Claudia Bushman spoke in 2009.

 

Claudia L. Bushman, who usually lives in New York City, is living in Pasadena, California for the current academic year as a reader at the Huntington Library where she is annotating the autobiography “Family History” of Margaret Elizabeth Schutt Gordon, known as Pansy, to be published in the Utah State University Press series of the life writings of pioneer women. She holds degrees from Wellesley College, BYU, and Boston University. She is particularly interested in nineteenth century social and cultural history, American literature, and American women. She has taught American studies at several universities and to Columbia University graduate students for many years. Recently she has been teaching at Claremont Graduate University.

She has published eleven books of social and cultural history, local history and several on Mormonism, including Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah, and Mormons in America and Building the Kingdom with Richard Lyman Bushman and her most recent, Contemporary Mormonism. At church in New York City, she has worked in Public Affairs and was until recently chairman of the Harlem Bridge Building Committee. She has chaired many special projects such as the New York Stake living nativity scene, and the reenactment of the sailing of the Ship Brooklyn. She produced the Mormon Oratorio Chorus concert in Carnegie Hall and the Temple Youth Jubilee in Radio City Music Hall. She chaired the installation of an eight foot statue of Joseph Smith in downtown Manhattan in honor of his 200th birthday on Dec 23rd, 2005. She was New York’s Mother of the Year in 2002.