Footnotes
This serialized history drew on the journals herein beginning with the 4 July 1855 issue of the Deseret News and with the 3 January 1857 issue of the LDS Millennial Star.
The labels on the spines of the four volumes read respectively as follows: “Joseph Smith’s Journal—1842–3 by Willard Richards” (book 1); “Joseph Smith’s Journal by W. Richards 1843” (book 2); “Joseph Smith’s Journal by W. Richards 1843–4” (book 3); and “W. Richards’ Journal 1844 Vol. 4” (book 4). Richards kept JS’s journal in the front of book 4, and after JS’s death Richards kept his own journal in the back of the volume.
“Schedule of Church Records, Nauvoo 1846,” [1], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
“Inventory. Historian’s Office. 4th April 1855,” [1]; “Contents of the Historian and Recorder’s Office G. S. L. City July 1858,” 2; “Index of Records and Journals in the Historian’s Office 1878,” [11]–[12], Historian’s Office, Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904, CHL; Johnson, Register of the Joseph Smith Collection, 7.
Historian’s Office. Catalogs and Inventories, 1846–1904. CHL. CR 100 130.
Johnson, Jeffery O. Register of the Joseph Smith Collection in the Church Archives, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City: Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1973.
Footnotes
Historical Introduction to JS, Journal, Dec. 1841–Dec. 1842.
Source Note to JS, Journal, 1835–1836; Source Note to JS, Journal, Mar.–Sept. 1838.
See Appendix 3.
Finch was a disciple of social reformer Robert Owen (1771–1858), who taught that the poverty, crime, hypocrisy, selfishness, and disorder that characterized modern society stemmed from civic leaders’ failure to realize that one’s character is shaped entirely by one’s environment. He advocated small socialistic communities—“villages of cooperation”—as the best environment for teaching and living principles conducive to social harmony and individual happiness. Owen helped establish a relatively short-lived communal society in New Harmony, Indiana, in the late 1820s, which attracted the attention of the American public. Finch’s stop in Nauvoo was part of a tour of the United States he was making in 1843. Finch later reported that JS “strongly invited” him to lecture to the Saints and that his 13 September lecture dealt with “the present wretched conditions of the working classes, and the causes of their misery.” Finch concluded his lectures—the second one being delivered the following day—by “challenging him [JS] and all his friends to a friendly discussion.” Finch estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 people attended his Nauvoo lectures and noted that “they were very attentive, and very well behaved.” (Owen, New View of Society, 5–13; Owen, Life of Robert Owen, 1, 294; Harrison, Quest for the New Moral World, 5–7, 47–48, 143–147; Finch, “Notes of Travel in the United States,” [1], 47.)
Owen, Robert. A New View of Society: or, Essays on the Principle of the Formation of the Human Character, and the Application of the Principle to Practice. London: Cadell and Davies, 1813.
Owen, Robert. The Life of Robert Owen, Written By Himself. With Selections from His Writings and Correspondence. Vol. 1. London: Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1857.
Harrison, J. F. C. Quest for the New Moral World: Robert Owen and the Owenites in Britain and America. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1969.
Finch, John. “Notes of Travel in the United States.” In Labor Movement, 1840–1860, edited by John R. Commons, 47–71. Vol. 7 of A Documentary History of American Industrial Society, edited by John R. Commons, Ulrich B. Phillips, Eugene A. Gilmore, Helen L. Sumner, and John B. Andrews. Cleveland, OH: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1910.