Joseph smith

[poptart]

Wanted to learn more about him, really see him in a new light so I figured this is a great place to ask.  Anyway, this'll be all over the place, here we go.  What was the deal with that savings and loan/bank thing he set up?  When he was going from church to church how was he treated?  When he did have the revelation, found the golden plates etc. how was he treated afterwards?  Reason why I asked about these, from what I know about that time in American history if/when you moved to a new area especially in the frontier/new states church membership could make getting a bank loan, job, a place to rent/buy and pretty much anything you needed to live possible.  Frontier life was rough and people were what they were, some nice some not so much.  I know lots of folks on the other end of the religious divide say the whole bank thing was a scam, I don't buy it.  I'm starting to think Joseph Smith set up what he did to not only help people but also a possible alternative to the other banks, churches etc.  Religion in the USA at that time wasn't really a pleaseant affair, besides the politics the revival was in full swing.  If your flavor of politics, demeanor or pretty much anything was off about you, you earned enemies.  When Smith was a child, something a saint who's related to some of the first church members told me that when Smith would go from church to church once the niceness wore off, it was politics and badmouthing as usual.  Big surprise, when he had his revelation, I'm sure the treatment got worse.  No one on the other religious end says this, when you go from place to place fleeing persecution and build booming, prosperous towns and have top notch craftsmanship it's not a scam, it's good people, something that to this day is in short supply.  I want to see the Nauvoo masonic temple someday plus some of the other stuff, I have this feeling that compared to Carthage and the surrounding areas it was literally a first rate town surrounded by various dumps.  

I'll say this too, after how I saw many of the various religious bodies act last year, I really started to see Smith in a new light.  More time goes on, more I do think him and a lot of his people were screwed over badly, would like to hear what the learned saints here have to say and share.  Thanks!

BTW, part of this is also because I read a lot in my spare time.  Book I glanced through in my pile called "Ambivalent churchmen and Evangelical churchwomen the religion of the Episcopal elite in North Carolina, 1800-1860 by Richard Rankin" a few years ago and have yet to finish really started making me curious, it touched on the power and politics of the church back then.  These are the kinds of things you never really hear talked about in a lot of circles, here we are now with me having an ever growing reading list on this subject.

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by poptart

[The Nehor]

The Kirtland ‘Not a bank’ was quasi-legal at best but it was needed. The problem America had was that there was a need for cash but the gold standard limited supply. The Kirtland set up was designed to help the locals get some start up or expansion money. It was not unique. There were a lot of similar anti-banks being set up to try to get more cash into the system. There was an ongoing political fight between the financial elite who owned most of the debts who wanted inflation killed at any cost while smaller businesses and farmers needed more financial liquidity to keep things going and they didn’t mind inflation as it reduced their financial liabilities.

The Kirtland ‘bank’ collapsed because there were rumors it could not meet the demand for exchange (caused a standard run on the bank and destroyed it). The idea that it was a scam popped up with stories about the supposed gold being fake. The bit that convinces me that Joseph wasn’t running it as a scam is that he pumped a lot of his own money into it as it was collapsing to try to stabilize it. Joseph failed but scammers don’t throw their own money onto the bonfire when the scam collapses.

The financial world is half sorcery at the best of times. World War I was the beginning of the end for the Gold Standard worldwide and it finally died virtually everywhere during the Great Depression.

Joseph was not that well travelled in terms of visiting churches all over the world. He was usually treated okay by local members when he did travel but he had a lot of trouble with factions in the church trying to reform it or supplant him.

Joseph seems to have told very few people about the First Vision. He did tell more people about the visit of Moroni and that got out. Most thought he was deluded. A few thought the gold might be real and tried various plots to steal it.

[poptart]

20 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The Kirtland ‘Not a bank’ was quasi-legal at best but it was needed. The problem America had was that there was a need for cash but the gold standard limited supply. The Kirtland set up was designed to help the locals get some start up or expansion money. It was not unique. There were a lot of similar anti-banks being set up to try to get more cash into the system. There was an ongoing political fight between the financial elite who owned most of the debts who wanted inflation killed at any cost while smaller businesses and farmers needed more financial liquidity to keep things going and they didn’t mind inflation as it reduced their financial liabilities.

The Kirtland ‘bank’ collapsed because there were rumors it could not meet the demand for exchange (caused a standard run on the bank and destroyed it). The idea that it was a scam popped up with stories about the supposed gold being fake. The bit that convinces me that Joseph wasn’t running it as a scam is that he pumped a lot of his own money into it as it was collapsing to try to stabilize it. Joseph failed but scammers don’t throw their own money onto the bonfire when the scam collapses.

The financial world is half sorcery at the best of times. World War I was the beginning of the end for the Gold Standard worldwide and it finally died virtually everywhere during the Great Depression.

Joseph was not that well travelled in terms of visiting churches all over the world. He was usually treated okay by local members when he did travel but he had a lot of trouble with factions in the church trying to reform it or supplant him.

Joseph seems to have told very few people about the First Vision. He did tell more people about the visit of Moroni and that got out. Most thought he was deluded. A few thought the gold might be real and tried various plots to steal it.

Banking was shady back then, much like now lol.  So was it like a credit union of sorts?  

It collapsed on just rumors?  What else?  I agree, if he did pump that much of his own money into it he had to mean well, scammers don't do that.

The financial world is still total sorcery, more like a legal ponzi scheme I think.  Irony, gold and silver is being bought like crazy despite the media pushing what they are.  I grew up having depression era stories handed down to me, interesting times.

