's from what's now Dumbarton, Scotland (just northwest of Glasgow).
Patrick was 16 years old in about the year 405, when he was captured in a raid and became a slave in what was still radically pagan Ireland. Far from home, he clung to the religion he had ignored as a teenager. Even though his grandfather had been a priest, and his father a town councilor, Patrick "knew not the true God." But forced to tend his master's sheep in Ireland, he spent his six years of bondage mainly in prayer. He escaped at the suggestion of a dream and returned home.
Patrick was in his mid-40s when he returned to Ireland.Palladius had not been very successful in his mission, and the returning former slave replaced him. Intimately familiar with the Irish clan system (his former master, Milchu, had been a chieftain), Patrick's strategy was to convert chiefs first, who would then convert their clans through their influence. Reportedly, Milchu was one of his earliest converts.
Though he was not solely responsible for converting the island, Patrick was quite successful. He made missionary journeys all over Ireland, and it soon became known as one of Europe's Christian centers. This, of course, was very important to fifth-century Christians, for whom Ireland was one of the "ends of the earth."
Why the Shamrock?
I got this image from http://www.vbs.blog.com
The shamrock is a symbol both for the Holy Trinity and St. Patrick (389-461). The shamrock is a clover plant with a yellow flower and leaflets made up of a stem with three small green leaves. The plant is very common and widely distributed throughout Ireland.
St. Patrick was a zealous missionary to the Irish, a people who upon his arrival in 432 had heard little or nothing of Jesus and his gospel. St. Patrick was an energetic traveler, a determined evangelizer, and a courageous preacher, and as he canvassed the countryside he was assailed by bitter opponents who threatened his life and undermined his message, but undeterred, he made hundreds and thousands of converts.
Whether St. Patrick was speaking to local pagans who knew nothing of the Christian faith, or to neophytes, newly-baptized disciples who were not well-grounded in the truths of the faith, he was faced with the daunting task of explaining profound mysteries such as the Trinity which are so difficult to understand.
There are several popular legends about how St. Patrick used the shamrock to explain the mystery of the Trinity. According to one story, St. Patrick went to Connaught where he met two of King Laoghaire’s daughters, Ethne and Fedelm. St. Patrick had been unable to persuade the king to convert, but he convinced the king’s daughters. During their time of instruction St. Patrick used a shamrock to visualize the mystery of the Trinity, how a single plant with three leaves is analogous to the one Triune God with three separate and distinct Persons (Thurston, H. J., ed., Butler’s Lives of the Saints, Vol. 1, 615).
According to another legend, St. Patrick used a shamrock to help explain the Trinity in a sermon he preached directly to King Laoghaire.
According to a third legend, St. Patrick was traveling and happened upon a number of Irish chieftains along a meadow. The tribal leaders were curious about the Trinity and asked St. Patrick for an explanation. So he bent down, picked a shamrock, and showed it to them, and explained how the three leaves are part of the one plant, and how similarly the three Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, are part of one Supreme Being.
So, some very interesting FACTS about Maewyn Succat. YES, that's most likely his REAL name, though Patricius was his Romanicized name, and he was later came to be familiar as Patrick!
Have a WONDERFUL day celebrating!
And... take a moment to think about the missionaries around the world spreading the Gospel and also YOUR FAITH, and how blessed we are that so many AMAZING people before us went through SO much to share the LOVE OF GOD!
Here's a FREE vintage image from Vintage Holiday Crafts


Remembering Tony Barnes, former President of Cobb-Vantress, LLC.
Tony Barnes, the Englishman who helped lay the foundation for Cobb-Vantress to become one of the world’s leading poultry breeding companies, passed away on November 19, 2022 in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, USA.
As the company’s president from 1983 to 1996, he brought the Cobb500™ broiler breeder from the UK to the United States. He also stewarded the company’s move from its original home in Concord, Massachusetts to Northwest Arkansas in 1986.
He eventually was appointed as President of Cobb Inc. and helped oversee the acquisition of Cobb-Vantress by Tyson Foods in 1994. He retired from Cobb in 1996.
A service of remembrance will take place on Monday, November 28 in Siloam Springs.


The St. Stephan church on the hill dates back to the early 8th century. When St. Corbinian arrived in Freising in 724, he established a cell at the site, which became the hub of his theological activities. In 843 the collegiate monastery of St. Stephan was formed by bishop Hitto, which was later destroyed by the Hungarians in 909, as was the nearby monastery St. Veit.
The first documented use of the name ‘Wihanstephan’ (Weihenstephan) can be found on a deed of donation to the two monasteries dating from 1003. St. Stephan was turned into the Benedictine monastery Weihenstephan by Bishop Egilbert in 1021 and remained so until German secularization in 1803.
