No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith
Encyclopedia
No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), by Fawn McKay Brodie
, was the first important non-hagiographic biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of Latter Day Saint movement
. The book has never gone out of print, and sixty years after its first publication, Knopf was still selling a thousand copies every year. On the fiftieth anniversary of its first publication, Utah State University issued a volume of retrospective essays about the book, its author, and her methods.
family, Fawn McKay Brodie drifted away from religion during her graduate studies in literature at the University of Chicago. Having found temporary employment at the Harper Library, Brodie began researching the origins of Mormonism
. Progress toward her eventual goal of writing a full biography of Joseph Smith was slowed by the birth of her first child and by three rapid moves to follow her husband's career, but in 1943, Brodie entered a three-hundred page draft of her book in a contest for the Alfred A. Knopf
literary fellowship, and in May her application was judged the best of the forty-four entries.
Brodie's research was enlarged and critiqued by other students of Mormonism, most notably Dale L. Morgan (1914–1971), who became a lifelong friend, mentor, and sounding board. Brodie finally completed her biography of Joseph Smith in 1944, and it was published the following year by Knopf
, when Brodie was only thirty.
and then the concept of a religious novel, the Book of Mormon
. This book, she claims, was based in part on an earlier work, View of the Hebrews, by a contemporary clergyman Ethan Smith
. Brodie asserts that at first Joseph Smith was a deliberate impostor, who at some point, in nearly untraceable steps, became convinced that he was indeed a prophet—though without ever escaping "the memory of the conscious artifice" that created the Book of Mormon. Jan Shipps
, a preeminent non-LDS scholar of Mormonism, who rejects this theory, nevertheless has called No Man Knows My History a "beautifully written biography...the work of a mature scholar [that] represented the first genuine effort to come to grips with the contradictory evidence about Smith's early life."
, a Mormon apologetic
historian at Brigham Young University
, wrote:
In 2005, LDS scholar Richard Bushman
published a highly-regarded biography of Smith entitled Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
which has frequently been compared to Brodie's work. In his book, Bushman noted that Brodie's "biography was acknowledged by non-Mormon scholars as the premier study of Joseph Smith" and called Brodie "the most eminent of Joseph Smith's unbelieving biographers." Bushman wrote in 2007 that Brodie had "shaped the view of the Prophet for half a century. Nothing we have written has challenged her domination. I had hoped my book would displace hers, but at best it will only be a contender in the ring, whereas before she reigned unchallenged."
Nevertheless, the work has been criticized by some scholars, most often for its speculative interpretations of early Mormon history and its presumptions about Smith's internal motivation. In reviewing No Man Knows My History, Vardis Fisher
(himself a prolific novelist—and atheist—who remained unconvinced by Brodie’s theory of Smith's motivations) incorrectly speculated that Brodie would “turn novelist in her next book.”
Brodie's theories—laid out in the book—of Smith fathering children through polygamist relationships have been among the catalysts for professional genetic genealogy
studies. During the 2000s, researchers at the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation
used Y-DNA testing to trace the ancestry of descendants of three of the five children whom Brodie suggested, and found that none of the three were fathered by Smith.
" section of the Deseret News provided a lengthy critique that acknowledged the biography's "fine literary style" and then denounced it as "a composite of all anti-Mormon
books that have gone before." Brodie's most notable Mormon critic, Brigham Young University
professor Hugh Nibley
, published a scathing 62-page pamphlet entitled No, Ma'am, That's Not History, asserting that Brodie had cited sources supportive only of her conclusions while conveniently ignoring others. Brodie considered Nibley's pamphlet to be "a well-written, clever piece of Mormon propaganda" but dismissed it as "a flippant and shallow piece."
Fawn M. Brodie
Fawn McKay Brodie was a biographer and professor of history at UCLA, best known for Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, a work of psychobiography, and No Man Knows My History, an early and still influential non-hagiographic biography of Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint...
, was the first important non-hagiographic biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of Latter Day Saint movement
Latter Day Saint movement
The Latter Day Saint movement is a group of independent churches tracing their origin to a Christian primitivist movement founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. in the late 1820s. Collectively, these churches have over 14 million members...
