Winner of the Herbert Feis Award from the American Historical Association and named one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly, D. Michael Quinn's "Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans" has elicited critical acclaim as well as controversy. Using Mormonism as a case study of the extent of early America's acceptance of same-sex intimacy, Quinn examines several examples of long-term relationships among Mormon same-sex couples and the environment in which they flourished before the onset of homophobia in the late 1950s.

Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example

Politics & Social Sciences

Quinn, D. Michael

Social Sciences

University of Illinois Press

Winner of the Herbert Feis Award from the American Historical Association and named one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly, D. Michael Quinn's Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans has elicited critical acclaim as well as controversy. Using Mormonism as a case study of the extent of early America's acceptance of same-sex intimacy, Quinn examines several examples of long-term relationships among Mormon same-sex couples and the environment in which they flourished before the onset of homophobia in the late 1950s.

Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A MORMON EXAMPLE

Beautiful book with no markings or highlights. Comes with dust cover. Binding is nice and tight. Very good condition.

J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years

Religion & Spirituality

Brigham Young Univ Pr

In this ground-breaking book, D. Michael Quinn masterfully reconstructs an earlier age, finding ample evidence for folk magic in nineteenth-century New England, as he does in Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s upbringing. Quinn discovers that Smith’s world was inhabited by supernatural creatures whose existence could be both symbolic and real. He explains that the Smith family’s treasure digging was not unusual for the times and is vital to understanding how early Mormons interpreted developments in their history in ways that differ from modern perceptions. Quinn’s impressive research provides a much-needed background for the environment that produced Mormonism. This thoroughly researched examination into occult traditions surrounding Smith, his family, and other founding Mormons cannot be understated. Among the practices no longer a part of Mormonism are the use of divining rods for revelation, astrology to determine the best times to conceive children and plant crops, the study of skull contours to understand personality traits, magic formula utilized to discover lost property, and the wearing of protective talismans. Ninety-four photographs and illustrations accompany the text.

Early Mormonism and the Magic World View

Christian Books & Bibles

Signature Books

Converts to Joseph Smith’s 1828 restoration of primitive Christianity were attracted to the non-hierarchical nature of the movement. It was precisely because there were no priests, ordinances, or dogma that people joined in such numbers. Smith intended everyone to be a prophet, and anyone who felt called was invited to minister freely without formal office.
Not until seven years later did Mormons first learn that authority had been restored by angels or of the need for a hierarchy mirroring the Pauline model. That same year (1835) a Quorum of Twelve Apostles was organized, but their jurisdiction was limited to areas outside established stakes (dioceses). Stakes were led by a president, who oversaw spiritual development, and by a bishop, who supervised temporal needs.
At Smith’s martyrdom in 1844, the church had five leading quorums of authority. The most obvious successor to Smith, Illinois stake president William Marks, opposed the secret rites of polygamy, anointing, endowments, and the clandestine political activity that had characterized the church in Illinois. The secret Council of Fifty had recently ordained Smith as King on Earth and sent ambassadors abroad to form alliances against the United States.
The majority of church members knew nothing of these developments, but they followed Brigham Young, head of the Quorum of the Twelve, who spoke forcefully and moved decisively to eliminate contenders for the presidency. He continued to build on Smith’s political and doctrinal innovations and social stratification. Young’s twentieth-century legacy is a well-defined structure without the charismatic spontaneity or egalitarian chaos of the early church.
Historian D. Michael Quinn examines the contradictions and confusion of the first two tumultuous decades of LDS history. He demonstrates how events and doctrines were silently, retroactively inserted into the published form of scriptures and records to smooth out the stormy, haphazard development. The bureaucratization of Mormonism was inevitable, but the manner in which it occurred was unpredictable and will be, for readers, fascinating.

The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power

History

Americas

The Mormon church today is led by an elite group of older men, nearly three-quarters of whom are related to current or past general church authorities. This dynastic hierarchy meets in private; neither its minutes nor the church’s finances are available for public review. Members are reassured by public relations spokesmen that all is well and that harmony prevails among these brethren.
But by interviewing former church aides, examining hundreds of diaries, and drawing from his own past experience as an insider within the Latter-day Saint historical department, D. Michael Quinn presents a fuller view. His extensive research documents how the governing apostles, seventies, and presiding bishops are likely to be at loggerheads, as much as united. These strong-willed, independent men–like directors of a large corporation or supreme court justices–lobby among their colleagues, forge alliances, out-maneuver opponents, and broker compromises.
There is more: clandestine political activities, investigative and punitive actions by church security forces, personal “loans” from church coffers (later written off as bad debts), and other privileged power-vested activities. Quinn considers the changing role and attitude of the leadership toward visionary experiences, the momentous events which have shaped quorum protocol and doctrine, and day-to-day bureaucratic intrigue from the time of Brigham Young to the dawn of the twenty-first century.
The hierarchy seems at root well-intentioned and even at times aggressive in fulfilling its stated responsibility, which is to expedite the Second Coming. Where they have become convinced that God has spoken, they have set aside personal differences, offered unqualified support, and spoken with a unified voice. This potential for change, when coupled with the tempering effect of competing viewpoints, is something Quinn finds encouraging about Mormonism. But one should not assume that these men are infallible or work in anything approaching uninterrupted unanimity.

