Friday, March 13, 2009

Sources on John Morgan

Information about John Morgan

Besides all the information I'm putting on the blog, there are also the following:

The John Hamilton Morgan Papers at the University of Utah Library

This collection takes up three feet of shelf space and includes a journal (1875-1892), letters, books and pamphlets he wrote, missionary and San Luis Valley records, and various materials that I assume were collected and used in the production of The Life and Ministry of John Morgan.

The John Hamilton Morgan Photograph Collection at the University of Utah Library


Richardson, Arthur M., and Nicholas G. Morgan. The Life and Ministry of John Morgan: For a Wise and Glorious Purpose. [S.l.]: N.G. Morgan, 1965.

I do not particularly like this biography. I've had a discussion with my dad if it's slightly better than having no biography (my position) or actually worse than having no biography (his position). He objects mainly to the erroneous genealogical data. I object to the lack of documentation (no footnotes; no sources listed), the lack of anything personal in the book, the almost total absence of Morgan's wives and children from the book, its general meandering nature, the editing of Morgan's early letters from his original spelling, wording, and punctuation, and the poor index.

On the other hand, it has a lot of lovely photographs of people and reproductions of letters and death threats. (Post on that subject to come.) It is more information in one place about John Morgan than there would be otherwise.

I bought a copy for $50 and see one listed for $70. Both prices seem fair, since it is not widely available.

Entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia

Wow. This is a very good article. I'm impressed. It was written by the author of the dissertation "Praying with One Eye Open" (see below).

Grampa Bill's General Authority Pages

This biography disagrees on a couple of major points with The Life and Ministry. It only mentions one wife and says Morgan worked as an instructor at the university before opening Morgan Commercial College, whereas The Life and Ministry claims that he opened the Commercial College just weeks after arriving in Salt Lake City. This article seems to be mostly based on Andrew Jenson's LDS Biographical Encyclopedia.

Wikipedia article

What is to be said about wikipedia? I don't know who put most of this information up, but it seems to be pretty accurate except for a couple of broken links.

The Political Graveyard

Scan down the page for the short entry.


The Southern States Mission

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Latter Day Saints Southern Star. Chattanooga, Tenn.: Southern States Mission, 1898.


Mob Violence in the Southern States Mission

The fourth installment of the mission history mentioned the increasing violence against the missionaries in the Southern States Mission during the 1870s and 1880s. For an overview of the subject, download and read chapters three and four of :

Mason, Patrick Q. "Sinners in the hands of an angry mob: Violence against religious outsiders in the U.S. South, 1865-1910." Thesis (Ph.) University of Notre Dame, 2005.

[Ed. March 24, 2011 — Do not miss Mason's new book which treats the subject of violence against Mormons: Patrick Mason, The Mormon Menace: Violence and Anti-Mormonism in the Postbellum South, Oxford University Press, 2011.]

Additionally, there is the recent dissertation:

Engel, Mary Ella. "Praying with One Eye Open: Mormons and Murder in Late-Nineteenth-Century Appalachian Georgia." Thesis, (Ph.D), University of Georgia, 2008.

This is not a link to the dissertation since I cannot find it online. It is a link to the Georgia article about Joseph Standing, which like the Morgan article, references this dissertation and is written by its author.

Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

For general information about the culture of the South and the roots of the violence against the missionaries.

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