‘Pioneer Prophet’ author speaks on Brigham Young
Professor John G. Turner of George Mason University visited USU Tuesday afternoon to speak on his new book, “Pioneer Prophet,” released earlier this month.
His book is an in-depth biography of Brigham Young, Utah’s first governor and second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It presents information about the early church leader that many may not be aware of, Turner said.
Turner read excerpts from Brigham Young’s journal from his days as a missionary in Manchester, England to later periods in his life when he was a leader to thousands of Latter-day Saints. He spoke of how traumatic experiences in Nauvoo, Ill. in the early days of the LDS church shaped Brigham Young as a person and a leader.
“My goal was to provide a fuller portrait of Brigham Young,” Turner said. “It’s primarily a tale of two Brighams. Brigham Young before 1844, and Brigham Young after leaving Nauvoo.”
After the early persecutions of the Mormons, Turner said Brigham Young would do whatever possible to protect the church. This, he said, may be the reason why Young became a powerful leader.
“Everything else was secondary to the preservation and protection of the church and its followers,” he said. “It explains much of Brigham Young’s successes as the church’s leader. He was a fierce advocate for his people. He did not back down easily in the face of opposition or threats. He stood his ground for as long as he could, but he would change course instead of making a glorious last stand.”
Philip Barlow, director of USU’s religious studies program, said Turner’s book presents two sides of Brigham Young.
“Professor Turner presents a great leader, but also a man who was a coarser man who had a hard-edged side to him,” Barlow said. “Some aspects of this portrait will be new and people who care about Brigham Young or Mormon history or western history will have to come to terms with that new side of the portrait.”
While not unheard of, Barlow said Turner’s research is rare because he is part of a very small group of people on that can decipher Pitman shorthand, a system of of abbreviations used to code the English language.
“(Professor Turner) is not the only person on the planet, but a very rare human being who knows how to make out historic Pitman shorthand,” Barlow said. “So we’re able to get some things at minutes of Brigham Young’s sermons that are written partially or wholly in this shorthand.”
Turner said in order to write the biography he drew on many pieces of LDS literature, including “Brigham Young: An American Moses” written by former USU professor Leonard Arrington.
“There was a mountain of intimate and revealing sources in the church archives that I could examine and I thought that previous historians had not paid full use of,” Turner said. “So in a very basic way my goal was simply to provide a fuller portrait of Brigham Young.”
Turner said he started his research at LDS church headquarters in Salt Lake City, where he was able to get most of the information he wanted and was looking for.
“It took some process of discussion, but I was fortunate I got access to the entirety of the Brigham Young papers and about 98 percent of everything else I wanted to see,” Turner said.
“That was more than enough of an adequate basis for the biography. I didn’t promise anything about the portrait that would emerge. I wasn’t asked to.”
Chase Pendleton, a senior majoring in history, said the speech gave him a new perspective on Brigham Young.
“A lot of what Latter-day Saints believe – and I’m a Latter-day Saint – rests on what these men did and so we hold them on such a high pedestal,” Pendleton said. “It’s hard for us to see them as men, although that’s exactly what they were. They had challenges and they had weaknesses.”
– rmhenline@gmail.com