Join us for a fascinating seeker story: the life of Bicknell Young, who grew up in a prominent Mormon family of the mid-1800s. He traveled a road from life among the first settlers of Salt Lake City to a career in service to The Mother Church in Boston. The Library’s Executive Manager, Mike Hamilton, sits down with Kristine Haglund, a distinguished Mormon scholar, to discuss the relevance of Young’s upbringing, including the connection to his uncle Brigham Young, leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. How did this shape an artistic and spiritual journey that led him to embrace Christian Science? Our guests also discuss the significance of music in Mormon culture and explore how it contributed to Young’s early singing career and marriage to the Italian composer and musician Elisa Mazzucato Young.
Read more on this topic: From the Collections: A rich portrait of Bicknell Young
Podcast guests
Kristine Haglund is a freelance editor and the author of Eugene England: A Mormon Liberal, part of the series “Introductions to Mormon Thought,” published by the University of Illinois Press. She was the editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought from 2009 to 2015. She has been active in the Mormon blogging community since its inception and currently blogs at By Common Consent. Haglund is Vice President of Mormon Scholars in the Humanities and serves on the board of Common Consent Press. This year she is Program Co-Chair for the 2022 Mormon History Association conference in Logan, Utah. A Southern girl who lived most of her adult life in Boston, where she raised three children, she is now trying to figure out whether her current hometown of St. Louis is in the South or the Midwest.
Michael Hamilton is Executive Manager of The Mary Baker Eddy Library. He came to the position following ten years in the Religion and Philosophy Department at Principia College in Elsah, Illinois. Prior to teaching, he served for 20 years as an active-duty US Navy chaplain, ministering to units in both the navy and marine corps. He holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research and writing focus is on American religions.
