“That which is unchallenged and exercised as habit rapidly becomes ritual. When this occurs, dissent becomes an object of surprise, if not resentment.”

— B. Carmon Hardy 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1963) Born in Vernal, Utah on December 1934. I spent the first seven years of my life in the state of Utah. Then two years of residence in Florence, Arizona was followed by an extended residence in the state of Washington. I graduated from high school in Wapato, Washington in June of 1953. As the son of a high school teacher [Blaine C. Hardy] in vocational agriculture, most of my time and interest was taken up with various agricultural projects and activities in farm youth organizations. It wasn't until late in my junior year of college at Washington State University that I decided on majoring in the field of history. After graduating with an A.B. degree in June of 1957, I entered Brigham Young University the next autumn as a candidate for an A.M. degree in American History. When the Master's Degree was created in 1959, I was granted a teaching fellowship for the purpose of pursuing doctoral work in the Department of History at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Since completing my course work at Wayne State University, I have been employed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Education at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I have no publications or professional honors [at that time]. My wife is the former Kamillia M. Compton and we have four children. [Grandfather is Charles Allen Hardy]

After Dr. Blaine Carmon Hardy was a history professor at Brigham Young University, he taught at University of Illinois, and California State University at Fullerton. Hardy retired in May 2004 then took an extended tour of Europe. He is currently working on a book for the Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier series, his book will be titled The Work of Abraham: A Documentary History of Mormon Polygamy. http://www.ahclark.com/publications.

Dr. Hardy has extensively studied and written about Orson Pratt Brown, polygamy, and the social and cultural aspects of the Mormon colonies in Mexico.

"There were other reasons for Mexican dislike of the Mormon presence. Scholar Blaine Carmon Hardy argues American nationalism played a role in the Mormon expulsion. He terms it “cultural encystment.” The Mormon settlers imported their own alien culture; refused to learn Spanish; segregated themselves from local Mexicans; and lived within their own mercantile system. Hermetically sealed off, the Mormons failed to notice the resentment of their Mexican neighbors. See Blaine Carmon Hardy, “'Cultural Encystment' as a Cause of the Mormon Exodus from Mexico in 1912,” Pacific Historical Review 34 (November 1965): 439-454."

"B. Carmon Hardy was a professor of history at California State University at Fullerton and author of Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992). One of the most thoughtful discussions of honesty and deception in Mormon religion is the appendix to Carmon Hardy's remarkable history of post-Manifesto polygamy. In this book, he shows how Mormon leaders, including the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, continued to practice and encourage polygamy in secret after the Manifesto, in America, Canada, and Mexico, and how they publicly denied such practice and encouragement. To them, loyalty to what they considered a true principle trumped the principle of full disclosure toward non-Mormons. (Throughout the nineteenth century, a state of extreme polarization between Mormon and non-Mormon existed, and Mormons often felt that anti-Mormons, who admittedly were often extremist, unpleasant figures, did not deserve full ethical considerations.) In Hardy's appendix, he observes that policies of "double truth" can be maintained for idealistic reasons. For instance, the general authorities who denied their own involvement in polygamy did so motivated by loyalty to (in their view) a higher principle, loyalty to God, revelation, their forefathers, and the church. Nevertheless, Hardy concludes that such a conscious "double truth" policy had a negative impact on the church. When the sub rosa polygamy was discovered by non-Mormons (as was inevitable), the credibility of church leaders suffered. Reed Smoot, the non-polygamous Senator from Utah, was not seated for months as a result. The Smoot hearings publicly exposed the Mormon "double truth" policy on the issue of post-Manifesto polygamy. And this confusing policy encouraged the rise of modern, twentieth-century polygamy. Even though the church opposes modern polygamy, this modern "fundamentalist" movement, with all its problems, is partially a result of that difficult transitional period in which "double truth" sent many Mormons and non-Mormons mixed or contradictory messages." --http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/7207/rev3.html

Hardy and Quinn include that one post-1890 marriage that took place on a ship off the coast of San Francisco. The couple? Wilford Woodruff and Madame Lydia Mary Olive Mamreov von Finkelstein Mountford, largely forgotten character from Mormonism’s past.

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Writings by Professor Blaine Carmon Hardy

Blaine Carmon Hardy was professor of history at California State University, Fullerton. He has published in the fields of Mormon history, Latin American history, and American constitutional history. 

“The Northern Colonies in Northern Mexico, A History, 1885-1912,” Blaine Carmon Hardy, Ph.D Dissertation, Wayne State University, Michigan, May 17,1963.

'Cultural 'Encystment' as a Cause of the Mormon Exodus from Mexico in 1912,” by Blaine Carmon Hardy, Pacific Historical Review 34 (November 1965): 439-454.

"The Trek South: How the Mormons Went to Mex ico". by Blaine Carmon Hardy, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 1, pp. 1-16. The Texas State Historical Society, Austin, 1969.

"The Taylor-Cowley Affair and the Watershed of Mormon History," by B. Carmon Hardy and Victor Jorgenson, Utah Historical Quarterly 48 (Winter 1980).

"A Man's House was Not His Castle: Origins of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution", by William Cuddihy & B. Carmon Hardy, 37 Wm. & Mary Q. 371, 386 (1980).

"A Free People’s Intolerable Grievance: The Quartering of Troops and the Third Amendment", by B. Carmon Hardy  1984.

"Stalwarts South of the Border" Compiled and Edited by Nelle Spilsbury Hatch and B. Carmon Hardy, 1986. [Monarch Litho?]

"Memories of a venerable father and other reminiscences / Guy C.Wilson, Jr. 1905-" ; interviewed by B. Carmon Hardy, Fullerton : Oral History Program of California State University, c April 1, 1988. O.H. 1741 Bancroft     BX8695.W5465W55 1988 193 pp., index, photos, documents
Tape length:    10 hrs. Bound as Memories of a Venerable Father and other Reminiscences, 192 pp. Son of a Mormon pioneer in Mexico discusses his father’s polygamous marriages, Mormons in Mexico, and Mormon leaders in Mexico.

“Self-Blame and the Manifesto.” by Blaine Carmon Hardy. Dialogue 24 (3) Fall 1991: 43-57.

"Solemn Covenant: The Mormon Polygamous Passage " by Blaine Carmon Hardy, University of Illinois Press, April 1992 or 1993.

"Chapter 21 - Truth and Mistruth in Mormon History" by B. Carmon Hardy. An early version of this paper was presented at the Sunstone Symposium, 12 August 1993, Salt Lake City. http://mormonalliance.org/casereports/volume3/part4/v3p4c21.htm

"History 110B A History of World Societies" By: B. Carmon Hardy, 1995

"The Importation of Arms and the 1912 Mormon “Exodus” from Mexico". New Mexico Historical Review. 72(4):297-318. By B. Carmon Hardy and Melody Seymour. 1997.

"Regeneration—Now and Evermore!": Mormon Polygamy and the Physical Rehabilitation of Mankind, B. Carmon Hardy and Dan Erickson. in Journal of the History of Sexuality Archive January 2001, 10:1

In progress: Kingdom in the West: The Mormons and the American Frontier series, his book will be titled Doing the Works of Abraham, Mormon Polygamy: It's Origin, Practice, and Demise. (Title prior to publication: The Work of Abraham: A documentary History of Mormon Polygamy). http://www.ahclark.com/publications.

Copyright 2001 www.OrsonPrattBrown.org