The Joseph Smith Papers

History of the project

After Joseph Smith’s death in 1844, a collection of his papers was carried West by Brigham Young and other church leaders. Some significant documents remained with John Whitmer, Smith’s widow Emma, and others. Many of these were not published until years later by the LDS Church, the Community of Christ, and independent researchers. The “Roots of the current effort” began in the late 1960s when Truman G. Madsen invited Dean C. Jessee, then an employee of the Church Historian’s Office, to contribute documents relating to Joseph Smith and early Mormonism to issues of BYU Studies. In 1972 Leonard J. Arrington was appointed the Church Historian and he directed Jessee to continue to "locate, collect, and transcribe Smith’s writings.” This resulted in Jessee’s 1984 publication, The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith followed by the two volume Papers of Joseph Smith, the first in 1989 and the second in 1992.

In 2001, Dean Jessee's project became a joint venture between Brigham Young University and the LDS Church Archives. The project was renamed The Joseph Smith Papers and expanded with added funding from Larry H. and Gail Miller.

In August 2004, the Project received endorsement by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, a division of the National Archives, to ensure research is conducted according to the highest scholarly standards. The Project was moved back to the Church History Department in 2005.

Although not an official part of the project, a documentary TV series also called The Joseph Smith Papers was created. This series documented the creation of and work involved in the Joseph Smith Papers Project. It was produced by KJZZ-TV in cooperation with the LDS Church Historical Department.

Publishing

In February 2008, The Church Historian’s Press, an imprint of the Church History Department of the LDS Church, was established "for publishing works related to the Church’s origin and growth." The publication of The Joseph Smith Papers is the press's initial project.

Marlin K. Jensen, Church Historian and Recorder at the time of the announcement, said the project will include “journals, diaries, correspondence, articles and notices. Everything of a written nature Joseph Smith generated, or over which he had oversight.” High resolution images of many of the original documents were published by Brigham Young University Press in 2002 as part of Selected Collections from the Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The two volume set contains 76 DVDs of images from 1830 to 1923, including complete images of the Joseph Smith Collection, circa 1831-1844, the Revelations Collections, circa 1831-1876, architectural drawings of the Nauvoo Temple, and several volumes containing minutes from meetings Joseph Smith attended or oversaw. Annotated transcriptions of the Joseph Smith related document from this DVD collection, in addition to the number of Joseph Smith documents housed in widespread repositories and in private collections will make the documents far more accessible to scholars of American religious history, historians, researchers, and the public.

Before publication, transcripts of the manuscripts are verified three times, and annotation is supplied to illuminate the historical context of each document..” To assure quality, all citations and footnotes are verified, often double-checked, by production editors and carefully copy edited. The manuscripts are also examined by editors over the project, and drafts of volumes are reviewed by external scholarly reviewers and General Authorities of the LDS Church.

The first volume of The Joseph Smith Papers, entitled, The Joseph Smith Papers, Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839, was released in December 2008. Despite the $50 retail price, unexpectedly high demand caused the initial printing of 12,500 copies to sell out in two weeks, and the publishers to triple their projected second printing order to 16,500. Many Christmas purchasers bought gift certificates for the coming printing and some extant copies were resold for over twice the retail price.

As of October 10, 2009 over 48,000 copies of volume 1 were sold. The second volume of the The Joseph Smith Papers, entitled The Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations, Volume 1: Manuscript Revelation Books was available for purchase September 23, 2009. The original sales projection for this volume was 3,000 copies. Within two weeks, over 6,100 copies were sold in Deseret Book retail stores and over 11,000 copies were requested by other bookstores.

Awards

In 2008, Journals, Volume 1: 1832-1839 received the Special Award in Textual Criticism and Bibliography from the Association for Mormon Letters., and the Steven F. Christensen Best Documentary Award from the Mormon History Association in 2009.

Volumes

The Joseph Smith Papers project anticipates that it will publish around two dozen print volumes, as well as some additional volumes published online. The Joseph Smith Papers have been divided into the following series:

Journals

The Journals series consists of the ten journals kept by Joseph Smith and his scribes from 1832 to 1844.

Documents

The Documents series will contain correspondence, sermons and other addresses, official declarations and pronouncements, editorials and articles from periodicals, early versions of revelations, and "selected minutes and proceedings." Twelve volumes are projected for the print edition. Several hundred documents from this series are available on the Joseph Smith Papers website.

Histories

The Histories series was planned to contain Joseph Smith's complete manuscript history, begun by Smith in 1838, and continued by clerks after his death in 1844. Two volumes will be included in the print edition. According to the website, "the entire multivolume manuscript history" will be published online.

Legal, Business, and Financial Records

The series will contain legal papers in which Smith was a judge, witness, plaintiff or a defendant, and financial records including land transactions and "accounts of church-owned businesses." Only one volume is projected to be included in the print edition. Additional material will be available online.

Revelations and Translations

This series will contain the earliest known manuscripts text of revelations received by Joseph Smith and published in his lifetime including the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon, the published Book of Mormon, and the Book of Commandments.

Administrative Records

The Administrative Records series will publish records relating to the "institutions that were established under Smith's directions" as well as minutes for meetings Smith attended.

Editorial board and project staff

The current and editorial board and project staff are as follows:

Editorial Board

Steven E. Snow - Church Historian and Recorder

Richard E. Turley Jr. - Assistant Church Historian and Recorder

Reid L. Neilson - Managing Director, Church History Department, and Assistant Church Historian and Recorder

Matthew J. Grow Director, Publications Division, Church History Department

National Advisory Board

Stephen J. Stein - Chancellor's Professor, Emeritus, of Religious Studies and Adjunct Professor of American History and American Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington

Harry S. Stout - Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History and Chair, Department of Religious Studies, Yale University

Terryl L. Givens - James A. Bostwick Chair and Professor of Literature and Religion, University of Richmond

Susan Holbrook Perdue - Program Director, Documents Compass, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, University of Virginia

General Editors Ronald K. Esplin, Matthew J. Grow

Managing Historian Matthew C. Godfrey

Associate Managing Historian Robin Jensen

Editorial Manager R. Eric Smith

Assistant Editorial Managers Nathan Waite Riley Lorimer

Project Archivist Robin Scott Jensen

Document Specialists Sharalyn D. Howcroft

Volume Co-editors Mason K. Allred, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Alexander L. Baugh, Christopher James Blythe, Gerrit Dirkmaat, David W. Grua, Karen Lynn Davidson, Steven C. Harper, William G. Hartley, Andrew H. Hedges, Christian Heimburger, Elizabeth A. Kuehn, Gordon A. Madsen, Spencer W. McBride, Max H. Parkin, Brenden W. Rensink, Brent M. Rogers, Royal Skousen, Alex D. Smith, Grant Underwood, Jeffrey N. Walker, John W. Welch, David J. Whittaker, Robert J. Woodford.

Production Editors R. Eric Smith, senior editor, Linda Hunter Adams, Susan Hainsworth, Rachel Osborne, Sarah Gibby Peris, Heather Seferovich, Nathan N. Waite.