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Previous scholarly treatment of the history of Lucy Mack Smith has explained the work of Martha and Howard Coray in editing and compiling it. In “A Textual and Archival Reexamination of Lucy Mack Smith’s History,” Sharalyn D. Howcroft applies the archival principle of fonds to the history by reconstructing the original order of the rough manuscript inscribed by Martha Coray, shedding light on the history’s composition methodology and on its extant and non-extant manuscripts. Handwriting in the rough manuscript indicates Martha inscribed roughly half of the history before her husband Howard began editing it. The lack of textual indicators for dictated text suggest the rough manuscript is largely Martha’s composition, probably based on notes of her interviews with Smith. Howcroft also shows that the rough manuscript and extant fair copy are likely the amalgamation of two separate manuscripts, providing evidence that the history is a work of social publication.

This chapter discusses Joseph Smith’s First Vision and his vision of the angel and the gold plates. Some historians have argued that he transformed his tale of treasure guarded by a ghost or spirit into a religious account of an ancient record delivered by the angel Moroni. Alan Taylor and others have contended, however, that treasure-seeking itself was rich with Christian symbols and that Joseph’s activities as a village seer led naturally to his role as a prophet. Lucy Mack Smith’s history gives the best account of Joseph’s life from 1820 to 1826. Affidavits from Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed are also included.

Gedge asks scholars to reject the “feminization” paradigm for understanding women’s role in the nineteenth-century American Protestant church. In its stead, she proposes a “great” or masculine tradition and a “little” or feminine tradition, modifying a conceptualization borrowed from sociologists of religion who propounded a “great” ecclesiastical tradition and a “little” popular tradition in the church. Protestant clergy, the church, and theology were not “feminized” during this period; these institutions were redefined as “masculine” to conform to new gender ideals. Women continued to be excluded from institutional church leadership, but began to articulate and act upon their discontent in creative ways. They discovered spiritual guidance in non-institutional ways, among families and friends, read and wrote tracts and novels, and participated in new anticlerical religious movements such as spiritualism, Mormonism, and Christian Science.

Joseph Smith grew up in a visionary family that lived in a visionary culture, but nothing in the historical record reveals that he told his family about his first vision in the 1820s. Many modern saints easily recall that, when Smith returned home after his vision, he told his mother. But all the historical record—an 1842 redaction to the 1838/39 account—says is that he told his mother what he learned, not how. There is no evidence that he told anyone but the Methodist minister for a decade. There is no known evidence of him relating his experience to family members or others. In 1832, Smith remembered that he could find no one that believed him.