Financial Records: Historical and Contextual Introductions
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Financial Records: Historical and Contextual Introductions, published as an e-book in October 2026, features fifty-four historical introductions contextualizing Joseph Smith’s financial documentary record from New York and Pennsylvania to Ohio and Missouri and finally to Illinois. The documents described include store daybooks, banking records, promissory notes, accounts, agent papers and church financial documents. These documents demonstrate not only Joseph Smith’s varied business transactions but the financial vicissitudes he and the Latter-day Saints experienced.
Volume Editors
Elizabeth A. Kuehn and Jeffrey D. Mahas are historians for the Church History Department, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sharalyn D. Howcroft is an archivist for the Church History Department, and Naomi W. Raffensparger is an editor for the Church History Department.
Additional Content
About This Volume
The Financial Records series of the Joseph Smith Papers is a multilayered series spanning records created in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois from 1825 to 1849. These papers include small personal transactions by Joseph Smith, records of businesses like stores and a bank, and the earliest institutional financial records kept for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which Smith oversaw as trustee beginning January 1841. The Financial Records series online publication features high-resolution images and transcripts of all surviving and available financial records, which were gathered from repositories and private collections across the United States.
The Financial Records series has also published introductions at josephsmithpapers.org that provide necessary historical context and explanations of material culture for these records. This book brings together the introductions, organized by state or territory, in a single volume. A glossary of the material culture and financial terms has also been included for further financial and cultural explanation. Finally, this book contains an appendix addressing the nineteenth-century legal principle of coverture and the implications of this for Smith, his wife Emma Smith, and other Latter-day Saints. The introductions serve to contextualize record collections, genres of documents, and individual record books, while the glossary and appendix add further detail to the records.
This volume will be useful for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who are studying the life of Joseph Smith and are interested in new layers of the complications and tribulation he experienced. His financial papers document his personal financial difficulties as well as those of the early church and its members. The volume will be useful for members of the church interested in the broader community of Latter-day Saints in the early days of the church, their connections with Joseph Smith, and their donations and sacrifices. It will also benefit researchers interested in nineteenth-century economic and religious history in the United States.