Dean C. Jessee

research historian, Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History, Brigham Young University.

How Lovely Was the Morning | Milton V. Backman, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: The First Vision in its Historical Context

Articles/Essays – Volume 06, No. 1

Intensive research in the area of Mormon origins in New York in recent years has resulted in a significant addition to the source material available to scholars. One who has contributed significantly to this effort…

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A Prophet’s Goodly Grandparents | Richard Lloyd Anderson, Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage: Influences of Grandfathers Solomon Mack and Asael Smith

Articles/Essays – Volume 07, No. 2

Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage by Dr. Richard L. Anderson is an important contribution to an understanding of Joseph Smith’s immediate ancestry and the domestic environment in which he was raised. Since Joseph attributed dominant…

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The Benefits of Partisanship | Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism

Articles/Essays – Volume 18, No. 4

During the 1970s a comprehensive history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in sixteen volumes was contemplated as one of the projects of the Historical Department of the Church, with Leonard J.…

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