History of the Latter Day Saint movement
timeline of the movement
The Latter Day Saint movement is a religious movement within Christianity that arose during the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century and that led to the set of doctrines, practices, and cultures called Mormonism, and to the existence of numerous Latter Day Saint churches. Its history is characterized by intense controversy and persecution in reaction to some of the movement's doctrines and practices and their relationship to mainstream Christianity (see Mormonism and Nicene Christianity).
The founder of the Latter Day Saint movement was Joseph Smith, who was raised in the burned-over district of Upstate New York. Smith stated that, in response to prayer, he saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, as well as angels and other visions. This eventually led him to a restoration of Christian doctrine that, he said, was lost after the early Christian apostles were killed. In addition, several early leaders made marked doctrinal and leadership contributions to the movement, including Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Brigham Young. Modern-day revelation from God continues to be a principal belief of the Mormon faith.
Mormon history as an academic field is called Mormon studies.
Movement's historical context
Second Great Awakening and the Charismatic Movement
The Latter Day Saint movement arose in the Palmyra and Manchester area of western New York, where its founder Joseph Smith was raised during a period of religious revival in the early 19th century called the Second Great Awakening, a Christian response to the secularism of the Age of Enlightenment which extended throughout the United States, particularly the frontier areas of the west.
A significant early event in this Second Great Awakening was the Cane Ridge Revival, a large camp meeting that took place in 1801 at Cane Ridge, Kentucky.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “History of the Latter Day Saint movement” is timeline of the movement. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through History, Latter and Saint, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “timeline of the movement” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4907482. The Library of Congress control number is sh85087288. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1801.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “History of the Latter Day Saint movement”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow History of the Latter Day Saint movement primary sources, History of the Latter Day Saint movement archive and History research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “History of the Latter Day Saint movement”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “History of the Latter Day Saint movement” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.