FAIR Voice Episode #26: Wilford Woodruff Papers part 1

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This week, listen to this discussion on the Wilford Woodruff Papers and tune in next week for when Hanna will talk to Steve Harper and Jennifer Mackley about this project in more depth. Please see https://wilfordwoodruffpapers.org/ for more details about this exciting project. This discussion was given to FairMormon by the Wilford Woodruff Papers and features Jennifer Mackley and Steve Harper.

Jennifer has been an attorney for 24 years and is currently in private practice. She has authored or edited 21 books including Wilford Woodruff’s Witness: The Development of Temple Doctrine (2014). She has made numerous presentations and podcasts based on her research of Wilford Woodruff’s life and his pivotal role in the restoration of temple worship in the nineteenth century. She was asked to serve as the Historian for the Wilford Woodruff Family Association in 2014 and co-founded the Wilford Woodruff Papers Foundation in 2019 with Donald Parry. Her hope in transcribing and publishing Wilford Woodruff’s Papers is to help Church members and historians alike understand the importance of the temple and gain insights into the Restoration through Wilford’s unique perspective of the revelatory process.

Steve is a professor of Church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. After graduating from BYU with a BA in history, he earned an MA in American history from Utah State University, and a PhD in early American history from Lehigh University. He began teaching at BYU Hawaii in 2000, then joined the faculty at BYU in 2002, and taught at the BYU Jerusalem Center in 2011–2012. He became a volume editor of The Joseph Smith Papers and the document editor for BYU Studies in 2002. In 2012 Steve was appointed as the managing historian and a general editor of Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, and was named editor in chief of BYU Studies Quarterly in 2018. He has authored numerous books and dozens of articles including: Promised Land (2006), Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants (2008), Joseph Smith’s First Vision (2012), and First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (2019).