Church will publish the William Clayton diaries

[inho]

BREAKING NEWS: LDS Church to Publish the William Clayton Diaries

At a conference sponsored by the Joseph Smith Papers Project (JSPP), LDS Church History Department (CHD) Director of Publications Matt Grow announced the publication of the William Clayton diaries. They will transcribe and annotate the volume, just like the Joseph Smith Papers volumes.

Some may wonder why this announcement is such a big deal. Long story short, the Clayton Diaries hold key information about plural marriage and Joseph Smith’s religious workings. While excerpts have been available for some time in publications, notably Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s new book on plural marriage, they have not been available to the public, or even to most researchers. This will allow future projects to better understand the last years of Joseph Smith’s life. This is one of the best sources to understanding Joseph Smith’s personal life, thoughts, and activities in Nauvoo.

[Col. Flagg]

Uh-oh - Clayton was a staunch supporter of plural marriage and Brigham Young - whatever docs are released to the public will support the notion that polygamy originated with Joseph Smith and was condoned by God. Ugh.

[Z2100]

Uh-oh - Clayton was a staunch supporter of plural marriage and Brigham Young - whatever docs are released to the public will support the notion that polygamy originated with Joseph Smith and was condoned by God. Ugh.

The church will look over all of that. This might even be fake news. I haven’t even heard of the website presenting the news...

[inho]

The church will look over all of that. This might even be fake news. I haven’t even heard of the website presenting the news...

The people blogging at Juvenile Instructor are scholars studying history of Mormonism. They do it with their real names. Posting fake news is not something they would do.

[inho]

Here is a link to a blog post which gives background to the history of Clayton diaries. It tells about what we have known of them earlier (some researchers have had access at least to a portion of them).

bycommonconsent.com : The William Clayton Diaries?

The blog post includes this tidbit, that some older church history geeks might remember:

Ehat collaborated with Lyndon Cook on several projects, notably The Words of Joseph Smith [n4]. At the time, Ehat was a graduate student at BYU and Cook was on faculty. Ehat shared a copy of his Clayton typescript with Cook, who kept it in his office. As was common, his office was also used by student ward bishoprics. One bishopric member noticed the document, copied it, and circulated it fairly broadly. A copy eventually made it to the Tanners who published it. [n5] Lawsuits ensued. Ehat won, but the decision was overturned on appeal. [n6]

Portions of the diaries have been published by various parties. The blog highlights how incredible it is that the church will publish these now:

It is my understanding that the distribution of the Clayton diary was viewed by many within the Church hierarchy to be exploitative and a betrayal of trust. Since their release and until the JSP, no scholars have had access to the documents. This lack of access is a critical lacuna as scholars have, out of necessity, relied on less-than-critical (and less-than-legitimate) transcripts in the analyses of the most important aspects of Joseph Smith’s life.