Name Richard Bushman Role Historian | ||
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Books Joseph Smith: Rough St, The refinement of America, Joseph Smith and the begin, From Puritan to Yankee, On the road with Joseph S Similar People | ||
Rough stone rolling interview with richard bushman fair mormon podcast part 1
Richard Lyman Bushman (born June 20, 1931) is an American historian and Gouverneur Morris Professor of History emeritus at Columbia University.
Contents
- Rough stone rolling interview with richard bushman fair mormon podcast part 1
- Richard Bushman states the dominant church history narrative is false
- Biography
- Honors
- Publications
- References
Bushman has been called "one of the most important scholars of American religious history [of the late 20th century]", and in 2012 a $3 million donation was made to the University of Virginia to establish the Richard Lyman Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies in his honor.
He also serves as one of three general editors of the Joseph Smith Papers.
Richard Bushman states the dominant church history narrative is false.
Biography
Richard L. Bushman was born on June 20, 1931, in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father, Ted Bushman (1902–1980), was a fashion illustrator, advertiser, and department store executive, and his mother, Dorothy Bushman (née Lyman; 1908–1995), was a secretary and homemaker. Bushman's family relocated to Portland, Oregon when he was a small child.
After graduating from high school in 1949, Bushman spent two years as an LDS missionary in the northeastern United States. After completing his missionary service, he matriculated at Harvard University, graduating in 1955 with an A.B. magna cum laude in history. He continued at Harvard as a graduate student, earning A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in the History of American Civilization, where he studied with distinguished early American historian Bernard Bailyn. Bushman taught at Harvard University, Brigham Young University, Boston University, and the University of Delaware before joining the history faculty at Columbia. During the 2007-08 academic year, Bushman served as the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor in Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University and held a Huntington Library fellowship. Bushman married fellow historian Claudia Lauper Bushman on August 19, 1955. They are the parents of six children.
Bushman is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). He interrupted his undergraduate studies at Harvard to serve as a missionary in New England and Atlantic Canada, and he has held various positions within the LDS Church, including Seminary teacher, bishop, stake president, and stake patriarch.
Honors
Bushman's scholarship includes studies of early American social, cultural, and political history, American religious history, and the history of the LDS Church, and his books have won numerous awards. In 1968, Bushman's From Puritan to Yankee: Character and Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765 won the prestigious Bancroft Prize, an award given by the trustees of Columbia University for the year's best book on American history. Bushman has also received the Phi Alpha Theta prize, and Evans Biography Awards, administered by the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies at Utah State University.
In 2006, Bushman received the Mormon History Association's annual 2006 Best Book award for his biography Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. Bushman has held Guggenheim, Huntington, National Humanities Center, and National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships; and has served as president of the Mormon History Association (1985–1986).