The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power

World

J. Reuben Clark was all of these prior to his call to the LDS First Presidency. As a counselor to three church presidents—Heber J. Grant, George Albert Smith, and David O. McKay—he served longer than any other member of this high church council.
Already controversial before he assumed his church duties, his blunt, independent style created even more ripples at LDS headquarters. Still, his impact, intellectually and administratively, was immense. His most important legacy may well be the professionalization of church government; where apostles previously met and decided issues based mostly on their collective years of experience, Clark drew from his secular training to introduce outside research, position papers, and extended discussion, all of which, for better or for worse, added to the administrative bureaucracy.
In this impressive study of the “elder statesman,” as reporters labeled Clark, D. Michael Quinn considers what it meant for a Latter-day Saint to attain such national and international stature, although Quinn never loses sight of Reuben’s very human qualities either. This fresh, intimate approach presents Clark on his own terms and draws readers into Clark’s world in the context of the larger society of his time and place.
From the dust jacket:
Life is never quite what is portrayed in inspirational books about famous people’s experiences. One aspect that is rarely told about President Clark’s life is his near-embrace of atheism in the 1920s. This period of his intellectual development is interesting and informative and ultimately as inspirational as Clark’s conclusion that belief may be irrational but is essential. If nothing else, one admires the future church leader’s rigor and honesty in exploring the fringes of faith. One also admires his biographer for the even-handed, frank treatment of the subject. Clark’s commitment to a successful career similarly came at a sacrifice in other areas of his life. He chose work over family whenever the option presented itself.
Two issues that stand at the forefront of Clark’s headstrong manner are his views on pacifism and race. Both were significant to his overall world view and have much to say about the complexity of the issues and about the fallibility of human judgment.
For most of his life, Clark was a military enthusiast. He served as the assistant Judge Advocate General during World War I and earned the Distinguished Service Medal. But he changed his mind and thereafter became known as fiercely anti-war. When the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Clark accused his nation of barbarism and said that it had forfeited its right ever again to speak with moral authority in the world. That he also distrusted American propaganda and was sympathetic to National Socialism may come as a surprise to some readers.
Similarly, readers may shudder to learn of Clark’s views on race. He was partly responsible for the LDS Hospital’s segregation of the blood of “whites” and “Negroes,” his logic being that since anyone with as little as “one drop” of African blood was ineligible for LDS priesthood ordination, a transfusion from a black donor to a white recipient would render the latter incapable of exercising priesthood authority. Such a racist view—in part a reflection of the time—is tempered by the disclosure that Clark was one of the first among the church leadership to advocate steps toward giving blacks the priesthood.
Other ideological quandaries and soul-searching on Clark’s part could be enumerated, but suffice it to say that anyone who picks up this volume will live Reuben’s life with him. One may not ultimately understand why Clark said or did what he did in every instance, but there is a palpable sense of a life lived—with all the quirks and ironies that real lives are made of. Elder Statesman speaks to larger issues, but the spotlight remains on the man himself; readers are left to draw their own conclusions about whether Clark was a hero or villain in any given circumstance.

Elder Statesman: A Biography of J. Reuben Clark

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Early in the twentieth century, it was possible for Latter-day Saints to have lifelong associations with businesses managed by their leaders or owned and controlled by the church itself. For example, one could purchase engagement rings from Daynes Jewelry, honeymoon at the Hotel Utah, and venture off on the Union Pacific Railroad, all partially owned and run by church apostles.
Families could buy clothes at Knight Woolen Mills. The husband might work at Big Indian Copper or Bullion-Beck, Gold Chain, or Iron King mining companies. The wife could shop at Utah Cereal Food and buy sugar supplied by Amalgamated or U and I Sugar, beef from Nevada Land and Livestock, and vegetables from the Growers Market. They might take their groceries home in parcels from Utah Bag Co. They probably read the Deseret News at home under a lamp plugged into a Utah Power and Light circuit. They could take out a loan from Zion’s Co-operative and insurance from Utah Home and Fire.
The apostles had a long history of community involvement in financial enterprises to the benefit of the general membership and their own economic advantage. This volume is the result of the author’s years of research into LDS financial dominance from 1830 to 2010.

The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power (Volume 3)

After D. Michael Quinn's death in April 2021, his children found his remarkable, unpublished memoir in his home and entrusted Signature Books with its publication. Relying on his journals, primary research, and reminiscences, Quinn shares his life story as few have heard it-from his father's hiding of his true name and Mexican identity, to his upbringing by his abusive grandmother, to his choice to closet his homosexuality, to his undying commitment to his faith and its history.&nbsp; From the age of nine, Quinn felt convicted he would one day serve as an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He chose the path he believed would take him there, eventually living as a straight LDS family man in a mixed-orientation marriage. In the 1970s and 1980s he became a BYU professor and one of Mormonism's most promising, prolific, and respected historians. But his uncompromising commitment to total honesty about his religion's history, along with his homosexuality, set him on a collision course with church leaders and the end of his seemingly idyllic Mormon life. Throughout his telling, Quinn unflinchingly opens up about his feelings and experiences that shaped his enigmatic life.

Chosen Path: A Memoir

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Quinn, D. Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Quinn, D. Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Quinn, D. Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example

Same-Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A MORMON EXAMPLE

J. Reuben Clark: The Church Years

Early Mormonism and the Magic World View

The Mormon Hierarchy: Origins of Power

The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power

Early Mormonism and the Magic World View

Elder Statesman: A Biography of J. Reuben Clark

The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth and Corporate Power (Volume 3)

Chosen Path: A Memoir