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The Mormon History Association 2023 conference will take place June 8–10 in Rochester, New York, just miles from Palmyra, the place of Mormonism’s beginnings. Signature Books will be there with an exhibit of books for sale. Several Signature authors will also be presenting and available to sign copies of their titles.
On Friday, June 8:
Tom Alexander, author of Things in Heaven and Earth: The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet, and the forthcoming biography John A Widtsoe: Scientist and Theologian; and Kenneth L. Cannon II, author of the forthcoming George Q. Cannon: Politician, Publisher, Apostle of Polygamy, will participate in the session, “Christian Scientists in Zion.”
Noel A. Carmack will speak about “James Henry Martineau’s Marriages as Examples of Spiritual Kinship.” Carmack and the late Charles M. Hatch are the editors of the forthcoming Useful to the Church and Kingdom: The Journals of James H. Martineau, Pioneer and Patriarch, 1850–1918. Benjamin E. Park, editor of DNA Mormon: Perspectives on the Legacy of Historian D. Michael Quinn, will comment on the session titled “Actualizing the Kingdom: Mid-Twentieth-Century Mormon Visions of Education, the Religio-Political State, and Orthodoxy,” and will also be part of a panel titled “Mormon History Journals: Meet the Editors.”
Two biographers of prominent Latter-day Saint women will speak as part of the panel, “Mormon Women and Female Identity in the Nineteenth Century.” Constance L. Lieber, who wrote Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon: Suffragist, Senator, Plural Wife will share her paper, “Martha Hughes Cannon: New Insights on a Mormon Suffragist.” Romney Burke will speak on “Susa Young Gates: Influencer of Her Times,” drawing on his research in his book, Susa Young Gates: Daughter of Mormonism.
Jedediah S. Rogers, editor of The Council of Fifty: A Documentary History, will speak on a panel titled, “Circle of Secrecy in Early Mormon Practice––and Their Influence Today.” Gregory A. Prince, author of Power from on High: The Development of Mormon Priesthood, will be part of a session, “A Tribute to Lester Bush on the 50th Anniversary of the Article that Changed the Church.” Both of these titles are available as ebooks.
On Saturday, June 9:
Maxine Hanks, editor of the classic anthology, Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism, will talk about “Feminine Influences on the First Vision.” DNA Mormon author Benjamin Park will present his paper, “Faithful Democrats: Utah Polygamists, Southern Enslavers, and Party Politics in Reconstruction America.” Colby Townsend, editor of Envisioning Scripture: Joseph Smith's Revelations in Early American Context, will present his related paper, “Context, Composition, and Reception of Joseph Smith’s Texts.”
Sara M. Patterson will be Saturday’s plenary luncheon speaker. Her presentation, titled “The September Six and Other Alliterative Illusions,” will provide an excellent preview of her book, The September Six and the Struggle for the Soul of Mormonism, forthcoming this September on the thirtieth anniversary of the excommunications and disfellowshipment that made national news. Patterson is professor of theological studies and gender studies at Hanover College and is the author of Pioneers in the Attic: Place and Memory Along the Mormon Trail (Oxford University Press, 2020).
John J. Hammond to Present on Island Adventures in Moab
On Saturday, June 10, John J. Hammond will deliver two talks at the Moab Museum in southeastern Utah. At 11:00 a.m. he will present on his Signature title, Island Adventures: The Hawaiian Mission of Francis A. Hammond, 1851–1865, and at 2:00 p.m. he will speak on Hammond’s San Juan Utah mission. Francis “Frank” Hammond is John Hammond’s great-great grandfather, who left behind dozens of journals which the author used to write his biographies. Hammond is the author of a large series, independently published, called Quest for a New Jerusalem, of which the first sixteen volumes are available.
Frank Hammond broke his back working on a whaling ship off the coast of Siberia in 1844 and he was set ashore on the island of Maui to heal. While there he became a shoemaker and learned the local language. Three years later, he converted to Mormonism in San Francisco, and in 1851 was sent back to Hawaii as a missionary along with his new wife, Mary Jane. In the 1860s he returned to the islands as mission president.
The journals he kept documenting their adventures are fascinating. Hammond established a Mormon gathering place on the island of Lana’i and in the 1860s traveled by stagecoach from Utah to the west coast with a satchel of $5,000 in gold coins to purchase the land that became the O’ahu site of the LDS temple, church college, and Polynesian Cultural Center.
John J. Hammond is a retired professor of political science and philosophy at Kent State University. He also taught in the late 1960s at Southern Utah State College. This event is open to the public but museum admission is required for those wishing to attend. To learn more, click here.
Check out Signature's Short Stories Collections
With the recent award given by the Association of Mormon Letters to Michael Fillerup's collection The Year They Gave Women the Priesthood and Other Stories, this is a great time to remind readers of similar books in our catalog. Levi Peterson, well known for his book, The Backslider, recently published with us once again with Losing a Bit of Eden: Recent Stories. And an oldie but a goodie is Jack Harrell's A Sense of Order and Other Stories. Harrell is also the author of the novels Vernal Promises and Caldera Ridge.
Check out all our current fiction titles by clicking here.
Latest Podcast Releases
During May we released two more podcast episodes. The first was a celebration of National Poetry Month in April with a panel of nine Signature poets! The event showcased Dayna Patterson’s O Lady, Speak Again and the new edition of Utah Poet Laureate Lisa Bickmore’s Haste, both released in February. You can listen to this podcast episode by clicking here; it is also available on our YouTube channel here. Anyone who enjoys reading or writing poetry will want to check this one out.
We also kicked off the first of three podcast episodes highlighting our three-volume series on the life of Joseph Smith, all available for purchase. The first, Richard S. Van Wagoner’s Natural Born Seer: Joseph Smith, American Prophet, 1805–1830, centers on Joseph Smith’s early life, the publication of the Book of Mormon, and establishment of the Church of Christ in upstate New York. Because the author passed away soon after finishing the book, Gary Bergera, its primary editor, discussed this title with Signature’s marketing manager Devery Anderson. Listen to it here or watch it on YouTube here.
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