Yes, everything you say is true. But I also don't want us to overcorrect and say that those items that are purposely withheld don't have an interesting and complex reasoning itself. One can learn a lot from private archival institutions and what they do and don't release.

I think I agree with you...? We should be looking at the culture of communication w/in the church and from the top. But historical transparency (the topic I'm interested in) offers an opportunity to ask ?s of change over time, the shaping of public memory, and tensions btwn historians and leaders.

One person can gaslight. Can an institution over a nearly one hundred period gaslight folks? That's where I'd love a bit more nuance and complexity.

Yes, no question about the 1933 statement and its aftermath. I suppose that I'm more interested in that change over time. Can we use the Ballard quote to make blanket statements about all leaders between 1933 and 2025?

Assuming or assigning motive to fifteen men based upon one action of an extremely complex organization with massive bureaucracy with a rich history of historical tension is challenging to say the least.

It seems that leaders of the church are going to signal general attitudes of transparency within certain parameters to your professionals and hope they do their work according to that developed culture. I don't run an organization. I wouldn't even know how to "be transparent" in that instance.

In other words, I would be honestly shocked if even a few of the fifteen men even thought about this revelation in their busy schedule. The desire to be transparent is very different than how to actually do that when you have a whole department under you who specialize in Church History.

What seems more likely? That the decision to release this revelation was an agenda item at the Thursday meeting of the fifteen leaders and they said "yeah, let's release it." Or do you think it was a decision from the CHD as part of all their ongoing digitization efforts?

This release seems to be a perfect illustration of Ballard's statement, honestly. The Church is a huge bureaucracy and things happen all the time from corners of that bureaucracy without full knowledge of the other corners.

www.tumblr.com/dustyarchive...

A historian's use of the archives is different from how archivists treat and shape the archives. The better historians understand how that archival work is done, the better the conversations about archives and their relationship to history will be (not to mention the quality of history's production)

The Historian's Office absolutely did restrict access to it records. But to say it was a universal ban or that they didn't have ulterior motives for whom they gave access or what they showcased ignores the complex relationship between archives and the LDS Church.

He continues that he "granted permission to go into the Confidential Temple Record rooms and study the wives etc. of Joseph Smith Jr. Better than that, I was given a carbon copy of the first page of the Temple or/and plural marriages of Joseph Smith which I shall enclose."

Having seen some important printed and manuscript items, he decided to continue his good luck and "go whole hog or not at all, it was my request to see the Nauvoo Temple Records so quoted by John A. Widtsoe which was granted." (cont.)

I got heated gloves for Christmas last year. A bit bulky, but totally worth it.