Until the early 19th century, scientific education in Freising took place at Domberg (Cathedral Hill), also known as “Lehrberg” or “wisdom hill”, while Weihenstephan remained the site of the brewery – hence its nickname “Nährberg” or “nutrient hill”.
Chronology: Weihenstephan as a site for science and teaching
- 1803 Founding of the “School of Agriculture” and the “Central Tree Nursery for the Electorate Weihenstephan”. First lecturer, Max Schönleutner
- 1807 The Napoleonic Wars (1792 – 1815) force the closing of the school
- 1822 Re-opening of the School of Agriculture in Schleissheim
- 1852 Relocation of school to Weihenstephan
- 1855 Founding of the Bavarian Agricultural Experiment Institute by Justus v. Liebig
- 1895 Weihenstephan becomes the "Royal Bavarian Academy for Agriculture and Beer Brewing”
- 1928 - 1930 The Weihenstephan Academy is incorporated into the Technical College of Munich (later to become the Technische Universität München or TUM)
- 1970 Planned development of the campus, canteen and central auditorium buildings with practical training facilities
- 1998 Relocation of the TUM Department of Biology to Weihenstephan
- 1999 The Forestry Department of the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich now becomes part of the TUM
- 2000 Establishment of the Wissenschaftszentrum für Ernährung, Landnutzung und Umwelt (TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan): the four departments on campus are united to become a single school
- 2020 Transformation into the TUM School of Life Sciences (SoLS). This makes the TUM School of Life Sciences the first of seven TUM schools with a modern governance structure.
The French Bishop Corbinian first arrived in Freising in 724 on his way to Rome. According to legend, a hungry bear ate his mule. Having, now, no animal to carry his pack, the bishop tamed the bear, which then carried Corbinian’s baggage to Rome, where it was released. Freising’s coat of arms depicts the bear with Corbinian’s pack.
Corbinian was the first bishop of Freising and is considered the founder of the diocese – though the diocese and bishop’s see were only officially established by Boniface in 739. Saint Corbinian is still patron saint of the archdiocese of Munich and Freising.
Asam Hall is one of the last remaining rooms of the old monastery and served as a dining hall for guests in former times. The hall’s fresco and elaborate stucco date from the period 1705 – 1710, when the room was restructured. The stucco, depicting shells, angel heads and palm leaves, is the work of artist Nikolaus Liechtenfurtner, who also decorated the Maximilian chapel in Freising’s cathedral.
Its ceiling fresco was painted by Georg Asam, father of the famous Asam brothers. It is possible that the young Cosmas Damian Asam worked on it together with his father. The ceiling frescos consist of a large middle painting and four smaller corner paintings, depicting scenes from the life of St. Benedict. As an act of self-punishment, St. Benedict is said to have rolled in thorns, which then turned into roses.
Max Schönleutner was the first teacher at the agricultural school after its establishment in 1803. Schönleutner's teaching methods sought to convey theoretical knowledge in combination with hands-on experience. In the wake of the Napoleonic wars and subsequent conscription of numerous farmers to the cause, there were no longer enough students to keep the school alive. In 1807, the school was forced to close its doors. Schönleutner became administrator of the crown lands of Schleißheim and Fürstenried, as well as the Weihenstephan brewery.
Schönleutner was a pioneer of scientific cultivation in Germany. He was convinced that the application of scientific expertise alone could foster agricultural progress. Among other things, he introduced crop rotation, bred different seed types, planted fruit trees along the roads and encouraged new technical agricultural developments. Moreover, he published several reports and books on the management of the crown lands he administered. Due to his early death in 1831, resulting from a stroke, he was not able to complete some of the work he had planned.
Corbinian’s fountain is located on the site of the former Corbinian chapel, or Asam Chapel, as it is sometimes called, having been decorated by the Asam brothers in 1720. Asam chapel, the second chapel to have stood at this location, was demolished in the wake of German Secularization in 1803. The first chapel was built at this pilgrimage site in 1608 on the spot where a spring is said to have emanated from the earth. According to legend, St. Corbinian awakened the spring during one of his visits to the St. Stephan church. To help some thirsty craftsmen, Corbinian thrust his stick into the earth – and the spring gushed forth. The spring water is supposed to heal a variety of ailments, among others fever, leprosy, respiratory and eye problems.
