Sorry for the previous comment, tag error.

Brad–glad we can call a truce. I really did like your bios, I just don’t care that much about dead white guys. I am more of a people’s history type; maybe it’s an ivory tower divide. As always, I look forward to future posts at BCC and am enjoying the ongoing conversation there.

Even more reason why it’s release-time professional seminary is an incredible wasteful activity. Hopefully the growing “standardization” of the Church programs across the globe, and the internationalization of the Church, will cause the Church to see that’s just dumb to waste those resources, when we already have a good model in place (early morning seminary, taught by dedicated instructors).

But again, who would you drop? Me, I’d probably drop Talmage in her favor. Talmage was a Giant (big G). But Naomi Randall’s seminal work is on the lips of virtually every Mormon who has lived since, whereas not that many Mormons, by comparison, have ever read Talmage.

Sincere apologies for anything I’ve written that offended you personally.

You love your list, I get it. You are invested, I get it. You spent a lot of time on this, it was your baby, and I said it disappointed me when you really just wanted me to love it. We just seem to have different values and this list reflects yours, but not mine. I can get over that if you can.

Moving back to more substantive issues, let’s take the example of Belle Spafford’s exclusion from the list. She was undoubtedly an important and influential woman. But, in terms of the long term consequences of her tenure as RS president, by far the most significant thing she did was preside over surrendering the Society’s autonomy in a multiplicity of spheres to priesthood correlation. Her campaigning against the ERA was largely without long term impact, since today Mormon women are as likely to work outside of the home as non-Mormon women. It too seems more like an act of submission to priesthood authority than anything else, since the National Council of Women endorsed the ERA with her as president just a few years before the Church officially renounced it and began to campaign against it. Rogers and Parmley were important figures, but their influence on today’s Church was largely eclipsed when the Primary was brought under the central control of priesthood correlation. The best case to be made for a woman who did not make the list, in my view, is Janice Kapp Perry. But I still have a hard time believing that her impact was as far-reaching as any of the men on the list or several men left off the list (President Grant, Stephen Robinson, Truman Madsen, Brad Wilcox). Even people like architects who designed cookie-cutter wardhouses, committee members who revised the hymnal, or artists like Teichert or Friberg or Olson have their influence mediated and largely determined by the actions of the priesthood hierarchy who choose to incorporate their work in the activities of the Church.