S. Lloyd: "Arrington Was a Screw-up"

[_harmony]

I wonder why the church didn't choose to suppress the embarassing chastizement of William E. McLellin for adultery found in D&C 66:10.

Because his name wasn't Joseph Smith?

[_beastie]

What did it take to get the William E. M'Lellin journal out into the open? Anyone recall?

I'm not sure I ever heard the full story behind that. I know that an early set was published by Deseret, wasn't it? But they weren't the full journals or something? And did the family threaten to publish them on their own? Refresh my memory!

[_Nevo]

Check newspaper archives.

OK, that's relatively vague. If you don't have any specific sources I am currently doing other projects and don't feel the need right now to research further yet.

Here's one from my files.

Control of LDS History at Heart of USU Flap
Sunday, October 28, 2001

BY PEGGY FLETCHER STACK and KIRSTEN STEWART
(c) 2001, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Tucked away in a corner of Utah State University's Merrill Library, in a locked room, are 658 boxes of papers, books and other artifacts on steel shelves -- all items donated to the library by famed Mormon historian Leonard Arrington. They are letters, diaries and meeting minutes of LDS Church leaders, lauded by some scholars as one of the most important public collections of early pioneer and Utah history. Described as a crown jewel of the library, the archive opened with a flourish Oct. 11. Four days later, emissaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints descended on the library, intensely poring over the voluminous pages. They took copious notes and then insisted USU relinquish 126 boxes of material the church contends it rightfully owns. USU officials agreed to sequester the items while they investigate and consider the claim.

To some, a scholarly archive might seem an unlikely battleground for this tug-of-war between two institutional titans -- a public university committed to open access and scholarship and a church whose faith is built on a singular interpretation of history. At the center of the disagreement is Arrington himself, a jovial scholar, believer, father and friend who walked a delicate balance between dedication to his church and to his calling as a historian. Arrington, who died in 1999, would have had no trouble recognizing the present dispute. After all, the battle over his papers is the same fight he waged as LDS Church historian from 1972 to 1982: Who controls the documents and who gets to determine how Mormon history is written?

Many Mormon officials, like Apostle Boyd K. Packer, say all church history should be "faithful history." "Your objective should be that [readers] will see the hand of the Lord in every hour and every moment of the church from its beginning till now," Packer told a group of LDS religious instructors in August 1981. "If not properly written or taught, it may be a faith destroyer." In keeping with this view, writings that reveal leaders' human failings or evolving doctrine should be sealed from the public arena lest some attempt to use it to contradict the church's seamless image. Polygamy is a sensitive topic. So are 19th century women's healing blessings that suggested some priesthood participation, power struggles among the male quorums or church finances.

By contrast, Arrington maintained that Mormon history should reveal the "amplitude of human concerns." The story of the Latter-day Saints should show them "in their worship and prayer, in their mutual relationships, in their conflicts and contacts, in their social dealings, in their solitude and estrangement, in their high aspirations and in their fumbling weaknesses and failures," he wrote in his 1998 memoir, Adventures of a Church Historian. For Arrington, the first and only professional scholar to hold the title "Church Historian," throwing open the archives for all to see was the best way to accomplish this.

Living in Camelot:
During his 10-year tenure in the church's historical department, an era often referred to by Mormon historians as Camelot, Arrington assembled a crack team of a dozen historians and many student interns who together produced two single-volume histories of the church, 18 published books, about 100 articles for professional periodicals, more than 250 articles for church magazines, 33 task papers and a comprehensive oral history. The history division was at the vortex of a movement, known as the New Mormon History, that combined an understanding of LDS principles with academic training.

It was a heady time for LDS historians, who were given access to the church's extensive holdings of diaries, letters and minutes of church meetings, many of which had not been seen before. In those documents were discussions of women's rights, relations with the Indians, polygamy, church hierarchy and organization, and the unfolding of a unique American religious movement. But, as with Camelot, the dream was not easy to realize. Several church leaders challenged the new approach to Mormon history. A historical department official, whom Arrington later referred to as a "spy," regularly examined the group's publications, highlighting "controversial" paragraphs and forwarding them to leaders. The pages were placed in a special file labeled "questioning liberals" kept by church security, Arrington said in his memoirs.

By 1982, LDS leaders had dismantled Arrington's team of professional historians, restricted access to documents and unceremoniously "released" him from his position as church historian. He, along with many of his staff, was packed off to Brigham Young University in Provo, a safe distance from the documents. Neither bowed nor bitter, Arrington continued his furious research and writing to the end of his life. He was confident, he said often, that honest historians would have the last word.

What's the Big Deal?
While employed by the church, Arrington hired Edyth Romney, a secretary in the department, to transcribe many of the materials. After she retired, Arrington paid her salary from the Mormon History Trust Fund, which he and others helped support with royalties from their publications. Among the works Romney transcribed were many volumes of Brigham Young's letters and minutes of meetings of the Council of Twelve Apostles from 1877 to 1949. Council minutes are particularly sensitive because they contain decisions about church operations, financial discussions and personal confessions of individual members.

