Reconsidering No Man Knows My History

Introduction

Introduction NEWELL O. BRINGHURST Alfred A. Knopf first published Fawn M. Brodie's No Man Knows My History: The Ufe of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet in November 1945. Over the next twenty~five years, this work went through eight printings. In 1971, it was revised and enlarged into a second edition. This revised edition, in tum, has gone through a dozen printings and is still in print. The obvious question is: Why has No Man Knows My His~ tory retained sufficient appeal to remain in print over the course of the past half century? This feat is even more remarkable given the publication of several subsequent biographies on Joseph Smith.! There are several possible explanations. First, No Man Knows My History quickly established itself as an extremely controversial work, evident from the time of the book's initial publication. An early reviewer, Herbert o. Brayer, writing in the MississiPPi Valley Historical Review, sagaciously predicted that Brodie's biography would "probably be one of the most highly praised as well as highly condemned works of 1945."2 This was certainly the case as No Man Knows My History enjoyed favorable reviews, particularly in the eastern press and from non~Mormon professionals in the field of American history. But at the same time the book was roundly condemned by critics within the Mormon church in Utah and from within the smaller, midwestern~based Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.3 The book's author, Fawn Brodie, found herself the focal point of official Mormon denunciation, culminating in her formal excommunication from 1 2 Reconsidering No Man Knows My History the Church ofJesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in June 1946. The Mormon church summons issued in connection with this action charged Brodie with apostasy: "You assert matters as truths which deny the divine origin of the Book of Mormon, the restoration of the Priesthood and of Christ's Church through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith, contrary to the beliefs, doctrines and teachings of the Church."4 The publicity generated by this drastic action further fueled the controversy around No Man Knows My History, which has continued to the present. A second factor promoting continuing interest in Brodie's biography is that the book is well written and relatively easy to read. "Gracefully written with a compelling momentum" that sets it apart from earlier accounts, "Brodie's Joseph Smith is interesting , a flesh-and-blood person with whom one can have sympathy ," concedes Latter-day Saint scholar and former assistant Mormon church historian Davis Bitton.5 A third factor that quickly established the popularity ofNo Man Knows My History is its engaging methodological approach. Specifically, Mormonism's founder is placed within an analytical framework "explicitly psychoanalytical ," setting it apart from other biographies of Joseph Smith as well as from studies on various other Mormon leaders.6 A fourth reason for continuing interest in Brodie's biography is its unquestioned status as a seminal work. In the words of Brigham Young University archivist David J. Whittaker, No Man Knows My History stands as "a watershed in Mormon biography," setting "the agenda for a new generation of studies on Mormons ."7 Or as Brigham Young University Professor Emeritus Marvin S. Hill has noted, No Man Knows My History "quickly became the standard life of Joseph Smith and the most influential book on early Mormonism."8 The seven essays in this volume consider No Man Knows My History from contrasting contemporary perspectives. Five of the seven, based on original research and published here for the first time, were originally presented in conjunction with the August 1995 symposium held in Salt Lake City under the joint sponsorship of the Utah Endowment of the Humanities and the Introduction 3 University of Utah to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publi~ cation of No Man Knows My History. The two remaining essays, which also focus on Brodie's seminal biography, were previously published in two scholarly journals, namely the Utah Historical Quarterly and Church History. The first essay, entitled "A Biography of the Biography: The Research and Writing of Fawn Brodie's No Man Knows My His~ tory," gives a historical overview of the manner and rationale in which Brodie's biography was conceived, researched, and written over the seven years that it took to complete it. The second essay is entitled "Applause, Attack, and Ambivalence: Varied Responses to Fawn M...