Talk:Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Sources for this work
I have a recent book on historiography around somewhere that discusses all the LDS historians who wrote material that Roberts gathered, edited, and used in this work. Will try and add that information. Best........WBardwin 07:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Sounds pretty good. I had actually written a sizeable article, when I hit a wrong button and the browser took the page elsewhere. I hadn't saved the new page yet. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.Isaac Crumm 07:41, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

"History of the Church"
The article states that this work is commonly referred to as "History of the Church". I thought "History of the Church" was the common name of the "Documentary History of the Church", (which was also edited by B.H. Roberts). But isn't this work quite different?; i.e. this work goes up to 1930 whereas "History of the Church" ends in around the mid-nineteenth century; History of the Church was mostly written by Joseph Smith or his scribe or secretaries whereas this work is mostly Roberts's writings?

I would also agree that while "History of the Church" is a common reference work for LDS, this work is not. It's there and used by some, but I wouldn't call it super-common. I personally don't know any LDS who own a copy; in contrast, I know a lot of LDS who own "History of the Church".

-SESmith 22:17, 13 May 2007 (UTC)


 * That is correct. "History of the Church" was written by Apostles George A. Smith and Wilford Woodruff, who were appointed Church Historians for the endeavor. B.H.Roberts wrote the introduction later. Joseph Fielding Smith tried to change the title to "Documentary History of the Church" but over time this title has been more or less reverted. This wikipedia article here is about "Comprehensive History of the Church" written by B.H.Roberts. The two histories are different productions.


 * There is another difference, "History of the Church" is available for free in numerous places on the net as an electronic text. "Comprehensive History of the Church" is not, as of 2019 feb. People are still selling copies of "Comprehensive History of the Church" in both paper and e-format. Friendly Person (talk) 15:39, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 08:23, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints → Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – After much discussion it was decided that the "The" in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is to be Capitalized. See WP:The, MOS:LDS, WP:NCLDS and Talk:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Additionally if you go to the publishers website Deseret Books, you can see the book cover capitalized "The" but not "of", just as WP:The and Talk:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says.--- ARTEST4ECHO (talk) 17:08, 18 August 2014 (UTC) --- ARTEST4ECHO (talk) 17:08, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Support. When dealing with a book title, it probably matters more how the book publishers capitalize the name of the book as opposed to how the name of the church is typically capitalized in other contexts. I can find title pages for this work with the "The" capitalized and others where it is not. The older ones tend to not capitalize it while the newer reprints tend to, but from what I can see the original 1930 publication did capitalize it. In light of this, I wouldn't oppose changing it as proposed. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:13, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Support — publishers get to define nuances such as the intended capitalization of the titles in their publications. — Asterisk *  Splat → 23:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Weak support, on a technicality. I think it's sad and disturbing that we've come to a brow-beaten "consensus" to capitalize "The" in "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" (as in, always, like in mid-sentence) just because the church wants us to.  But, having come to such a decision, ill-advised or not, we should at least do it consistently.  I also lean toward not modifying the titles of published works when we have evidence that the quirk in question is not a simple style shenanigan, but a deliberate change to the content of the title from what would normally be expected, to something the author (personal or organizational) is using to make some kind of point.  We should not honor this point-making and PoV-pushing any more broadly, certainly not in our own WP editorial voice in the middle of sentences in articles, like "...was a members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."  But in a title like this, coming from an organization that insists that their use of capital-"The" is important to them, I think we kind of have to.  The title of a published work is essentially a form of quotation, and we haven't the right to change what they're saying.  But they don't have any right to make them describe them the way they want us to.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:16, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Support Should be moved even if the article on the church were to be moved back. &mdash;innotata 23:09, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Support. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Periodical names
This article currently states that the original articles on the Spaulding theory, and Roberts's responses and 6-year series, were all published in the American Historical Society's American Historical Magazine. I have since seen it referred to as the New York Historical Magazine. I want to get this straight, so here are my notes:


 * New York Historical Magazine, which changed to Americana
 * Defender of the Faith: The B.H. Roberts Story (1980) by Truman Madsen
 * Church History in the Fulness of Times
 * Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History (2000), entry by Kenneth W. Godfrey
 * American Historical Magazine, publisher David E. Nelke
 * Mormonism in Transition (1996), by Thomas G. Alexander
 * Americana, monthly magazine published by the American Historical Society
 * Mormon History (2001), by Walker, Whittaker, Allen
 * American Historical Magazine, renamed Americana
 * SHIELDS (LDS apologetics website)
 * Americana (American Historical Magazine)
 * "Bibliography" from Civil War Saints (2012) by Kenneth L. Alford

On Google Books I saw an issue of the journal from 1915 with the publisher listed as "The National Americana Society" in New York. This page at upenn.edu says Americana was produced by (1) American Historical Company, (2) American Historical Society, and (3) National Americana Society. One more issue: the WP link for American Historical Society redirects to American Historical Association (founded 1884), which appears to be incorrect according to this 1912 issue of Publisher's Weekly. Something is screwed up in Google Books and many pages don't display for reading, but it's visible from the search results. It says ..."'The American Historical Society,' which through Mr. David J. Nelke is inviting material for its annals, is by no means the same as the American Historical Association, despite the similarity of name."

