A Diasporan Mormon's Life
A Diasporan Mormon's Life

Author: Robert S. Jordan

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2009-02-05

Total Pages: 508

ISBN-13: 0595626742

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Offering a glimpse into the lives of upwardly mobile Mormon professionals, this series of personal essays by author Dr. Robert S. Jordan describes his odyssey as a third-generation Mormon of polygamous descent whose family ascended from rural pioneer poverty to upper middle-class social and economic success. A Diasporan Mormons Life chronicles the life of Jordan, a child of the Mormon Diasporans who left the social and cultural isolation of Utah for a more secular, modern America. This memoir describes his struggle to find his personal identity from the tensions created between his religious heritage and his secular upbringing. Jordans life is remarkably varied. He studied at East Coast and California high schools, state universities such as UCLA and the University of Utah, and institutions such as Princeton and Oxford. He witnessed World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War, Vietnam, and survived Hurricane Katrina. He lived in large urban centers and locations on the global periphery. He engaged in academic research and teaching, university administration, and government service. A searching, informative, and entertaining memoir enhanced with numerous photos, this memoir distills and clarifies the experiences of his generation and contributes to the history and sociology of twentieth-century Mormonism.

A Newsman Remembered
A Newsman Remembered

Author: Robert Smith Jordan

Publisher: iUniverse

Published: 2011-04-12

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 1450289576

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A Newsman Remembered is not just the story of the life of Ralph Burdette Jordan (RBJ or Jock) who was a remarkable newspaperman/motion picture publicist/war correspondent. It is also a glimpse into an era of American social and political history that is now, unfortunately, largely forgotten if not discarded. The compelling personalities with whom he engaged Aimee Semple McPherson, William Randolph Hearst, Louis B. Mayer, General Douglas MacArthur are but fading memories which this book briefly restores. The first half of the 20th century began as an era of optimism that encompassed a belief that working hard along with seizing the main chance would produce social, professional and financial success. Ralph Jordan certainly exuded that optimism in everything that he encountered in his short life. Along with his contemporaries, moving into the great (largely ill-defined) middle class was his overarching goal. Within this goal, family life was an important ingredient for him - marriage in his day was still a partnership with clearly defined marital roles and expectations. Ralph and Marys marriage reflected that domestic configuration. Religious faith if not always observed to the letter also formed an important part of their family life. It could not be otherwise for them and those other largely third-generation descendants of Mormon pioneers (and their non-Mormon contemporaries) with whom they associated. These so-called Mormon second- and third-generation diasporans were willing even eager to leave behind them the remoteness of what was then described as Zion, to seek more promising futures elsewhere, retaining as best they could their unique heritage. Thus, Ralph Jordans story is indeed a life and times story worth telling!

The Mormon People
The Mormon People

Author: Matthew Bowman

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2012-01-24

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 0679644911

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“From one of the brightest of the new generation of Mormon-studies scholars comes a crisp, engaging account of the religion’s history.”—The Wall Street Journal With Mormonism on the nation’s radar as never before, religious historian Matthew Bowman has written an essential book that pulls back the curtain on more than 180 years of Mormon history and doctrine. He recounts the church’s origins and explains how the Mormon vision has evolved—and with it the esteem in which Mormons have been held in the eyes of their countrymen. Admired on the one hand as hardworking paragons of family values, Mormons have also been derided as oddballs and persecuted as polygamists, heretics, and zealots. The place of Mormonism in public life continues to generate heated debate, yet the faith has never been more popular. One of the fastest-growing religions in the world, it retains an uneasy sense of its relationship with the main line of American culture. Mormons will surely play an even greater role in American civic life in the years ahead. The Mormon People comes as a vital addition to the corpus of American religious history—a frank and balanced demystification of a faith that remains a mystery for many. With a new afterword by the author. “Fascinating and fair-minded . . . a sweeping soup-to-nuts primer on Mormonism.”—The Boston Globe “A cogent, judicious, and important account of a faith that has been an important element in American history but remained surprisingly misunderstood.”—Michael Beschloss “A thorough, stimulating rendering of the Mormon past and present.”—Kirkus Reviews “[A] smart, lucid history.”—Tom Brokaw

Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier
Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier

Author: Benjamin E. Park

Publisher: Liveright Publishing

Published: 2020-02-25

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1631494872

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Best Book Award • Mormon History Association A brilliant young historian excavates the brief life of a lost Mormon city, uncovering a “grand, underappreciated saga in American history” (Wall Street Journal). In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park draws on newly available sources to re-create the founding and destruction of the Mormon city of Nauvoo. On the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois, the early Mormons built a religious utopia, establishing their own army and writing their own constitution. For those offenses and others—including the introduction of polygamy, which was bitterly opposed by Emma Smith, the iron-willed first wife of Joseph Smith—the surrounding population violently ejected the Mormons, sending them on their flight to Utah. Throughout his absorbing chronicle, Park shows how the Mormons of Nauvoo were representative of their era, and in doing so elevates Mormon history into the American mainstream.