Ebook
Many people are unaware of how influential Mormons have been on American popular culture. This book parts the curtain and looks behind the scenes at the little-known but important influence Mormons have had on popular culture in the United States and beyond.
Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon provides an unprecedented, comprehensive treatment of Mormons and popular culture. Authored by a Mormon studies librarian and author of numerous writings regarding Mormon folklore, culture, and history, this book provides students, scholars, and interested readers with an introduction and wide-ranging overview of the topic that can serve as a key reference book on the topic.
The work contains fascinating coverage on the most influential Mormon actors, musicians, fashion designers, writers, artists, media personalities, and athletes. Some topics—such as the Mormon influence at Disney, and how Mormon inventors have assisted in transforming American popular culture through the inventions of television, stereophonic sound, video games, and computer-generated animation—represent largely unknown information. The broad overview of Mormons and American popular culture offered can be used as a launching pad for further investigation; researchers will find the references within the book's well-documented chapters helpful.
Many people are unaware of how influential Mormons have been on American popular culture. This book parts the curtain and looks behind the scenes at the little-known but important influence Mormons have had on popular culture in the United States and beyond.
Preface and Acknowledgments
1. "As Much as Any Novelist Could Ask": Mormons in American Popular Fiction
Michael Austin
2. Mormon Contributions to Young Adult Literature
Toni Elise Pilcher
3. Testifying: Mormonism and the Writings of Stephenie Meyer
Kristi A. Young
4. Orthodox vs. Literary: An Overview of Mormon Fiction
Christopher Kimball Bigelow
5. Mormon Picture Book Authors
Rick Walton
6. Mormons and American Comics
Theric Jepson
7. Mormons and American Popular Art
Noel A. Carmack
8. "Horribly Caricatured and Made Hideous in Cartoons": Political Cartooning and the Reed Smoot Hearings
Michael Harold Paulos
9. Jack Anderson: A Mormon Who Influenced Millions
Tim Chambless
10. Glenn Beck: The Meteoric Rise and Decline of a Mormon Media Phenomenon
Robert A. Rees
11. The Dawning of a New Era: Mormonism and the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893
Konden R. Smith
12. Mormons in the New York World's Fair, 1964–1965
Nathaniel Smith Kogan
13. Touring Sacred History: The Latter-day Saints and Their Historical Sites
Daniel H. Olsen
14. Ab Jenkins and the Mormon Meteor
Jessie L. Embry and Ron Shook
15. Profiles of Selected Mormon Athletes in Professional Sports
J. Michael Hunter
About the Editor and Contributors
Index
Overall, this collection is a much-needed addition to a surprising paucity of texts on Mormons and popular culture. . . . [T]his collection provides an accessible, well-sourced research tool for both the general public and the serious scholar.
J. Michael Hunter is Mormon studies librarian and chair of the Religion/Family History Department at the Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT. He is a former librarian at the historical department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, UT.