. The book has never gone out of print, and sixty years after its first publication, Knopf was still selling a thousand copies every year. On the fiftieth anniversary of its first publication, Utah State University issued a volume of retrospective essays about the book, its author, and her methods.
Background
Raised in Utah of a respected, if impoverished, MormonMormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...
family, Fawn McKay Brodie drifted away from religion during her graduate studies in literature at the University of Chicago. Having found temporary employment at the Harper Library, Brodie began researching the origins of Mormonism
Mormonism
Mormonism is the religion practiced by Mormons, and is the predominant religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement. This movement was founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. beginning in the 1820s as a form of Christian primitivism. During the 1830s and 1840s, Mormonism gradually distinguished itself...
. Progress toward her eventual goal of writing a full biography of Joseph Smith was slowed by the birth of her first child and by three rapid moves to follow her husband's career, but in 1943, Brodie entered a three-hundred page draft of her book in a contest for the Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
literary fellowship, and in May her application was judged the best of the forty-four entries.
Brodie's research was enlarged and critiqued by other students of Mormonism, most notably Dale L. Morgan (1914–1971), who became a lifelong friend, mentor, and sounding board. Brodie finally completed her biography of Joseph Smith in 1944, and it was published the following year by Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
, when Brodie was only thirty.
Perspective on Joseph Smith
During her research, Brodie discovered primary sources that had previously been overlooked or neglected. Brodie presents the young Joseph Smith as a good-natured, lazy, extroverted, and unsuccessful treasure seeker, who, in an attempt to improve his family's fortunes, first developed the notion of golden platesGolden Plates
According to Latter Day Saint belief, the golden plates are the source from which Joseph Smith, Jr. translated the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the faith...
and then the concept of a religious novel, the Book of Mormon
Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon is a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement that adherents believe contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from approximately 2600 BC to AD 421. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr...
. This book, she claims, was based in part on an earlier work, View of the Hebrews, by a contemporary clergyman Ethan Smith
Ethan Smith
View of the Hebrews is an 1823 book written by Ethan Smith which argues that Native Americans were descended from the Hebrews. Numerous commentators on Mormon doctrine, from LDS Church general authority B. H. Roberts to biographer Fawn M...
. Brodie asserts that at first Joseph Smith was a deliberate impostor, who at some point, in nearly untraceable steps, became convinced that he was indeed a prophet—though without ever escaping "the memory of the conscious artifice" that created the Book of Mormon. Jan Shipps
Jan Shipps
Jo Ann Barnett "Jan" Shipps is an American historian specializing in Mormon History, particularly in the latter half of the 20th century to the present. Shipps is generally regarded as the foremost non-Mormon scholar of the Latter Day Saint movement, having given particular attention to The...
, a preeminent non-LDS scholar of Mormonism, who rejects this theory, nevertheless has called No Man Knows My History a "beautifully written biography...the work of a mature scholar [that] represented the first genuine effort to come to grips with the contradictory evidence about Smith's early life."
Academic reception and influence
The significance and ground-breaking nature of Brodie's work is generally acknowledged within the field of Mormon studies. Brodie's friend Dale Morgan declared Brodie’s first book the "finest job of scholarship yet done in Mormon history and perhaps the outstanding biography in several years—a book distinguished in the range and originality of its research, the informed and searching objectivity of its viewpoint, the richness and suppleness of its prose, and its narrative power." In 1971, Marvin S. HillMarvin S. Hill
Marvin Sidney Hill is a retired professor of American history at Brigham Young University and a historian of the Latter Day Saint movement.- Biography :...
