Education Week Sale

Since 1998 the Brigham Young University Museum of Art has hosted the biennial Art, Belief, Meaning Symposium. The purpose of the symposium is to provide an opportunity for Latter-day Saint artists, critics, and commentators to contribute to the ongoing discussion about issues related to art and spirituality. Our goal is to articulate our interest in the making of art that not only is relevant and meaningful for our day, but which also bears witness and gives perspective to the realities that flow from the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The symposium provides a welcome forum for discussion regarding issues that have always concerned serious religious artists: • What is the role of the artist in relation to the mission of the Church? • What is the place of self expression, belief, and inspiration in religious art? • Do artists have a “mission” through their work? • How does individual testimony find expression in the work of the artist? • Does religion create untenable tensions in the expression of the artist? • What is the relationship between idea and technique in religious art? • Can religious art find expression through contemporary art movements? This series provides an opportunity for like-minded believers, those with deep and often passionate interests in the arts, to come together, reason together, and benefit from each others’ points of view. Hopefully others who find themselves confronted by similar issues will benefit from a careful reading of these essays.

Discoveries highlights poems that trace Mormon women's life experiences from creation through childbirth, youth marriage, motherhood, aging, death, and entrance into eternity. The poetry stirs us to remember, to ponder, often to laugh, sometimes to weep, yet always to rejoice.

“Education is more than preparing for life,” George H. Brimhall once said. “It is life.” His love for education was first instilled in him by his mother. Education became his constant passion, sustaining him through humble beginnings as a Utah pioneer to his pivotal role as president of Brigham Young University. For him, the motivating force ­behind education was the Latter-day Saint doctrine of eternal progress. As a teacher at BYU and then its president (1904–1921), Brimhall was known as a dynamic orator and as a compassionate administrator whose primary desire was to help students succeed. Brimhall’s faith in and devotion to his religion coincided with his love for learning, and he believed it was BYU’s unique mission to become a university where spiritual education and secular education supported each other. During times of conflict, disappointment, personal tragedy, and great economic uncertainty, Brimhall steadfastly steered the school through the growing pains of its early years toward its unique mission.

The Salt Lake Tabernacle held the North American record for the widest unsupported interior space at its completion in 1867. Finished two years before the arrival of the railroad, it was constructed primarily of local stone, timber, and adobe. One of a long succession of buildings constructed to permit members of the Mormon faith to hear from their prophet, the Tabernacle accommodated over thirteen thousand people. A recent seismic upgrade provided a unique opportunity to view details of the historic building. Construction challenges, acoustics, the development of the organ, and subsequent alterations and upgrades are amply illustrated, providing a complete story of this magnificent edifice. Early meetings in the Mormon faith were held in private homes or outdoors. The first buildings constructed by the Church, the Kirtland and Nauvoo Temples, were multipurpose buildings that were woefully inadequate to accommodate the growing number of Saints. After arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young decided to construct a hall where thousands could attend services. The Salt Lake Tabernacle is a bold and daring building, setting a North American record for an unsupported interior span. Developed from bridge trusses, the building was frankly modern in the way it eschewed traditional ornamentation and styles and clearly expressed its form on the exterior. Brigham Young relied upon bridge builder Henry Grow and architects William Folsom and Truman O. Angell to realize the unprecedented structure. Grow tested the truss capacity with scale models and oversaw the construction of the lofty trusses. Folsom developed the initial plans, but then Angell worked out the details of the stand, seating, and gallery. Together they created an audience hall that seated approximately thirteen thousand and held as many as fifteen thousand with congregants standing in the aisles. The recent seismic upgrade of the building provided an opportunity to view many original details and finishes that were long hidden underneath later layers and additions. The upgrade allows the building to be of service continuing into the next century. Built from local materials and volunteer labor before the railroad arrived in the Great Basin, the Tabernacle stands as a witness to the collective sacrifice made by members of the Mormon faith. Driven from homes and disavowed by families, these early Saints made the arduous trek to the West to follow a prophet, and this remarkable building made it possible for many thousands of them to gather as one under a single roof.

Mapping Mormonism brings together contributions from sixty experts in the fields of geography, history, Mormon history, and economics to produce the most monumental work of its kind. More than an atlas, this book also includes hundreds of timelines and charts, along with carefully researched descriptions, that track the Mormon movement from its humble beginnings to its worldwide expansion. A work of this magnitude rarely comes along. Mapping Mormonism's first edition proved to be a landmark reference work in Mormon studies; now it is further improved and updated with the latest information in this second edition. This work covers the early Restoration, the settlement of the West, and the expanding Church, giving particular emphasis to recent developments in the modern Church throughout all regions of the world. Of all the books on Church history, Mapping Mormonism may be the single most effective work to date at giving an expansive vision of the rise of the LDS Church⿿a vision as vibrant as those who have led the way in building Zion. In 2012, Mapping Mormonism won the Mormon History Association Best Book Award and the Cartography and Geographic Information Society Best Atlas Award.

The Frontier Guardian was published in Kanesville, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, from 1849 to 1851. The newspaper was started by Orson Hyde, who used it to maintain contact among the Latter-day Saints and to help keep them focused on their ultimate destination in the West. However, the Guardian’s content reflected the diverse culture of the region. The paper covered local, national, and international news. Information about the westward trek—mostly to the Salt Lake Valley and to the California gold fields—appeared in every issue, and those who traveled west had various religious affiliations. The Guardian is a window into this way station for westward emigration, and the newspaper illuminates the religious, social, economic, and political aspects of this frontier community.  

The Frontier Guardian connected the Latter-day Saints in Kanesville and recorded their experiences. Including people of all faiths, the newspaper highlights miners, politicians, business owners, and newspaper subscribers, alongside Mormon emigrants, missionaries, and dissidents. Even newlyweds and the deceased emerge from the Guardian’s columns in Black’s annotations, the sum total bringing rich human texture to this period of constant movement.

—Jill Mulvay Derr, co-editor of Eliza R. Snow: The Complete Poetry

Published from November 1854 to December 1855, the St. Louis Luminary was started by Apostle Erastus Snow, the Latter-day Saint leader over the region. The newspaper maintained contact among the members, helped emigrating Saints stay focused on their ultimate destination in the West, and played a significant role in the national discussion of polygamy, which had been publicly announced in 1852. Snow’s goal was to produce a paper “devoted to the exposition of the favorable side of Mormonism,” something the “honest inquirer” had longed to read. The newspaper also consisted of a composite of exchanges from other periodicals, and a variety of local businesses—regardless of whether they were owned by Mormons—advertised in it. Furthermore, hundreds of names published in the columns yield a valuable genealogical database. Its forty-two missionary-agents traveled throughout most of the Midwest soliciting subscribers.  

I believe that this work will benefit readers and researchers alike by helping them explore another Mormon periodical from the mid-ninteenth century.  Professor Black has again provided us with a powerful research tool that sheds light on a corner of history which has gone largely neglected.

—Fred E. Woods, Professor, Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University and author of When the Saints Came Marching In: A History of the Latter-day Saints in St. Louis