In 1715 a hospital with two wards was built over the chapel – and spring – at the same level as the monastery gardens. According to legend, the spring ran dry when Corbinian’s bones were moved to Mays and buried in the church of St. Valentine after his death in 730. Apparently the spring only re-appeared after Bishop Arbeo returned the mortal remains of Corbinian to Freising in 765. The ruins of the Asam Chapel are the only remaining church ruins of Secularization in Bavaria.
The TUM School of Life Sciences today
Some 70 professors currently teach and research at the TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan. Today the “green” campus represents a unique combination of tradition and modernity, of local and global. Hundreds of scientists perform interdisciplinary research to meet the existential challenges of food provision across the globe, diminishing raw materials and climate change. Here, thousands of students prepare for the careers of the future.


Tozeur, Tunisia’s oasis town
Tozeur - Lying on the edge of the Sahara is the Tunisian oasis town of Tozeur, a charming traditional village that beckons visitors to savour the country’s mysterious desert terrain.
About 430km south-west of Tunis, Tozeur has a rich history dating to before the Middle Ages when it served as a crossing point for Sahara-bound caravans. In subsequent centuries, it was influenced by the passage of civilisations — the Romans to the Byzantines to the Muslims and Berbers, each of which added to the town’s culture and heritage.
Tozeur was an important Numidian town on the route between Algeria and the Gulf of Gabes on eastern Tunisia’s Mediterranean coast. When the Romans arrived, Tozeur served as an important outpost and metropolis. After the rise of the Hafsid dynasty, Tozeur was used as a slave market.
“Tozeur, being a source of water in the desert, has always attracted people who eventually settled there,” said Karem Dassy, president of the Association of the Safeguarding of the Old Medina of Tozeur. “This contributed to the personality of those who settled in Tozeur and their open mindedness.
“It also influenced their lifestyle and deepened the values of tolerance that can be strongly felt in this part of the south of Tunisia. It has been very open to different cultures and to the passing of tribes and travellers.”
“The type of Islam that is popular here is moderate Islam and it is very tolerant and encloses all different sects of Islam,” Dassy added. “These elements of history explain Tozeur’s peaceful present. It has never witnessed terrorist or violent events. It is against the nature of the people there.”
Tozeur’s peaceful character has reinforced its image as a resting place. Since ancient times, travellers and caravans have stopped in the area to rejuvenate and refuel before continuing their journey deep into the Sahara.
Today, visitors are fascinated by the town’s historical sites, such as the medinas of Tozeur.
“Tozeur has more than one medina,” Dassy said. “The most famous medina — Ouled Hadef — is a relatively modern neighbourhood that goes back to the 15th century, while the original old town of Tozeur goes back to the medieval times. The oldest medina is the one known today as the oasis town around the mosque.”
Dassy added: “When the Turks came in the 1800s, they destroyed the old town of Tozeur and it has since changed. The focus has shifted from the medieval town of Tozeur to the newly built one but the remains of the medieval town still exist. Now the neighbourhood that is known as the old town of Tozeur is the neighbourhood that was built between the 15th and the 18th centuries.”
Walking through the old medina’s narrow streets is an enchanting experience. Its architecture showcases beautiful brick façades and intricately patterned yellow brickwork, all in the traditional style of Tunisia’s south. Decorated with a range of geometric shapes, the brick designs bear similarities to motifs found in artefacts from the ancient Berbers, whose tribes settled in Tozeur in previous centuries.
To maintain the town’s distinct architectural style, the local government has mandated that builders conform to the traditional brickwork.
“The uniqueness of the town’s architecture is based on the use of old bricks that are unique to the Djerid region,” Dassy said. “This style was used during the antiquity period too, as it can be found in some archaeological sites.”
The town’s oasis contains beautiful palm trees and red-dirt paths, stretching across the landscape like a green paradise in the middle of the desert. The oasis can be reached by Tozeur’s main street and has many resorts.
Among the historical monuments in Tozeur is the Mosque of Sidi Abid, which dates to 1030 and “has one of the first scriptural inscriptions in the town”, Dassy said.
Dassy pointed out the town’s train station, which was built in 1913.
A few kilometres outside the town is the majestic statue of renowned Tunisian poet Aboul- Qacem Echebbi, who was from Tozeur. Another popular destination for visitors is the Museum of Art and Popular Tradition, which houses early artefacts, such as jewellery and ceramics.
Within the town limits is the Desert Zoo of Si Tijani, named after a famed Tozeur snake-handler. The zoo contains various rare animals, including desert monitors, raptors, scorpions, fennec foxes, camels and sand and horned vipers.
To celebrate its cultural heritage, the town holds the International Festival of Oases of Tozeur each November and December, paying homage to the artistic and folkloric heritage of the Djerid region.
Tozeur has also been the set of several famous Hollywood films, such as the Star Wars saga and The English Patient.
