It was the concern of this study to determine the status of the bishops of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with respect to their function as counselors to the Church members.

This study was proposed to analyze articles referring to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the national magazine press. A "symbol coding" form of content analysis was used, in which each pertinent word or name was categorized, counted as indulgent or deprivatory and classified as to the thematic nature of the text.

Early Church member W. W. Phelps wrote, "Cumorah...is well calculated to stand in this generation, as a monument of marvelous works and wonders" (Latter-day Saints' Messenger and Advocate, November 1835, 2:221). With a stately monument of the Angel Moroni cresting its summit, and a yearly pageant commemorating salient events associated with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, it is fulfilling the exact role that Phelps envisioned. However, the general population of the Church is relatively unfamiliar with the history of this significant Latter-day Saint landmark. The following thesis is an in depth study and documentation of certain historical aspects of the Hill Cumorah as a significant, sacred geographic location to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Jesse Knight was born in 1845 near Nauvoo, Illinois, the son of Newel and Lydia G. Knight, early converts to the Mormon faith. In 1850, with his widowed mother, Jesse traveled by wagon across the plains to Salt Lake City where the family remained until 1858 when orders came to move south ahead of the Utah Expedition. Jesse spent the rest of his childhood and his teen years in Provo, Utah, where he lived with his mother and later with an older brother. He worked as a teamster in most of the jobs he had and grew to young manhood in the environment of the logging camp, mining camp, and cattle town, with occasional Mormon connections. In 1869 he married Amanda McEwan and to this union were born five children, two sons and three daughters, with the first and the last children - daughters, being born in Provo and the rest on the Knight ranch in Payson, Utah. For many years Jesse Knight ranched and farmed in Payson, often herding sheep or cattle in the mountainous area of the Tintic, Utah, mining region. He became enamoured of the idea to find great wealth himself and shortly before 1890 he found a mine, the June-Bug, which he almost immediately sold. This whetted his appetite and in 1896 he, through what he believed direct inspiration from God, found the Humbug Mine. Rapidly he exploited this and other mines in the area which he acquired, and ultimately took $13,000,000 worth of ore from the mines on the Godiva Mountain, site of Humbug Mine. Until shortly before his great strike of 1896, Jesse Knight had completely avoided any connection with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but through the healing of his daughter, his faith was renewed in his ancestral faith. He felt badly about the years he had neglected his church duties and with his new-found fortune, he began to repay his Church and his neighbors the best way he could. He began his task by giving money to the Brigham Young Academy/University. Over the years almost a half million dollars was given to this institution. He assisted the Church at a critical juncture by loaning it $10,000 to pay interest on a debt. He saved several Church leaders from embarrassment and possible legal penalties by paying their debts. He founded three towns, Raymond, Alberta, Knightville and Storrs, Utah. He financed sugar companies in Utah and Alberta. He delved into irrigation companies, grain elevators, and railroads. He kept up the Provo Woolen Mills for many years. When Jesse Knight died in 1921, he left a rich heritage of service to his descendents, but little money. He had expanded and extended far beyond his financial resources to help others. Today, little if any of the fortune remains, but Jesse Knight is well remembered as a great miner, an industrialist and philanthropist—Utah's Great Commoner, he was called.

The Indian agent, the trapper, or the citizens of small Iowa townships were undoubtedly startled to see such a large movement of people and wagons across the state of Iowa. It was the winter and early spring of 1846. The onlooker would have seen men, women, and children muffled against the wintry blast, walking or riding in covered wagons and lesser vehicles. Somehow these people were different from the occasional companies bound for points West. Many were ill equipped. Many had a look of gentility, or as the frontiersman might say, a "citified look." They kept to themselves and often withdrew from outside influences as if they expected trouble to fall upon them from some source. Indeed, they seemed "peculiar."

Music is an important yet relatively unnoticed part of the everyday world almost all of us take for granted. Whether in the car, watching television, shopping, at work or at home, even waking up in the morning or going to sleep at night, and so forth, music surrounds us, soothes us, disturbs us, and occasionally goes so far as to persuade us. Although music plays a significant role in many areas of life, its relationship to society is especially evident in the religious sphere. Therefore, the religious sphere is an ideal place to examine what music does and what it means to the culture of a religious organization. Mormonism is one such religious culture in which music plays an important role. This study of music and mormon culture further analyzed by gender is my contribution to the cause of examining music's relationship to society.

Questions regarding the conditions of the origin of Mormonism have been asked repeatedly since Joseph Smith first made his claims public regarding his religious experiences. The same questions have been asked by both proponents and opponents of Smith's story: "How did Mormonism begin?", "Who was Joseph Smith?", "What was Joseph Smith?", "What did he do?" If it could be shown that Joseph Smith was an honest, upright, and sincere person, then the religion he produced was more likely to be reliable and truthful. If it could be shown that Joseph Smith was a fraud and a deceiver, then presumably, the religion could have been revealed as a fake and a great hoax. For many years the issues were wrapped up in the polarization of these extreme points of view. Not until the 1940's did the emotional content of these questions abate to the degree that a more objective examination of the evidence was possible.

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky were the most popular science fiction writing duo in Soviet Russia from the 1960s through the 1980s. Examining their imaginative fictional worlds against the background of wider changes in the Soviet Union allows scholars to gain insights in the world of the Soviet intelligentsia, the educated bearers of culture. As members of this group, the Strugatskys expressed the hopes, frustrations and fears, of their peers, vindicating their intellectual and emotional life. I support the argument that the Brothers occupied a middle ground between conformity and dissident, dubbed the "lost" intelligentsia by Lloyd Churchward. I demonstrate this state of being in Soviet society by providing context to popular Strugatsky works, and discussing the evolution of their perspective over time, as displayed in their literature. Featured prominently in Strugatsky works are themes of governmental authority and scientific development, therefore these are the key focuses of this research. The Strugatskys examination of the essential question of the meaning and attainment of happiness adds a new layer of insight to this argument. Studying the Strugatsky Brothers aligns with the greater trend in the field of cultural studies of the Soviet Union, as historians seek to gain greater understanding of how society experienced the communist government. The captivating writing of the Strugatskys, a mixture of foreboding, irony and humor, contributes to the narrative of Soviet history as the authors were culturally significant figures whose legacy remains influential today.

For nearly four decades Robert Black has published important books and articles on humanism, politics, and education in Renaissance Tuscany. Black published his first monograph, Benedetto Accolti and the Florentine Renaissance,in 1985. Far more than a simple biography, the book is a treasure trove of information about Florence in the mid-Quattrocento. ...

This book reviewed rejects recent scholarship that has minimized the significance of the Italian Renaissance. Instead, it argues that the cities of Florence, Venice, and Milan enjoyed a distinct period of precocity over the rest of Europe between roughly 130--1500.