L. Ron Hubbard best-selling science fiction writer, former naval officer, and people's philosopher did not initially intend to found a new religion. But neither did he object when followers organized a church based on his teachings. The resulting movement has attracted millions of adherents from aro...

Over the past thirty years, an enormous amount of research has been conducted into Mormon origins--Joseph Smith's early life, the Book of Mormon, the prophet's visions, and the restoration of priesthood authority. Longtime LDS educator Grant H. Palmer suggests that most Latter-day Saints remain unaw...

When Joseph and Emma Smith arrived in Ohio in 1831, several families offered them lodging, as did the Whitneys, whose five year-old daughter, Sarah Ann, and her eleven-year-old neighbor, Mary Elizabeth Rollins, would later play a role in Mormon polygamy. The Smiths soon moved in with the Johnsons, w...

During the settlement of the West, through the Civil War and Gold Rush periods, the average Anglo household consisted of two or three bachelor farmers or miners. The nuclear Ingalls family from Little House of the Prairie was less typical than Bonanza's Cartwright family with three boys, a father, a...