Like a Fiery Meteor: The Life and Times of Joseph F. Smith

As a scholar of Progressive Era American history, I knew the broad strokes of Joseph F. Smith's life but was far more familiar with his term as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his role in the hearings of Senator Reed Smoot in 1903–1904. After reading this thoughtful and fascinating biography of Joseph F. Smith, I am left intrigued by this complex figure. As Stephen C. Taysom so clearly shows, Smith was deeply shaped by both personal and communal trauma. This trauma ultimately affected his views and leadership as part of the LDS Church. From this detailed and empathetic close reading, Taysom presents a biography that also provides important new insights into the history of Mormonism as well as a rapidly changing nineteenth-century America.Taysom follows a chronological narrative from just before Smith's birth in 1838 to his death in 1918. However, there is also an overarching theme in each chapter. For example, chapter 1, “Bloodlines,” contextualizes Smith's birth within the early history of the Smith family as well as Mormonism more generally. Chapters 2 and 3, “From Missouri to Nauvoo” and “The Murders of Joseph and Hyrum Smith,” center on how the boy's earliest years were defined by constant communal and personal fear of violence. Other chapters like “Upon the Isles of the Sea” (chapter 5), “Mission to the British Isles” (chapter 7), and “Mission President in England, Loosing the Lion” (chapter 10) focus on Smith's evolving relationship with the church, including his rising within its ranks. Yet others, especially chapter 6, “Returning to Utah and Finding a Wife,” and chapter 8, “Marital Discord, Domestic Violence, and Divorce,” highlight Smith's complicated and often contradictory nature that encompassed both his volatile and violent nature and the deep well of emotions tied to his children, including love, grief, hope, and joy. Later chapters highlight significant changes in the political and religious landscape of both Utah and the United States that shaped Smith's later years, his role in the Americanization of Mormon culture, and his leadership in the LDS Church.The work of more than a decade of research and writing, Taysom's 360-page biography is noticeably intimate. Not only does the book reflect the author's dedicated and exhaustive archival research, but he regularly privileges the words of his subject. In doing so, Taysom allows Smith's temperament and emotions to rise to the surface, offering insight into a figure known for his strong, if not stubborn, stances. Though he is writing an academic biography, Taysom consistently centers Smith's innermost thoughts, raw emotions, and complex feelings. Church work and policy are intertwined and important, but first and foremost is the personal—Smith's feelings, his family, and his fears. It is from this emotional reading of Smith's life, often in his own words, that Taysom offers a rich and layered analysis.One of Taysom's most significant contributions is the argument that it was not the deaths of his father, Hyrum Smith, and uncle, the prophet Joseph Smith, that most affected Smith but the strength, values, and loss of his mother, Mary Fielding Smith. Mary Fielding met Hyrum Smith in 1837, becoming his second wife (following the death of his first spouse). Overnight, Mary became the stepmother to Hyrum's six children and became deeply entrenched in the inner workings of the Mormon community. Mary was pregnant with Joseph F. Smith just a few months later (10). His birth in November of 1838 was the first in a series of events where Mary served as the center of his emotional, moral, and spiritual beliefs. As with most significant moments in his young life, the only parent present was Mary. Because his father was incarcerated in Missouri during his birth (15), young Joseph F. came to see his mother as his reliable support. Six years later, Hyrum was murdered and Joseph F. saw his mother's emotional collapse as well as her resolute strength in pulling the family together and ultimately making the perilous journey to Utah (37). Throughout the biography, Taysom reiterates how significant Smith's childhood losses and idolization of his mother were to the rest of his life. Readers see how death, the fear of familial loss, memorialization, and the desire for idealized relationships defined both the man and his doctrine (172, 258).Taysom seeks to connect Smith and his world to larger changes in nineteenth-century US history (2). To do so, he explores Smith's life within insular Mormon cultures as well as national society. Cultural constructions of childhood, gender roles, grief and death, “otherness,” politics, family, and community are all present. Dissecting these constructs provides additional layers to Smith's story that many biographers tend to ignore.One of the strongest themes explored is the role of masculinity in Smith's life. As Taysom explains, conceptions of masculinity were evolving throughout Smith's life, which saw the end of the Second Great Awakening, the American Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the Progressive Era, and World War I (116). Smith was at once a man who physically abused his wife and almost beat a man to death, as well as a man who was not afraid to shed tears and poignantly express his emotions in writing. Because of this duality and apparent contradiction, Smith consistently questioned his own masculinity.Smith firmly believed that masculinity directly correlated with spiritual and physical strength. When he fled the US and remained in exile to avoid anti-polygamist laws during the 1880s, he framed what some might have deemed cowardice as instead a representation of his manhood. For Smith, morality and religiosity defined manliness. Therefore, his continued adherence to what he believed to be God's desire for plural marriage, even while on the run, proved his manhood.At the same time, using Smith's own words, Taysom shows that Smith felt he could not live up to the social standards of masculinity. Smith continuously worried about his financial ability to provide for his family. Somewhat surprisingly, we see that he and his family often relied on charity for the most basic provisions. Smith, who made little money as a missionary, often took odd jobs to afford to travel to and from his mission destinations to see wives and children.As someone who faced significant trauma throughout his life, often resulting in the loss of either a loved one or a feeling of security, Smith cared deeply for people. This included his wives, family, and friends, but especially his children. Smith battled an almost pathological anxiety for the health and well-being of his children. When his first child was ill, Smith was a devoted caregiver. In his letters, he writes of rocking her, feeding her ice water and strawberries, and watching over her sleepless nights. When she died, the grief forever altered Smith. While he wrote that he was well suited to worry and care for his children, he hated this part of his personality, referring to this as his femininity (166–68). His “maternal nature,” as he put it, was later reflected in Latter-day Saint doctrines of eternal families, sealings, and plural marriage.Taysom's deep knowledge of both Smith's life and LDS Church history is both a strength and a slight weakness. The author took great care to differentiate the figures who shared the same names (e.g., Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith Jr., Joseph F. Smith, Joseph F. Smith Jr., etc.) and used the initials “JFS” to identify the main subject of the book, but a simple family tree would also have been beneficial. Instead, I found myself drawing my own basic genealogy in the back of my book to ensure I knew which person or generation I was reading about at any given time.It was particularly confusing to parse the historical actors when Taysom explored Smith's reactions to and fights against his aunt and cousins who led the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints back in Illinois or when he discussed marriages (plural and monogamous) in and around Smith's life. While this is partly a natural result of historical naming conventions, readers not as well-versed in this history may need to stop and note the figures and their genealogical connections from time to time.Additionally, at other times, I had to look up an event, doctrine, or historical actor. As someone whose scholarship does not focus solely on Mormon studies, my need to move beyond context clues to understand a particular scenario occasionally slowed down my reading. This, however, is far from a weakness; rather, it reflects the scope and magnitude of this work. Taysom acknowledges his intentions to avoid historiography and reference to previous scholarship beyond citations. However, because of this choice, this is an aspect of the book that general readers should be aware of.The sheer breadth of research undertaken by Taysom is impressive. Yet it is his close reading of the texts and his teasing out of the personal intertwined with the political, business, and religious sources that shines. Though Smith's journals and papers from the time of his presidency of the LDS Church remain closed to scholars, Taysom's biography feels complete. As the first truly academic biography of Joseph F. Smith, this work is an engaging and enjoyable read. Intended as a work for scholars of American religion and Mormon studies, this biography is also useful for scholars of the West, the Progressive Era, gender and masculinity, death, nineteenth-century childhood, and more.