Visitors can reach the town via collective taxis, trains, buses and the Tozeur-Nefta International Airport.


Exeter College was founded as Stapeldon Hall in 1314, by Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter and later Treasurer to Edward II. Money from the rectory of Gwinear, Cornwall provided funds for 12 scholars and a chaplain. The early history of the college can be traced through the rector’s accounts kept by the head of the college and the college estates records. The college was re-founded in 1566 by Sir William Petre, a statesman who served four Tudor monarchs. He gave estates in Oxfordshire and other counties to fund 8 additional fellowships. From this date institutional records become more extensive, with information on buildings and accommodation, election and activities of rectors and fellows. Records of the undergraduate body in the nineteenth century include tuition, sports clubs and societies and photographs. Personal papers from some rectors and fellows (notably EA Barber, rector 1943-56) can also be found in the archives.
Enquiries about the archives can be sent to email@example.com
Or by post to Victoria Northridge, Archivist and Records Manager, Exeter College, Cohen Quad, Walton Street, Oxford, OX1 2HE
All appointments must be made in advance either by email or post.


Crown Cemetery Puslinch is located north of Morriston at Brock Road and 401 Highway. We are a non profit cemetery operated by a volunteer board of managers and a secretary-treasure and we welcome all Faiths for burials.
To contact us call Darlene Harrietha at (519) 822-0874
History of Crown Cemetery Puslinch
In response to a petition of the Presbyterians of Puslinch to the Crown Lands Department, Toronto in 1837, lot 28 Concession 8, was granted to certain trustees and their heirs and assigned forever to be used for a burying ground. In this way the early desire of the first settlers to bury their dead in a place set apart was met. The early years marked a growth in size of the cemetery, but there was little organized effort directed to its upkeep, there was no charge, people chose their own plots and buried their loved ones at various angles.
After fifty years the cemetery had taken on a neglected appearance, and a meeting in 1886 of all interested parties was called to face the situation. All the former trustees had died or moved away, and 5 new ones were appointed in1887. By-laws governing the cemetery were approved at a public meeting. A subscription list was circulated, money raised, Maple trees were planted in 1888 and spruce in 1890, a house was built for a caretaker and in 1893 the roads were graded and graveled.
Steps were taken in 1889 to clarify the title of the property. Since the land had been granted, there had been a disruption in the Established Church, to whom the property was deeded, and later a reunion of the Presbyterian Churches in Canada. So it was that when the trustees wished to dispose of a part of the property, they were in doubt as to what to do with the proceeds and sought the advice of the Presbytery of Guelph. In 1889 an act of the Provincial Legislature made the manner of holding the property clear in the following terms:
“It is enacted that, as soon as two trustees are nominated and appointed by each of the two congregations of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in the Township of Puslinch, shall be held by them and their successors in office, in trust, for the purpose of a burial ground for the use of members and adherents of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in the Township of Puslinch, and other denominations upon such terms as the Presbytery of Guelph of the said church may from time to time determine”
It became the custom to augment the board of four thus fixed, by others chosen by the plot-holders, to form the Board of Managers.
Again in 1929, the unsatisfactory condition of the cemetery awakened a renewed interest, and men and teams were employed to level the plots and generally improve the appearance of the cemetery. Again in 1934, work was commenced on the front part of the cemetery, filling up a depression and cutting away part of the grade.
In 1937 the Centenary Memorial Committee appealed for funds and built the memorial gates at front entrance in honor of the pioneers. The gates were erected only a few feet in front of where the original log church stood.
In the late 1930’s a system of Perpetual Care was initiated. There were many plots where all relatives have died, and there was no one to care for the plot. At this time a plot of ground ten feet by twelve was given care in perpetuity, for the sum forty dollars.
Since 1937, the Crown Cemetery has continued to be well kept. In 1953, five thousand trees were planted and in 1960 an area of 110 feet x 600 feet was purchased from the adjacent farm to the north, the former James Tawse farm, for future burial grounds. In 1981 and 1982 several work bees were held to cut trees and brush and to level an area at the rear of the burial ground. It was seeded in time for the first memorial service held on June 10, 1984 with over 200 people in attendance. Surveying or the plots was completed in 1985.
In January 1985, a motion was made at the Plot Holders’ Annual meeting to proceed with plans for a mausoleum and chapel. On July 31, 1985, the excavation began. On August 2, the mausoleum walls were poured. The work was completed in the spring of 1986.
With the generosity of Plot Holders the Board continues to improve the property, plant trees, point the 1937 stone pillars and replace the wrought iron fence. Any and all donations are very welcome.