Copies of the Romney transcripts are among the documents LDS lawyers want back. They have produced a copy of a document Arrington signed in 1980, which they say entitles them to all copies of the church's archival materials. Church officials gave USU a six-page list of items they want returned, which includes letters from LDS presidents, correspondence among early leaders and minutes of Relief Society meetings. State archivist Jeffrey Johnson questions why the church wants some of the items on its list. For example, the diaries of John D. Lee, who was executed for his role in the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, have already been published. The autobiography of Bathsheba Smith, a wife of George A. Smith and early feminist, was prepared for Hubert H. Bancroft's History of Utah, said Johnson, who worked in the LDS Church archives from 1969 to 1984. The church is taking a particularly "legalistic" approach, rather than using standard archival rules, he said.

Most archives, such as those at the National Archives, Library of Congress and presidential libraries, allow patrons to pay for copies of documents, said Ross Peterson, who teaches American history at USU. Stan Larson, head of the manuscript division at the University of Utah's Marriott Library, said the U. has developed a standing rule to deal with sticky ownership questions. "If we have copies of stuff at the church archives and there is no stamp on it, people can use them and make copies. But if it is stamped, they can read it, make notes or transcribe it. They just can't photocopy it."

During Arrington's era at church headquarters, widespread copying of material now deemed sensitive was allowed. One of those who took advantage of that access was historian Michael Quinn, who did research in the LDS Archives from 1971 to 1986. Quinn, now at the University of Southern California, did not do a lot of photocopying because it was expensive and cumbersome. But he did transcribe documents and take notes at a rate of about 20 to 25 single-spaced pages a day over the entire 16 years. His research notes are now at the Yale University Library.

Any Smoking Guns?
Beside the ownership issue, many scholars and historians speculate the collection contains a smoking gun that might embarrass the church, said Stan Albrecht, USU's provost and Arrington's colleague. "But this is a control issue." Peterson, chairman of the Arrington Memorial Lecture Board at USU and a longtime friend of the late historian, has read many of the documents in the disputed collection. "I can't see where any of the items would do real damage to the church," he said. "The church has survived a lot of controversies that came about because of Mark Hofmann's forgeries, Juanita Brooks' revelations about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, or Fawn Brodie's controversial biography of Joseph Smith. I don't think people base their testimonies on historical research or interpretation." Closing off historical records to researchers only fuels conspiracy theories, he said. "The more you fight openness, the more people will think you are hiding something." As a USU graduate student, Matthew Godfrey went page by page through the collection to catalog it. "I don't think there's anything that is controversial in it," said Godfrey, now an adjunct professor of history at Gonzaga University and the University of Idaho. "Certainly nothing that affected my faith."

Clearly, nothing Arrington read or studied diminished his belief in the LDS Church; he remained a faithful Mormon. And although Arrington was no stranger to controversy, he did not like conflict much, said his daughter, Susan Arrington Madsen of Hyde Park. "Instead of Dad sitting up there watching all this with a grin or a frown, he is more likely off interviewing Brigham Young, Emma Smith or Bishop Edwin D. Woolley," said Madsen, executor of Arrington's trust. There may be some material that should be returned to the church, she said, but it is "a very small portion of a very, very large collection. My father would not knowingly have donated materials to USU that he didn't have the right to donate." He was a man of "absolute integrity," she said. "He wrote honest history. But, he also had discretion. He knew what was appropriate to write and publish, and yet he also had respect for private matters."

Arrington entrusted his legacy to his family, colleagues and, especially, to USU, where he taught for 26 years. He chose that school over LDS Church-owned BYU because he believed USU would allow more access to his treasured documents, said Ann Buttars, director of USU's special collections. And the school says it is doing its best to protect that openness, despite legal and political pressures.

The archives remained open all last week, even as church lawyers paced the halls. The school's fidelity to Arrington's legacy is perhaps exemplified by a cream-colored tapestry in a reading room constructed to showcase the collection. It quotes Roman Catholic Pope John XXIII: "The best apology for the church is the impartial history of its life" and was given to Arrington by Lavina Fielding Anderson, a writer whom the LDS Church excommunicated because of her history of its battle with intellectuals. Anderson was among hundreds of scholars and students Arrington inspired and mentored over the years, imbuing them with loyalty to evenhanded history. "To him the truth was the truth," Buttars said, "and he believed that in the end, truth would prevail."

[_Blixa]

Thanks Nevo.

[_Nevo]

It's quite simple for Scott Lloyd to claim that the Church history department under Arrington was "not very well managed." It seems Brother Lloyd is peddling cheap gossip with zero sources.

I don't know what Scott Lloyd is referring to exactly, but Arrington's memoir mentions the following:

As our historians began to make heavy use of holdings once restricted to use by general authorities, resentment followed. Traditionally, permission to use rare manuscripts had been inconsistent. Although many loyal scholars at BYU were denied access, others from elsewhere who were neither loyal nor trustworthy were given permission.

