Welcome to the Controversy

Today I planned to introduce a new endeavor. But DH has already written about it, and so I'm taking the lazy way out, and just quoting him:

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Why I would like to have lunch with Amy Brown Lyman

Amy Brown Lyman has intrigued me for many years, and I would love to be able to talk to her over lunch and discover more about her mysterious and tragic life. She died less than a month after I was born, and it seems that many of her secrets died with her.

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Taking "Crazy Ned Tullidge" Seriously

In a Winter 2000 Dialogue article, Claudia Bushman sings the praises of Mormon historian and writer Edward W. Tullidge, calling him mercurial, quixotic, self-destructive, emotionally and mentally unstable; but noting his writing accomplishments despite his difficulties. Such a description could be calculated to capture my attention! "I want to take him seriously," Claudia avers, explaining:

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The Apostolic Authority of the Nineteenth Century Mormon Woman

This was originally posted at the Juvenile Instructor.

I've been enthralled by the portrait of Mormon women painted by Edward W. Tullidge in his 1877 book The Women of Mormondom. He called them women of a new age, of new types of character, religious empire-founders, and even bestowed upon Mormon women the title "apostles." Of course, the term "apostle" when associated with the female sex was not, in the late 1800's, fraught with as much tension as it is today. Yet I was still interested to investigate the impulse which led Tullidge to employ this word when speaking of our nineteenth-century sisters.

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Emma Smith's Blessing to Herself

You may have heard the story of Emma Smith desiring a blessing from the hands of her husband Joseph shortly before he was taken to jail at Carthage. Because time and opportunity did not permit, Joseph suggested that Emma write the best blessing that she could, and that he would sign it on his return. Joseph was killed on June 27, 1844, and never signed Emma's blessing. But still extant are the words of the blessing Emma wrote.

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