Date/Time
Date(s) - 12/05/2024
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Location
4010 JFSB
Category(ies)
Christopher Blythe, Assistant Professor of English, will present at this week’s Humanities Center colloquium, on Thursday, December 5th at 3:00 pm in 4010 JFSB. This presentation will discuss Emma Hale Smith as a pivotal figure in early Latter-day Saint history, whose legacy was later revived and reimagined in various ways by artists and descendants. We hope you will join us. Refreshments to follow.
Title: “The Redemption of Emma Hale Smith: Legend and Folk Biography”
Emma Hale Smith, named an “elect lady” in sacred writ, was arguably the most influential woman in the first fifteen years of the Latter-day Saint tradition. She was a scribe for the Book of Mormon, the founding president of the Relief Society, and the first woman to administer temple rituals. After the 1850s, however, it was common to see Emma as a liar and an arch-apostate who was complicit in her husband’s murder. The integral part she played in Mormonism’s past was downplayed and eventually forgotten. It was not until during the second half of the twentieth century when a group of artists, biographers, playwrights, musicians, and an influential group of descendants revived and re-imagined the “elect lady.” These artists and authors portrayed her according to their own biases: as an orthodox symbol of faithfulness, as a feminist icon willing to withstand the abuses of male leadership, and as a mourning widow, whose grief addressed both Emma’s own sorrow but also modern Latter-day Saints’ uneasiness with the historic practice of plural marriage. I’ll discuss how these reimaginings were possible through the emphasis and de-emphasis of a series of legends that became associated with Emma’s life.
