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Preserving the History of the Latter-day Saints

Steven C. Harper and Richard E. Turley Jr., Editors
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Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Making a Case for Church History
    Marlin K. Jensen
  • Assistant Church Historians and the Publishing of Church History
    Richard E. Turley Jr.
  • "A History of All the Important Things" (D&C 69:3)
    John Whitmer's Record of Church History
    Scott C. Esplin
  • William Clayton and the Records of Church History
    James B. Allen
  • Developing a Historical Conscience: Wilford Woodruff and the Preservation of Church History
    Benjamin E. Park
  • Ignored and Unknown Clues of Early Mormon Record Keeping
    Robin Scott Jensen
  • Enlarging the Memory of Mormonism
    Historian Andrew Jenson's Tales from the World Tour, 1895-97
    Reid L. Neilson
  • Modern Efforts to Preserve Church History
    Ronald K. Esplin
  • A Generation of Church History: A Personal View
    Ronald O. Barney
  • Doing the Impossible: Documenting the Worldwide Church
    Matthew K. Heiss
  • Documenting the History of the Church in South America: Recovering the Past
    Mark L. Grover

About the Book

The 2009 BYU Church History Symposium

The pattern of keeping records dates back to the earliest days of the church, when Joseph Smith, the church’s founding prophet, announced the divine decree, “Behold, there shall be a record kept among you” (D&C 21:1). Leaders of the church have strived to obey that command. Contemporaneous records were kept of revelations received by the prophet, the calling and interaction of early leaders, missionary assignments, the building of temples, and much more.

The Latter-day Saints continue to be a record-keeping people. In fact, there may be no other people on earth of comparable size who have a richer record-keeping tradition than the people nicknamed Mormons. It is a part of the church’s administrative system, reaching from small committees to the church’s general conferences and from new members to the most senior leaders. Because of this tradition, scholars can readily evaluate Latter-day Saint history from a wealth of primary documents.

ISBN 978-0-8425-2777-4

Published in 2010

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