Inexplicably, approval had been granted to several persons who did subsequent damage to the church--a secret associate of a Salt Lake anti-Mormon group; a writer of sensationalistic fiction; a non-Mormon historian hunting primarily for sensational material; a secret advocate of polygamy; and a nonhistorian who worked through old letters, removed rare stamps, and sold them.

The negative results of these unfortunate permissions began to surface through the anti-Mormon underground shortly after our employment, and, although the work had been done months before we were employed, their sensational disclosures were blamed on us and our policy of increased openness. Despite our explanations, in the minds of distrustful hardliners we were responsible for the leaks and exposures. (101)

-------------------------

As to the few items in the archives that have been viewed as damaging to the church, copies were made by unfriendly people long before we began our work; the appearance of these documents is not traceable to our policy of openness but to theft or permissions wrongly given well before our research. (226)

-- Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998), 101, 226.

However, Peggy Fletcher Stack notes in the article posted above that "during Arrington's era at church headquarters, widespread copying of material now deemed sensitive was allowed."

[_harmony]

In my opinion, which granted is as useful as tits on a boar pig, everything...everything in the archives should be on display in the museum. Copies should be sold in the gift shop. Nothing should be hidden. The vault should be opened and everything should be available to the public. Only then will any credibility to given to LDS church history.

[_Mister Scratch]

It's quite simple for Scott Lloyd to claim that the Church history department under Arrington was "not very well managed." It seems Brother Lloyd is peddling cheap gossip with zero sources.

I don't know what Scott Lloyd is referring to exactly, but Arrington's memoir mentions the following:

Scott Lloyd's comments were just intended as a smear against Arrington, in my opinion. (Thank you for posting the P. F. Stack article, by the way.) Basically, Scott admitted over on MAD that his whole line of discussion was intended purely for the "onlookers," and that he was, in essence, engaging in damage control and spin-doctoring. If this means that Arrington must be thrown under the bus, well, then, Scotty Dog will throw Arrington under the bus. It seems to me that the last vestige of the TBM argument depends on Lloyd's neanderthal reading of the definition for "suppress." The word "suppress" can mean, simply, "to not make public." So, does the Church "suppress" history? Yes, it does, unequivocally. There can be no question about this.

[_Jason Bourne]

I gotta tell ya these comments by Scott Lloyd just piss me off to no end. How dare he impugn the character of a very good man. All for the sake of scoring some points on the Church history suppression question. Hell, is the man a writer or not? The dictionary gives varying views of suppress. Maybe we should define levels of suppression. The Church does control some very vital documents and some are hidden. That is suppression. There may be good reasons or bad reasons for it but it does suppress. And there are things out there that I bet the Church wishes were not there. And they certianly are ont offering up a lot. Just read the thread over at the other board. The constant theme whenever this comes up is that the unwitting member was too damn lazy to go do the leg work. But that misses two points. One, the member found it out when they finally had time or decided the do the damn leg work and two WHY THE HELL SHOULD THEY HAVE TO GO DIG IT UP ON THEIR OWN FOR SOME OF THIS ANYHOW!!!! Let me see, ARE YOU HONEST IN YOUR DEALINGS WITH YOUR FELLOW MEN!??? I would think that should apply to the way the Church teaches about its own past.

[_harmony]

I gotta tell ya these comments by Scott Lloyd just piss me off to no end. How dare he impugn the character of a very good man. All for the sake of scoring some points on the Church history suppression question. Hell, is the man a writer or not? The dictionary gives varying views of suppress. Maybe we should define levels of suppression. The Church does control some very vital documents and some are hidden. That is suppression. There may be good reasons or bad reasons for it but it does suppress. And there are things out there that I bet the Church wishes were not there. And they certianly are ont offering up a lot. Just read the thread over at the other board. The constant theme whenever this comes up is that the unwitting member was too damn lazy to go do the leg work. But that misses two points. One, the member found it out when they finally had time or decided the do the damn leg work and two WHY THE HELL SHOULD THEY HAVE TO GO DIG IT UP ON THEIR OWN FOR SOME OF THIS ANYHOW!!!! Let me see, ARE YOU HONEST IN YOUR DEALINGS WITH YOUR FELLOW MEN!??? I would think that should apply to the way the Church teaches about its own past.

So the person who is in charge of the historical department shouldn't have a temple recommend? Or maybe his boss shouldn't? Or his boss's boss? Actually, I think the buck stops at the prophet's desk.

[_Trevor]

I'm not sure I ever heard the full story behind that. I know that an early set was published by Deseret, wasn't it? But they weren't the full journals or something? And did the family threaten to publish them on their own? Refresh my memory!

Wasn't a rhetorical question. I was wondering whether his journals were the ones it took the Mark Hofmann trial to uncover. The Church said they didn't exist, but they had them the whole time... or something like that. I was hoping someone could refresh our memories.