That's what I meant, locally among other churches, before the vision.  I heard the great awaking churches, especially the leadership was quite power hungry, they wanted converts.  Smith getting them did not sit well with the establishment.  These guys hated Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopals/Anglicans and anyone else who wasn't "Saved", at least their definition of it.  From what I hear, not much has changed out there as far as religion goes, it's still business as always.

So he didn't tell a lot of people about it?  How long was it after the vision it was discussed?

 

[JustAnAustralian]

11 minutes ago, poptart said:

How long was it after the vision it was discussed?

The earliest recorded account is from 1832. So ~12 years after it happened. Based on Joseph Smith's history, he told a few people at the time, but it doesn't appear to be widely spoken of.

[poptart]

15 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

The earliest recorded account is from 1832. So ~12 years after it happened. Based on Joseph Smith's history, he told a few people at the time, but it doesn't appear to be widely spoken of.

So that intro part in the BOM where it has the testimony of the the early apostles (Am I right?) was it?  Starting to see why they make such a big deal about the first vision in sacrament meeting.

[Robert F. Smith]

59 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The Kirtland ‘Not a bank’ was quasi-legal at best but it was needed. The problem America had was that there was a need for cash but the gold standard limited supply. The Kirtland set up was designed to help the locals get some start up or expansion money. It was not unique. There were a lot of similar anti-banks being set up to try to get more cash into the system. There was an ongoing political fight between the financial elite who owned most of the debts who wanted inflation killed at any cost while smaller businesses and farmers needed more financial liquidity to keep things going and they didn’t mind inflation as it reduced their financial liabilities.

The Kirtland ‘bank’ collapsed because there were rumors it could not meet the demand for exchange (caused a standard run on the bank and destroyed it). The idea that it was a scam popped up with stories about the supposed gold being fake. The bit that convinces me that Joseph wasn’t running it as a scam is that he pumped a lot of his own money into it as it was collapsing to try to stabilize it. Joseph failed but scammers don’t throw their own money onto the bonfire when the scam collapses.

That collapse was part of a general financial collapse at that time.  Not just the Kirtland anti-bank.

59 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

............

Joseph was not that well travelled in terms of visiting churches all over the world. He was usually treated okay by local members when he did travel but he had a lot of trouble with factions in the church trying to reform it or supplant him.

Poptart may have been referring to Joseph's youth, in which he visited various churches and revivals in and around Palmyra, even becoming an exhorter for the Methodists.

59 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Joseph seems to have told very few people about the First Vision. He did tell more people about the visit of Moroni and that got out. Most thought he was deluded. A few thought the gold might be real and tried various plots to steal it.

Joseph had a reputation as a seer even as a youth.  And another local seer, Sally Chase, believed in his abilities.

[OGHoosier]

23 hours ago, poptart said:

It collapsed on just rumors?  What else?

There was a general run on the bank. I remember that the Joseph Smith Papers videos talked about a prominent local businessman, Grandison Newell, conspiring to collect Safety Society notes and engineer an artificial run on the bank as well. To hear the historians in those videos tell it, Grandison Newell was basically Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. We have it on record that Newell pressed lawsuits to get the Society shut down. He also charged Joseph Smith with hiring men to assassinate him, which charges were dropped two months after they were brought. Let's just say Joseph Smith and the Kirtland Safety Society were not on good terms with the rich and powerful of Geauga County. It also didn't help that Newell owned many businesses which commanded heavy market share in Geauga County until Saints moved in to compete. 

I consider Grandison Newell to be up there with Lilburn Boggs and John C. Bennett on the list of Execrable Scumbags of Latter-day Saint History.

Edit: And while we're talking about It's a Wonderful Life, it's a shame Jimmy Stewart never played Joseph Smith because for some reason I think he'd be good at it. Tall, blonde, conventionally handsome, kind of country-bumpkiny. 

Edited April 9, 2021 by OGHoosier

[JustAnAustralian]

2 hours ago, poptart said:

So that intro part in the BOM where it has the testimony of the the early apostles (Am I right?) was it? 

The testimonies at the start are about seeing/touching the golden plates that the book of mormon was translated from rather than the first vision.

He claims to have told at least one local minister (about the first vision) who shut him down. We don't really see much about it until after the church was organised though.

Edited April 8, 2021 by JustAnAustralian

[LoudmouthMormon]

The original Mary Poppins movie did a fine job at explaining how a Bank Run works.

 

[poptart]

This thread has been interesting, thanks!

More I've read into the lds faith more I see their biggest opponents are more or less the same people back when who had an interest in them and other competitors like the Catholic Church not being around.

That's another one, did someone in the church call them some not so nice things back in the day?  Not a big deal to me, everyone else in the country did.  Same thing with the mark of Cain, it sure is interesting how the other side of the religious divide covered up their tracks on that one. 

[JustAnAustralian]

 

10 hours ago, poptart said:

That's another one, did someone in the church call them some not so nice things back in the day?

A church leader once wrote a book called Mormon Doctrine in which he said that the Catholic Church was the great and abominable church mentioned in the scriptures. 
Church leaders higher up told him to remove that part from future print runs as it wasn't doctrine.

[poptart]

19 hours ago, JustAnAustralian said:

 

A church leader once wrote a book called Mormon Doctrine in which he said that the Catholic Church was the great and abominable church mentioned in the scriptures. 
Church leaders higher up told him to remove that part from future print runs as it wasn't doctrine.

So many people said similar things, Lutherans at one time called Rome the same thing.  It always annoyed me when people here would spout that, part of the reason why people came here back when was to get away from all that.  What to they do?  Pick up where they left off in the old world.

[Peacefully]

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Edited April 11, 2021 by Peacefully