, a Mormon apologetic
Mormon apologetics
Mormon apologetics is the systematic defense of Mormonism against its critics. Notable Latter-day Saint apologists include early church leaders such as John Taylor, B. H. Roberts, James E. Talmage and modern scholars such as Hugh Nibley, Orson Scott Card, and Jeff Lindsay...
historian at Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
, wrote:
For more than a quarter century Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My History has been recognized by most professional American historians as the standard work on the life of Joseph Smith and perhaps the most important single work on early Mormonism. At the same time the work has had tremendous influence upon informed Mormon thinking, as shown by the fact that whole issues of B.Y.U. Studies and Dialogue have been devoted to considering questions on the life of the Mormon prophet raised by Brodie. There is evidence that her book has had strong negative impact on popular Mormon thought as well, since to this day in certain circles in Utah to acknowledge that one has "read Fawn Brodie" is to create doubts as to one's loyalty to the Church.
In 2005, LDS scholar Richard Bushman
Richard Bushman
Richard Lyman Bushman is an American historian and Gouverneur Morris Professor of History emeritus at Columbia University. He is currently the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor in Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University...
published a highly-regarded biography of Smith entitled Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling: A Cultural Biography of Mormonism's Founder is a biography of Joseph Smith Jr., founder and prophet of the Latter Day Saint movement, by Richard Bushman...
which has frequently been compared to Brodie's work. In his book, Bushman noted that Brodie's "biography was acknowledged by non-Mormon scholars as the premier study of Joseph Smith" and called Brodie "the most eminent of Joseph Smith's unbelieving biographers." Bushman wrote in 2007 that Brodie had "shaped the view of the Prophet for half a century. Nothing we have written has challenged her domination. I had hoped my book would displace hers, but at best it will only be a contender in the ring, whereas before she reigned unchallenged."
Nevertheless, the work has been criticized by some scholars, most often for its speculative interpretations of early Mormon history and its presumptions about Smith's internal motivation. In reviewing No Man Knows My History, Vardis Fisher
Vardis Fisher
Vardis Alvero Fisher was a well-respected writer best known for historical novels of the old West and the monumental 12-volume Testament of Man series of novels, depicting the history of humans from cave to civilization....
(himself a prolific novelist—and atheist—who remained unconvinced by Brodie’s theory of Smith's motivations) incorrectly speculated that Brodie would “turn novelist in her next book.”
Brodie's theories—laid out in the book—of Smith fathering children through polygamist relationships have been among the catalysts for professional genetic genealogy
Genetic genealogy
Genetic genealogy is the application of genetics to traditional genealogy. Genetic genealogy involves the use of genealogical DNA testing to determine the level of genetic relationship between individuals.-History:...
studies. During the 2000s, researchers at the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation
Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation
The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation is an independent DNA and genealogical research institution with the goal of demonstrating how the peoples of the world are related...
used Y-DNA testing to trace the ancestry of descendants of three of the five children whom Brodie suggested, and found that none of the three were fathered by Smith.
Mormon reactions
Although No Man Knows My History questioned many common Mormon beliefs and portrayals of Joseph Smith, the work was not immediately condemned by Mormon institutions, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), even as the book went into a second printing. In 1946, The Improvement Era, an official periodical of the Church, claimed that many of the book's citations arose from doubtful sources and that the biography was "of no interest to Latter-day Saints who have correct knowledge of the history of Joseph Smith." The "Church NewsChurch News
The Church News is a weekly tabloid-sized supplement to the Deseret News and the MormonTimes , a Salt Lake City, Utah newspaper owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...
" section of the Deseret News provided a lengthy critique that acknowledged the biography's "fine literary style" and then denounced it as "a composite of all anti-Mormon
Anti-Mormon
Anti-Mormonism is discrimination, persecution, hostility or prejudice directed at members of the Latter Day Saint movement, particularly The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...
books that have gone before." Brodie's most notable Mormon critic, Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
professor Hugh Nibley
Hugh Nibley
Hugh Winder Nibley was an American author, Mormon apologist, and professor at Brigham Young University...
, published a scathing 62-page pamphlet entitled No, Ma'am, That's Not History, asserting that Brodie had cited sources supportive only of her conclusions while conveniently ignoring others. Brodie considered Nibley's pamphlet to be "a well-written, clever piece of Mormon propaganda" but dismissed it as "a flippant and shallow piece."