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2. Applause, Attack, and Ambivalence: Varied Responses to No Man Knows My History
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2 Applause, Attack, and Ambivalence Varied Responses to No Man Knows My History* NEWELL O. BRINGHURST In November 1945 Alfred A. Knopf published the first edition of Fawn M. Brodie's No Man Knows My History: The Life ofJoseph Smith. Brodie, in terms of her background and intelligence, seemed highly qualified to write a biography of Mormonism's founder.l Born Fawn McKay in Ogden, Utah, on September 15, 1915, she was the daughter of Thomas E. McKay, an assistant to the Council of the Twelve, the Mormon church's ruling elite, and the niece of David O. McKay, the future church president who in 1945 was already a member of the church's First Presidency . Brodie's mother, Fawn Brimhall (after whom she was named), was the daughter of George H. Brimhall, a one-time president of Brigham Young University in the early twentieth century. Young Fawn excelled in school and by the age of nine had already demonstrated her skills as a writer, having one of her poems published in Child Life, a national periodical for children. She sailed through school, graduating from Ogden High in 1930 at age fourteen and with highest honors from the University of Utah in 1934 at age eighteen. She then did graduate work at the University of Chicago, receiving her master's degree in English in 1936 at the age of twenty. *Reprinted with pennission from Utah Historical Quarterly 57 (winter 1989). 39 40 ReconsideringNo Man Knows My History In that same year she married a fellow student, Bernard Brodie, a non~Mormon. Bernard's family was of Latvian~Jewish immigrant stock, but Bernard himself never embraced the Jewish faith or any other religion. Meanwhile, Brodie commenced research into what would become her biography ofJoseph Smith. In 1943 the fledgling author was awarded the fourth annual Alfred A. Knopf Literary Fellowship on the basis of a few preliminary chapters submitted for publication consideration. Brodie's award was noted in the Washington Post.2 Her basic thesis in interpreting the life of Joseph Smith viewed the Mormon leader from a "naturalistic perspective," that is, as primarily motivated by nonreligious factors. She later noted: "I was convinced before I ever began writing that Joseph Smith was not a true Prophet."3 Aware of No Man Knows My History's potential for controversy , Herbert O. Brayer, writing in the MississiPPi Valley Historical Review, predicted that the newly published book would "probably be one of the most highly praised as well as highly condemned historical works of 1945."4 Brayer's prediction was certainly close to the mark on both accounts. Praise was immediately forthcoming, particularly in the eastern press. Orville Prescott of the New York TImes characterized it as "one of the best of all Mormon books, scholarly, comprehensive, and judicial" and "scrupulously objective."5 Newsweek described Brodie's book as "a definitive biography in the finest sense of the word," while TIme magazine praised the author for her "skill and scholarship and admirable detachment" in describing Joseph Smith.6 No Man Knows My History was also favorably reviewed in various midwestern newspapers, particularly in Ohio and Illinois, states in which Joseph Smith and the Mormons had been influential during the 1830s and 1840s. The Cleveland Plain Dealer characterized the biography as "a scholarly work of accurate detail and painstaking research," prophesying it to be "the life of Joseph Smith to which all future historians and biographers must refer."7 The Chicago Sun called the book "a rare combination of sound scholarship and lively, readable narrative," giving the [18.224.179.54] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 19:10 GMT) Applause, Attack, and Ambivalence 41 reader "a believable picture of one of America's most interesting characters."s Praise was also forthcoming from two distinguished Utahborn authors reviewing the biography for eastern publishers. The first was written for the Saturday Review of Literature by Dale L. Morgan, himself a noted researcher/historian of the Utah-Mormon scene. Morgan characterized Brodie's book as "the finest job of scholarship yet done in Mormon history ... 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."9 In this same spirit, Bernard DeVoto, usually stingy with praise and generally an acerbic critic, was extremely complimentary in the pages of the New York Herald-Tribune. According to DeVoto, No Man Knows My History was "the best book about the...