Richard Bushman | |
|---|---|
 Bushman in the 2016 filmBy Study and Also by Faith | |
| Born | Richard Lyman Bushman (1931-06-20)June 20, 1931 (age 94) Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. |
| Spouse | |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Harvard University (BA,MA,PhD) |
| Thesis | Government and Society in Connecticut, 1690–1760 (1961) |
| Doctoral advisor | Oscar Handlin[1] |
| Other advisor | Bernard Bailyn[2] |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | History |
| Sub-discipline | |
| School or tradition | New Mormon history |
| Institutions | Columbia University |
| Notable works | Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (2005) |
Richard Lyman Bushman (born June 20, 1931) is an American historian andGouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History atColumbia University, having previously taught atBrigham Young University,Harvard University,Boston University, and theUniversity of Delaware. Bushman is the author ofJoseph Smith:Rough Stone Rolling, a biography ofJoseph Smith, progenitor of theLatter Day Saint movement. Bushman also was an editor for theJoseph Smith Papers Project and now serves on the national advisory board.[3][4] Bushman has been called "one of the most important scholars of American religious history" of the late-20th century. In 2012, a $3-million donation to theUniversity of Virginia established the Richard Lyman Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies in his honor.[5]
Richard L. Bushman was born onJune 20,[citation needed] 1931, inSalt Lake City,Utah.[6] His father, Ted Bushman (1902–1980), was a fashion illustrator, advertiser, and department store executive, and his mother, DorothyBushman (née[citation needed] Lyman; 1908–1995), was a secretary and homemaker.[6] Bushman grew up as a member ofThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).[7] When he was a young child, Bushman's family moved toPortland,Oregon.[8]
After graduating from high school in 1949, Bushman matriculated at Harvard University. After taking time off from those studies to serve for two years as aLatter-day Saint missionary in the northeastern United States, he graduated in 1955 with aBachelor of Arts degreemagna cum laude in history.[9][10] Bushman married fellow historianClaudia Lauper Bushman in August 1955,[11] and the couple reared six children. Bushman continued at Harvard, earningMaster of Arts andDoctor of Philosophy degrees in the history of American civilization, studying with the early American historianBernard Bailyn. Bushman received a Sheldon Fellowship to work on his dissertation inLondon.[9]
Bushman taught at Brigham Young University from 1960 to 1968, though two of those years he spent studying history andpsychology on a doctoral fellowship atBrown University.[11] In 1968, he won theBancroft Prize for his published dissertation,From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765.[11][12] Bushman was awarded a year-long fellowship in 1969 at Harvard's Charles Warren Center and then was recruited to teach by Boston University. In 1977, Bushman moved to the University of Delaware to work with material culture resources at theWinterthur Museum. Bushman's "major work on refinement and gentility dated from those years, which included a year-long fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution."[9] In 1989, Bushman was asked to teachAmerican colonial history at Columbia University.[13] In 1992, Bushman was named the first Gouverneur Morris Professor of History.[14] During his time at Columbia, he completed year-long fellowships at the Davis Center atPrinceton, theNational Humanities Center, and theHuntington Library. At the latter, in 1997, Bushman began writing a biography ofJoseph Smith,Rough Stone Rolling, and he retired from Columbia in 2001 in order to complete it.[9] From 2008 to 2011, Bushman served as the firstHoward W. Hunter Chair of Mormon Studies atClaremont Graduate University and held a Huntington Library fellowship.[5][15][16][17] In 2012, the University of Virginia established the Richard Lyman Bushman Chair of Mormon Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, the chair funded with a $3-million endowment by anonymous donors.[5] Outside professoriate settings, in the twenty-first century Bushman also worked as an editor and later a national advisory board member for the Joseph Smith Papers, a project of theChurch History Department.[3][4]
Bushman has continued writing both early American and Mormon history.[7] In 2018,Yale University Press published hisThe American Farmer in the Eighteenth Century: A Social and Cultural History.[18] By 2020, Bushman had spent almost a decade intermittently writing a cultural history of thegolden plates that Joseph Smith had described as the source of theBook of Mormon.[7][19]
Bushman's scholarship includes studies of early American social, cultural, and political history; American religious history, and earlyLatter-day Saint history. In 1968, Bushman'sFrom Puritan to Yankee: Character and Social Order in Connecticut, 1690–1765 won theBancroft Prize, an award given by the trustees of Columbia University for the year's best book on American history.[12] Bushman has also received thePhi Alpha Theta prize, and Evans Biography Awards, administered by the Mountain West Center for Regional Studies atUtah State University. He publishedJoseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, which was awarded best biography from the Mormon History Association in 1985.[16] Bushman has held Guggenheim, Huntington,National Humanities Center, andNational Endowment for the Humanities fellowships; and served as president of the Mormon History Association (1985–1986).[20] Bushman was honored at the January 2011 annual meeting of theAmerican Historical Association where a breakout session entitled "A Retrospective on the Scholarship of Richard Bushman" was heavily attended.[21]
Bushman'sJoseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, a biography of Latter Day Saint movement founder Joseph Smith, has been called the "crowning achievement of thenew Mormon history".[22]Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling sold over 100,000 copies and gathered many awards including the Evans Biography Award and theMormon History Association's annual 2006 Best Book award.[23] According to an article by theLos Angeles Times writer Larry Gordon, the initial response to the biography "garnered many positive reviews, although some critics said it uncomfortably straddled reverence and logic."[15]
Bushman grew up in a practicing Latter-day Saint family.[7] As a young adult, he entered undergraduate studies atHarvard and there found himself struggling to communicate his religious beliefs in an environment in whichlogical positivism was current.[24]I. Bernard Cohen, a mentor to Bushman in Harvard's history and science concentration, told him that most people at Harvard "thought Mormonism is garbage".[24] Unsure how to reply, Bushman began wondering if there was "enough evidence to believe in God", becoming "drawn towardagnosticism" as a result.[7][24] Even so, Bushman interrupted his studies at Harvard to serve as amissionary for the church inNew England andAtlantic Canada where he overcame doubts about the existence of God and became convinced that theBook of Mormon was right.[25] Bushman has opined in retrospect, "If I was such a doubter, why did I go into the mission field where I would be called on to testify of my beliefs virtually every day? ... I have come to believe that in actuality my problem was not faith but finding the words to express my faith."[24]
Bushman later held variousreligious callings within the LDS Church, includingseminary teacher,bishop,stake president, andstake patriarch.[7][26] On his decision to study the religion he is affiliated with Bushman replied, "Would you say that the only people who can do black studies are not blacks, or that to do women's studies you have to be a non-woman? You get all sorts of people who have deep personal commitments to a subject they teach, and that has its advantages."[15]
| Professional and academic associations | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | President of theMormon History Association 1985–1986 | Succeeded by |
| Awards | ||
| Preceded by | Bancroft Prize 1968 With:Bernard Bailyn andHenry Allen Bullock | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Succeeded by | |
| Preceded by | Succeeded by | |