Thomas G. Alexander says Schroeder's Spaulding articles were published from Sept 1906 - May 1907. So, I think this is the first Spaulding article. Notice that the periodical was called "American Historical Magazine", published by The Publishing Society of New York, and the first issue had just recently been published in January 1906. It appears to be bi-monthly, and the editor is not listed. The next year the periodical name is the same, but in Vol. 2, No. 3 (May 1907) the publisher changes to "The Americana Society". Then in Vol. 2, No. 4 (July 1907) the editor is stated to be John Austin Stevens, which changes to Lyman Horace Weeks in No. 6 (November). Volume 4 doesn't mention Nelke, although this is when Alexander says he published Roberts's replies starting in Sept 1908, but here's the final reply in March 1909. When Roberts started his 6-year series in July 1909, the president was listed as David I. Nelke.

I also found a journal called the American Historical Magazine], edited by Garrett and Bass and published by the Peabody Normal College in Nashville, Tennessee. It started in 1896. This is a different publication by the same name. (More opportunity for confusion.)

I haven't decided how to untangle all of this yet, but I'm leaving it here as a starting point. ——Rich jj (talk) 22:56, 19 June 2015 (UTC)


 * The name of the publisher and journal, and the editors, have changed at different times.


 * PUBLISHER
 * Jan 1906 - Mar 1907 : The Publishing Society of New York
 * May 1907 - May 1909 : The Americana Society
 * Jul 1909 - Oct 1916 : The National Americana Society
 * (lapsed in 1917)
 * Jan 1918 - 1920s? : American Historical Society


 * TITLE
 * Jan 1906 - May 1909 : American Historical Magazine
 * bimonthly
 * Jul 1909 - 1920s? : Americana
 * monthly, quarterly starting 1916
 * subtitled "Illustrated" on the issue cover, subtitled "(American Historical Magazine)" on the volume cover


 * DIRECTORS
 * 1906 : ???
 * Jul 1907 - Sep 1907 : John Austin Stevens (editor)
 * Nov 1907 - May 1909 : Lyman Horace Weeks (editor)
 * Jul 1909 - Dec 1909 : Florence Hull Winterburn (editor), David I. Nelke (president)
 * 1910 : ???
 * 1911? - Nov 1912 : John R. Meader (editor), David I. Nelke (president)
 * Dec 1912 - Jul 1914: John Howard Brown (editor), David I. Nelke (president)
 * Aug 1914 - Dec 1914 : David I. Nelke (editor & president)
 * Jul 1915 - Aug 1915 : I. M. Greene (editor), David I. Nelke (president)
 * Sep 1915 - Dec 1915 : L. Greenway Greene (editor), David I. Nelke (president)
 * Oct 1919 - 1923+ (?): Fenwick Y. Hedley (editor), Marion L. Lewis (business manager)
 * Oct 1919 - 1923+ (?): Fenwick Y. Hedley (editor), Marion L. Lewis (business manager)


 * What did I learn? The original articles by Schroeder and Roberts were published in the American Historical Magazine and the publisher changed names during that period.  Then in July 1909 the magazine went through a big shift, changing to Americana under a new editor, increasing publication to monthly, and the publisher changing to The National Americana Society.  Editorship changed frequently, but otherwise this was stable until Roberts finished his series in 1916.  It didn't become the American Historical Society until afterward (following a fire and new management).  I'm not going to use this research as source material for the article.  I'm only going to use it to determine which secondary sources are most accurate.  ——Rich jj (talk) 18:28, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Previous consensus, on how to capitalize this book's title specifically, unaddressed
The page name was recently changed to Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with the "the" lowercased. However, this runs counter to the reasoning conclusion drawn in previous discussion, archived above. While lowercasing the "the" in references to the church itself is well and good and makes sense and is the consensus, I am not persuaded that overturns the reasoning used to determine the appropriate casing of this book's title. Editors previously agreed that the book capitalized "The" in its original 1930 publication (i.e., Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as can be seen in the image of the title page on this Google Books page) and that the page name should capitalize the book's title according to that casing, since it appears intentional in its original publication, and the page name is intended to be identical to the book's title. I've seen the RfC on casing for the church institution itself, but the RfC was only about the institution's name and does not address the consensus on this page, which is about the title of a published work as it was published. In the absence of a reason to discount the prior consensus for this page and this book's title (and specifically for this one book's title; this has no bearing on other pages or the more general question of casing the institution's name), I am inclined to move the page so the page's name matches the book's title.

(I don't know if this is irony or something else, but although the page was moved, the first instance of "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" was not revised, leaving the capitalized "The" there intact.) P-Makoto (talk) 06:41, 9 November 2022 (UTC)